uebec 5.1
covers the entire province of Quebec in Canada, even the mostly
uninhabited northern areas. Montreal, Quebec City, the Big O, Dorval
airport, the St. Lawrence seaway etc. are all there. The authors are
David Drouin, Michel Matte, Normand Boucher, Martin Dugas
and Stephane Vigneault.
Introduction
20000 feet up, autopilot engaged, waiting for Montreal Dorval to
appear in front of you. There it is, drop altitude to 12500 feet,
get rid of the autopilot, fly once overhead and select a landing
runway. Keep going down, down to 7500, over the city. Looking for
the Big O--the Olympic Stadium, world tallest intentionally leaning
tower, right next to it, turn back towards Dorval International.
There's the runway, drop throttle to 15%, full flaps, gear down,
getting closer. Touchdown, kill throttle, reverse throttle, brakes,
full stop, congratulations. Try it, it's fun.
The "Big O" (Olympic Stadium), a major landmark in Montreal
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Quebec 5.1 scenery includes a very detailed Montreal, including Mont
Royal. It also sports 116 airports as far north as the tundra where
the Eskimos live. It includes even a small airfield near Montreal,
St. Lazare. It has Quebec City and Manicougan and the Iles de la
Madelaine. All in all a very comprehensive scenery of the province
of Quebec.
Unfortunately, it uses many different ground textures that eat up
your frame rate alarmingly. I own a K6-233 MMX with a 2mb 2D
graphics card, a powerful system with cheesy graphics. My frame rate
sank to 7.5 flying around Montreal, so I lowered the graphics
quality, I also found it was okay at full screen mode at 640x400
resolution and best image quality.
Installation
Installation of the scenery was made easy by the inclusion of
different .zip files, each of which had its own directory. Reading
the instructions is definitively a must, especially if you already
have Quebec 5.0 installed. I don't like the Scenery Library
instructions. I installed the scenery by using the search command.
My FS98 directory is buried in sub-directories and writing them all
out was a hassle. The instruction manual is very well written and
tells you what you need to know.
Features
Trois-Rivieres, almost no buildings here.
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Features of the scenery include 116 airports, all of which have
planes on them, some of which take off and fly around! The airports
are quite realistic. All of the airports I've visited also include
hangars and other buildings.
Scenery in major cities can be good. Montreal is done very well; it
even includes the little hill in the middle of the city. Montreal
scenery also includes buildings outside of the downtown area.
However other cities like Quebec and Trois-Rivieres don't include
very many buildings at all! What I have found is that the scenery of
small cities, villages, airfields, is all-inclusive, but detail is
lost as you follow up the St. Lawrence seaway.
Starting point at Dorval
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Scenery Complexity is not a major issue once you pass Montreal.
There aren't many buildings north of Montreal, but there are quite a
few airfields and airports. All things considered that scenery is
excellent in that it is inclusive of most things, however, buildings
in most cities are absent.
The airports are very well done, and there are lots of them. When
selecting an Airport the starting points are not on the runways
which, though realistic, some people may not like. Normally you
start off next to other aircraft on the tarmac and you have to find
your way to the runway of your choice.
The coastline is good, but the limitations of Flight Simulator still
apply. I did however find a very interesting half-a-lake... I also
failed to find the Manicougan meteor crater. That is surprising
since it is an odd landmark. Aside from a few scenery glitches,
Quebec 5.1 is very good Quebec scenery. It is not compatible with
the scenery I had been using for this area, Tormont1, but I like it
much better.
Conclusion
The Half-a-lake... Can you find it? It's near Manic1 airport.
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In conclusion, Quebec 5.1 is great scenery for a coastlines and
airports of Quebec. It includes all the cities, some villages and a
lot of topography. Unfortunately, only Montreal seems to have
buildings in quantity, all the other cities have one or two, but no
skyscrapers that I've found. Quebec 5.1 is fun to fly outside of the
cities, and a little disappointing within the cities. All of the
airports are very exact and all of them start you off away from any
runway.
Tim Murison
murisonarts@yahoo.com
Download
Quebec 5.1 Scenery.
