Just Flight's Roads And Rivers Of Europe

By Nigel C. Martin (5 October 2005)

OVERVIEW

Obviously, when a paid for title becomes available, we all want, and demand something special, and rightly so.

Just Flight have recently launched Roads And Rivers Of Europe and it's now available to the buying public.

You can have a preview by accessing the Just Flight web site (www.justflight.com), and have a virtual tour of all the other products on offer. Be warned it may cost you…! I’ll bet you will order more than one program.

So back on track, flying around normally at VFR heights the scenery we get in FS2004 is actually very acceptable from a graphic stand point, but, and here is the rub, not very accurate. I don’t want to criticise Mr. Gates' A Century Of Flight as a bad job, because it is not, but, as time goes on, and some superb additions becoming available, our demands are proportional to the leaps in expectation and hardware improvement.

In the past, I purchased other products, confessing to be ‘messiah’ of scenery improvement, and actually I have been disappointed with the graphic modelling and mesh work and the frame rate hit experienced. In most cases some of the scenery looked, well, false. In most cases I have deleted these and made do with the default scenery, and maybe some excellent selective freeware offerings.

I gather one of the problems is that if you already have an add-on scenery package and wish to install another, or the new add-on scenery does not match that of Microsoft’s own mapping. I guess when you consider the task of mapping the entire world it is not surprising! You will have potential mapping issues.

Sounds familiar? After installation of such a program how many times do you see a building in the middle of a river? See what I mean?

So, to get the opportunity in using a model which is accurate to within 15 meters sounds great. This is achieved with the use of NATQGPS navigation data, mapping all the major and minor roads, auto routes, autobahns, major rivers, inlets and coastlines in Europe (England, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Portugal). The list is to say the least exciting, and offers some rather interesting touring possibilities.

The main city roads are also represented which is a great feature. The rivers are depicted in an accurate way, i.e. the size, width and general direction are accurate.

PACKAGING

INSTALATION

Place the DVD in a DVD reading drive and if you auto install, you just sit back and hit the mouse keys at the appropriate time, via clean and clear instructions, and there you are all done. If you cannot take advantage of the auto install function the instructions are simple to follow and in a ‘Knats whisker’ you are also ready to enjoy the experience of flying a true VFR sortie over your favorite European route. The program is not a massive one and as a consequence, will not take a ‘week’ to install.

Once installed you will not have to ‘trigger’ the program but simply re-boot the machine and restart the Flight Simulator and enjoy.

TAKE TO THE AIR ON A VFR FLIGHT

Like in real life, if you fly at say 30,000 feet you will make out the silhouette of the land mass but not a lot else (before I get an e-mail, yes alright the China Wall can be seen from space!). Descend to say 10,000 feet the detail becomes proportionally more defined, further descent to 4000 feet but not below 2000 feet and you get the full effect of the detail, AND Visual Flight Rules apply.

I got a little carried away flying my lovely freeware offering, the RAF Rescue Westland Seaking, (thanks to Willy Vervaecke and Dave Charlton) the file: (RAFYLWSK.ZIP, file size 6,122,882) I wanted to land adjacent to a main road on a medevac mission don’t you know. (OK, not really but I was having fun!)

Well don’t expect well defined roads at near ground level to navigate by, you won’t get it. At this distance the scenery reverts to a cacophony of color patches. I guess we have to remember this package is marketed as VFR at 2000 feet+. So we can’t have everything. If we did have that level of detail the cost of the computer to handle such a demand would be astronomic.

Let’s look to the future, hands up, who thought the very first Microsoft Flight Simulator was the best thing since sliced bread!? The advances in ‘FS’ have been breathtaking. Let’s hope this level of advancement does not stop.

I decided to locate myself at London City airport and took to the air. As I did so and headed towards the VFR altitude one could see the detail starting to appear, indeed the roads and waterways took shape and gained clarity, which was great to see.

I have to mention the water effects. These are a marked improvement to the default effect, with some very minor observations; more about those later. You will notice the effects at their best if your water detail slider is as high as it can go. Obviously, trial and error is called for here, as high as possible before you start to experience frame rate hit.

The London landscape was to say the least ‘busy’ and realistic. I could not however have navigated the streets, but I guess I did recognise the major arterial routes, and river path. The selection of London was I guess a little unfair, so I chose the South Coast. I selected Shoreham, an airport i know well, took off (from the delightful new airport scenery included in the Flying Club) and flew along the coast.

My flight time was some 40 minutes at the minimum VFR altitude. I got clearance to ‘touch and go’ from Heathrow, yup the M25 was there and the traffic! I landed at Fairoaks Airport, Chobham, Surrey, England.

Throughout this flight I took in the vista, and I have to say with my map firmly by my side I could recognise the majority of roads and waterways and, importantly, navigate by them.

I did feel at times the waters edge seemed, well harsh. One could argue that at 2000 feet this effect is fine, but if it was possible to ‘soften’ the waters edge would have added to the effect. Also the wave effect looked totally out of scale. But I guess one may argue that this could have been the result in not having the latest all powerful graphics card installed. However, I think I am being generous. I still think the water effect could have looked better, BUT it is an improvement form the default.

If you fly over a major network the roads, these are very convincing indeed. I flew out of Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands. Never visiting the airport before, I was deeply impressed with the obvious planning that went into the road design and build, and it’s all here folks, roads and the rivers. I guess you may say the Netherlands is an obvious country to try out roads and rivers! Especially the rivers...don't know why!

The detail was excellent. The river’s edge issue hit me again though.

Back in the UK just flying around, I experienced an annoying sight of weirdly positioned buildings positioned in the water. (See picture of factories in the water).

As I mentioned, this may be due to the accuracy of the new program and non-accuracy of the Microsoft Flight Simulator. BUT, it is my view this should not happen, either way, I would have preferred slightly inaccurate building positioning, or river path, than to see the ridiculous sight of ‘floating’ buildings.

I decided to ‘test the metal’ so to speak. I opted to fly from one of my favorite airports, currently Durham Tees Valley Airport, (thanks to Stephen Legg for this freeware scenery package, a superb job) and decided on a flight over a lake called Kielder Water, one of the largest water reservoirs in the England positioned north of County Durham, England.

So, looking at my map, I plotted a course VFR! Full throttle ascended into the sky trimmed and levelled out at 2500 feet, and sat back. Well actually I didn’t, I scanned left and right to seek out them there navigational markers and my, my, there it is... I noticed the road network and directly referred my position to the map, and I found without too much trouble got a visual match. Heavens that brought back some memories; if any of you have completed your PPL, you will remember your first solo cross country!

A friend and fellow pilot Dan had a ‘play’, and his reaction? “I used the Turbo Commander and took off from RAF Wittering on a westerly track crossing the A1 North following the road for two miles to Carpenter’s Lodge Roundabout, all there and very accurate. The road into Stamford was faithfully represented but – as far as I could see the River Welland was too far north. East of Stamford the rail line runs along with the river. It didn’t, being displaced by some way. However, still a very enjoyable visual experience, and addition.

"Based on my visual nav experience by day, I decided to climb into the Turbo Commander again and try a night nav exercise. An easy route, take off from Newcastle Airport on runway heading, climb to 2500 feet and head for Carlisle using the A69 as my guide. It worked, taking me out of Newcastle over the Western Bypass and past Corbridge and Hexham then on to my destination. I found the vehicle head light and tail lights a nice touch. Will I buy it? I found the price tag of £29.99 a little steep but it does add the overall experience. If it was a little cheaper I would have been more comfortable in saying defiantly yes, but on balance my response would be yup I will, but I wish it was about £15.00. Just Flight is a brand I can trust. You won’t be blown away but you will not be disappointed.”

Flying at night, as briefly mentioned above, provides you with some very nice effects. The traffic looks effective albeit static. Headlights, rear lights, etc. do not move, but add to the visual effect and I found it assists in the main road locating process.

The towns and cities and major airport locations look very good and this is an area where the difference can easily be seen and appreciated.

CONCLUSION/MOANS AND GROANS

If we want inch by inch accuracy, I guess we should have missed out Microsoft and gone directly to one of the commercial flight simulator companies or the CIA or NASA and obtained world accurate scenery. I have a feeling the price tag would have been slightly higher than the price we paid for FS2004 and the various add-ons on offer.

Alright, a little heavy, but I guess we are all demanding ever higher standards, in all areas of the Flight Sim environment. It is therefore up to the commercial companies to keep ahead of this demand, and ensure that the programs meet with our ever increasing and demanding expectations, especially as the retail price in the main are not insignificant.

So, about Roads and Rivers what is my view? The overall effect can be seen to be highly effectively, when flying over ‘locally known’ complex road and river networks, these are very impressive and recognisable.

Flying over major tunnels, as an example, Tyne Tunnel located at North Shields, Tyne and Wear, England, the road disappears at it enters the tunnel and reappears; nice attention to detail. This feature i.e., road disappearing to enter a tunnel and re-appear, is replicated across European locations.

Flying lower than the recommended VFR effect height, you will note some odd features, like some roads hug the land mass contours, and look as if the road is ‘flowing’ over, and into valleys, in an unrealistic manner. I guess the satellite has tracked the road and it's there but, it has not placed a bridge in that location for the road to traverse the void. Result, the road simply follows the land undulations, without the bridge. Now that would be an interesting drive!

As I mentioned there are some ‘interesting’ effects that look a little odd. Because of the correct river positioning I would guess, some buildings now immersed in water.

Can you navigate your way to your house, using the newly installed road network as your guide? Well some might, but I could not. There is no doubt that the major road detail is there, but in most cases not sufficiently to beat a path home on the smaller road, but very nearly.

This program makes a significant improvement to the ‘flying’ experience and I will for some time explore the scenery both in the UK and revisit European destinations.

In terms of accuracy, my Roads and River testing friend Dan said “If you are using it as a targeting system for a missile this is not for you! It’s good enough for me. It gives a good impression and makes things look realistic. Could do with a load of nice bridges to compliment the rivers, but I am being a little greedy.”

I agree with the bridges observation.

It is a pleasure not to have a myriad of notes, (not to say this is the norm!). I do not have any major issues at all, but I would reiterate the issue of some of the buildings positioned in the water as this was an annoyance.

Where a road crosses a river, it does precisely that, without the benefit of a bridge, in some cases a little unrealistic. And finally the price, I felt this could have been pitched a little lower, but I am sure this will do very well for Just Flight.

Happy VFR Navigating across Europe!

(Thanks to Dan Entwisle for his contribution… Cheers mate!)

Nigel C. Martin
nigel.martin10@tesco.net

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