Lago - Roaring Thirties and GeoRender 6 for FS2004

By Andrew Herd (24 October 2003)

here is a 1942 Beech Staggerwing advertised in Pilot this month with a zero timed P&W 985 and a firewall foreward restoration done this year, which followed an airframe rebuild a couple of years back. The box ad says 'too much work to be listed', which speaks of big money spent restoring an all too rare classic to its former glory. The plane sounds like a snip at £135,000, about $216,000 in today's money, and I want one, but it would involve selling the house - so unless you can think of a good story we can tell my wife, owning it is likely to remain a dream.

But just imagine it - landing away in a plane like that, can you see the heads turning? I guess something like that must have been going through Walter Beech's mind in the early thirties when he dreamt up the idea of a 200 mph four seat executive biplane. Walt had the good fortune to have Ted Wells design it, because Ted settled on a negatively staggered upper wing that conferred good stall and recovery characteristics, great visibility and such a distinctive shape that his design has never been forgotten. When you think that this was the first Beechcraft plane, it seems all the more incredible that it turned out to be such a classic; but then remember that the very next design Beech and Wells turned out was the superb Model 18 twin, and you can see those guys as the rare match that they were.

Of course, if you are going to fly an aircraft like that, you wouldn't want to take it just anywhere. After all, who would want to fly radials from one 2000 yard piece of pavement to another? Sure, it's safe and that is what you learnt to fly from, but c'mon, let's live a little. We can go places where they might only get a visitor once a week and...

There's a Stinson Reliant too. I forgot about that. Sure, it is a very different looking airplane to the Beech, with that trademark double tapered wing, but it was designed for the same market as a four seater business aircraft. The Reliant line was introduced in 1933 and between then and 1941, over 1300 hulls split between ten different variants were sold. The SR-10 of 1938 was regarded as the ultimate development and featured an especially luxurious interior, with leather seats and walnut fascia; it sold well to its target corporate market and made sales to companies as diverse as Pepsi Cola and Shell. Though it was slower than the Beech and had around 20% less range, it was such a favourite with the customers that it outsold the Staggerwing by a factor of two to one.

Like I said, with planes like these, you want somewhere to go and where better than Lago's GeoRender 6? This much anticipated addition to Lago's scenery portfolio adds two highly detailed destinations - Sky Harbor and Sultan Field, both in Washington state. If you have seen any of the previous GeoRender sceneries, there is little more to say, other than that this pair of fields continue the high standards set by the development team, which is led by the incomparable Richard Goldstein. If you haven't bought any GeoRender releases yet and you have any aspirations to experience some of the best GA sceneries available, then this latest addon would be a great place to start. What makes GeoRender sceneries different is the sheer attention to detail in them, with houses, barns, vehicles, gates, wires and hangars modelled to the point where you gain the impression you might find beer in the refrigerator and get bitten by the dog.

GeoRender 6 costs 19.99 euros (approx $23.00) and is a 40 Mb download. Lago have a reasonably fast server and the installation requires no more effort than extracting a zip file, double clicking on the setup file and entering a key code. The scenery has very similar requirements to Lago's Roaring Thirties addon, which contains the Staggerwing and the Reliant, namely a Pentium III 750 MHz with at least 128 Mb RAM; Windows 98 (SE), Windows NT (SP-4), Windows 2000 Workstation, Windows ME, or Windows XP; a sound card; Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 and Adobe Acrobat® Reader 5 so you can read the manual. Where the two packages differ is that GeoRender 6 only needs 30 Megs of hard disk to install, whereas Roaring Thirties needs 90 to get all the liveries in.

The installation sets up the sceneries in FS2004 and adds a program group to the Start Menu with a link to the documentation. There appeared to be a little confusion in the pdf I had about which airfield was which, but Sky Harbor (S86) has a 1900 x 100 foot turf runway, flat as a pancake in true Flight Simulator tradition (you can't have 'em any other way, as it happens). Needless to say, it isn't exactly the easiest place to land, there being trees right along the side of the strip - according to the notes, you should try to land on 25, wind permitting and take off on 07 - the reason being a particularly tall stand of pines on the 07 threshold that positively yells windshear and would be tricky to outclimb in the average spamcan. In real life, those trees must be associated with some memorable takeoffs and departures, though thankfully Flight Simulator doesn't yet model the worst tricks a gusting wind can get up to when it is faced with a high obstacle. As it happens, both the Reliant and the Staggerwing have the power to make it out the 'wrong way', but the first time you visit the field you might like to fly the easy approach and just take a short taxi down there and check out those trees - though if you do this in the Beech, don't forget to unlock the tailskid (shift-G) before you try any maneuvers, because it takes around half a mile to turn around if you forget.

By contrast, Sultan Field has an asphalt runway measuring 1800 x 35 feet. Like Sky Harbor, the landscape is dominated by mountains and while the approach is nowhere near as tricky as its partner, I have no doubt that it has its moments. In common with all the Georender scenery the package comes with additional sounds, 'active' scenery and aircraft flying traffic patterns. You should see something happening at either field approximately every five minutes, but there are a few settings that have to be right in order to appreciate the scenery at its best - the manual falls down a little at this point, because it refers to FS2002 dialog options that no longer exist in ACOF, but basically you must have aircraft settings at their highest and dynamic scenery on 'extremely dense' if you want to see all the objects and animations. This leads to a potential frame rate problem if you are trying to run the packages on the 750 Mhz system Lago suggest as their minimum spec, because good though they are, these GeoRender packs can really give a processor a run for its money, especially if you fly into them with a complex addon plane. I would personally be a little wary of running the scenery on less than a 1.5 Ghz system unless you went to a lot of trouble unloading RAM of all the other 'helpful' little programs that tend to accumulate in the system tray beforehand.

Unlike the majority of FS sceneries, the GeoRender packs don't give up at the boundary hedge and the surroundings are 'landscaped' for miles around, with full seasonal textures and rivers and lakes that alter their shape as the year goes by. What this means is that you can make approaches much the way they are done in the real world, learning exactly which barn you need to turn left base over and which stand of trees is the cue to turn final. As an antidote to the default airports these Lago addons have few equals and when you throw in the fact that this most recent GeoRender release is optimized for 2x FSAA and 2x anisotropic filtering, I guess it has to be acknowledged that the developers have raised the quality bar yet again on what was already a market-leading series. Can't wait to see number seven.

Roaring Thirties is also 19.99 euros (approx $23.00) and weighs in at a 66 Mb download, using the same keycode protected installation scheme. This has been a Lago standard for a long while now and it lets users ensure they can download the file before paying money to register it, so that it will install in Flight Simulator. Like GeoRender 6, the package is for FS2004 only, which will leave folk who have chosen to stay with FS2002 gnashing their teeth, but I guess there are enough differences between the two releases of FS that developers look askance at the cost of developing for both. If history repeats itself, I would expect releases of FS2002 compatible payware addons to start tailing off pretty sharply now, although freeware authors are likely to continue development for some time. Theoretically, any plane which conforms to the FS2002 SDK standards should load OK in FS2004, the kicker being the subtly different flight dynamics, of which more later.

The Reliant and the Staggerwing make a great pair and it would be great to see more releases done the same way, not least because of the insight Roaring Thirties gives into how two design teams went around solving the same problem. Some of the differences are obvious: the Beech is a retractable gear biplane, while the Reliant is a fixed gear high wing monoplane, but it goes deeper than that. Allowing for the fact that Lago have included float versions of both planes, the Stinson has a fixed pitch prop while at least some of the Staggerwings are fitted with constant speed units. You will be relieved to hear that both are fitted with flaps, the Beech having particularly generous ones that run virtually the full length of the lower wing.

Lago have gone to town on liveries and have included enough to keep the most demanding user happy. The Staggerwing includes three civilian float versions, four civil wheeled paints, two military floatplanes and three wheeled military liveries - including a Royal Air Force one, which was quite a surprise. I went as far as checking this up and found that nearly a hundred were either impressed into service or purchased by the Royal Navy or RAF during the second war - a period USAF livery is also included, just in case anyone is getting worried.

The Reliant comes with a similarly wide range of liveries, split among civilian and military wheeled and floatplanes. Once again, there are a couple of British warpaints, four civil floatplanes and no less than seven civilian wheeled liveries, so there is plenty of choice - I particularly liked the NYPD float version. One issue with both the planes is that they are prone to texture blurring, though quite why is hard to say; the cure being to zoom the viewpoint out and back in again, though it would be better if it didn't happen at all.

The choice of panels is wider than one might expect, with thirties or modern instruments depending on which model of aircraft you have loaded. As if this isn't enough, there is a well-used looking military panel for the Beech; but as the manual rightly points out, there is no such thing as a standard Staggerwing, many of these planes having quite lavish instrumentation specified at build time, reflecting the deep pockets of their buyers. Most existing Staggerwings have been rebuilt at least once and all in all it is anyone's guess what you are likely to see if you stick your head in the cockpit. So Lago's choice can be regarded as entirely representative, though the burr walnut on the Beech being a particularly nice touch.

Though the 2D panels clearly demonstrate how much better Lago is getting in this area, though one issue with them is that the POV the developer has chosen leaves you with slightly less view than you would get in flight, an inevitable side effect of trying to fit all the instruments into the forward view. However, both planes have active virtual cockpits (VCs) with adjustable instruments and avionics and these have much more realistic eyepoints. The Beech is better than the Reliant in this respect, and although it has to be said that few radial engined aircraft of this era had anything remotely approaching a good view forward, the traditional FS panel view cannot hope to duplicate what a real pilot sees in a tail dragger and I guess it is something we have to put up with.

Though Lago bill the VCs as offering full control, I wouldn't get too excited about it because there isn't much there to control. Some of the graphics are a little on the basic side, particularly the switches, the general impression being that this part of the sim could have had more attention paid to it.

The sound set is particularly easy on the ears and is the first one I can recall hearing from Nick Schreger of MeatWater - if they are all going to be as good as this, lets hear some more.

What else? Well, the planes both fly reasonably well and they are loaded with animations. Depending on which version you choose, you get opening cowlings, pilot side windows and main doors, and the wheeled versions have a set of tie-downs which appear when you set the parking brake, though be warned this happens even if the engine is running.

Lago have to be congratulated on releasing this set, because few developers have dared venture into the 'old-timers' market - and yet there are some seriously exciting planes just waiting to be modelled. I would really love to see Lago delve further into this area, because based on their current track record, they are extremely good at it. I reviewed Lago's 'Lucky Lindbergh' a while back and although I suspect that particular package is unlikely to be updated for FS2004, it was an extremely competent effort with some great planes in it, the Jenny being a particular favorite of mine. Just about the only competition Lago have in the payware arena is Bill and Lynn Lyons over at the Golden Eagle Squadron - by coincidence Bill and Lynn released a package including a Stinson Reliant a little while back and that is definitely worth a look, coming as it does with the distinctive 'Lyons character'.

The thirties were a unique period as far as aircraft design was concerned. Sufficient advances had been made that it was possible to build fast, safe and reliable planes, before either mass production or the fear of litigation had tightened their grip on aviation. By contrast, GA today, with the exception of a few bright sparks of originality, is doing little more than churn out forty year old designs powered by fifty year old engines. Little wonder that sales have dried up to a trickle, the action having moved over to the EAA in the US and the PFA in the UK.

When the Staggerwing and the Reliant were in their heyday, such stagnation must have seemed unimaginable to their designers. As I mentioned above, the very next plane that Beech built was another classic, the Beech 18, and that is ripe for an FS version. Numerous 18s survive, by virtue of its having been such an adaptable design and apart from being one of the most graceful planes ever flown, it appeared in a remarkable variety of paint schemes. Then there is the Cessna Bobcat, the famous 'Bamboo Bomber' - also known, disparagingly, as the 'Rhapsody in Glue' - which attracted a great deal of interest a few years back when an FS freeware release appeared. After that, well, there are Travel Airs; the Stearman 4E Speedmail; the Lockheed 12a (now there's one to go with the Beech 18, Lago); and just about anything by Waco, though particularly the QDC-2, 'cos it was just about the weirdest airplane they ever let out in the light of day.

But why buy all these old timers when we can have modern stuff? Well, it depends on your point of view, but to my mind there is more personality in the wingtip of a Staggerwing than there is in the entire modern Cessna fleet and while I have quite contentedly flown 152s, 172s and 177s, I would give up every hour of that experience for some P1 in one of those thirties Beechcraft, particularly if it was at somewhere like Sky Harbor. I have some time in Tigers and maybe that is as close as I am going to get to my personal nirvana, but meantime Lago have brought me a little nearer to heaven, and if twenty odd bucks is all it costs for the experience, then it is worth it.

Andrew Herd
andy@flightsim.com

For more information on GeoRender 6 visit the Lago web site here