UK2000 Part 7 Northern England

By Andrew Herd (19 February 2006)

ary Summons' epic UK2000 series has been extending its coverage northwards ever since its beginnings over five years ago with a Channel Islands package. Part seven takes in a coast-to-coast slice of northern England from the wilds of southern Yorkshire, through Lancashire, Lincolnshire, to the Isle of Man, so there should be something for everybody. A total of thirty six airports have been simulated, the largest being Leeds Bradford, Blackpool and Humberside, so while there are no majors, you get some reasonably chunky regional hubs. Other attractions include RAF bases at Church Fenton, Woodvale, Waddington, Coningsby and Scampton, which is the Red Arrows' base

As if that wasn't enough, there are some highly interesting grass fields in there, North Coates being my favorite, as this inviting grass strip is usually approached from over the estuary of the Humber - note I say grass, because although North Coates apparently has a hard strip, this is unusable as it is in the process of being sold off for hardcore. You also get Sherburn-in-Elmet, which must be one of the most active civil fields in the country, weekends frequently seeing a dozen aircraft chasing each other around the circuit at any one time, regulars keeping a weather eye out in the knowledge that at any time a visitor may provide some entertainment by attempting to land on the vehicle testing ground that runs at right angles to the main strip. Then there is Full Sutton, which lies in the shadow of a high security jail and has an interesting circuit pattern as a result of the need to avoid overflying it. The name Sturgate also jumps out, because for many years that was where we used to get our plane serviced - this attractive little field has a remarkably well preserved World War II control tower and makes about as nice a place to visit as you can imagine, as long as you remember that 32 ends in a rather sudden drop into the grass.

The package is available either as a download or as a boxed version, the latter being $8.95 more expensive at the time of writing. I reviewed the download version, which totalled 49 Mb including a bonus file containing the Red Arrows team AI for Scampton; on top of this I installed the 1.2 update, which ran to another 4.6 Mb. Installation was straight forward, although an active Internet connection was required and it was necessary to enter my email address followed by a key code before the files unpacked. At the very end of the process a scenery setup dialog appears which gives access to a wealth of configuration options, as well as confirming edits of the scenery.cfg file to activate the scenery within Flight Simulator. The setup app can be run at any time after installation and allows you, among other things, to configure the scenery to be compatible with Horizon's VFR Photo Scenery, to install extra AI traffic and to configure the balance of static/AI parking at the Isle of Man, Blackpool and Leeds-Bradford - the latter feature being particularly useful if you have a marginal system that can't handle large amounts of AI, as it allows you to fill the stands at these airports with frame rate friendly static planes. The final option is a button which theoretically should allow you to update the product from the UK2000 website, but the page it led me to 404'd when I tried it.

With the package activated, I loaded the Cub at Scampton and went to see what there was to see. Gary's airfield packages have always been among the best in the business and few sceneries outshine them, which is a tribute to this developer's skills, given that he is bringing you several dozen fields in each package instead of a single. The standard of the airfields is usually good and some are excellent, the only criticism one could really level at the series being that there is virtually no off-field scenery, which can lend a somewhat one-dimensional aspect to the circuits and approaches. To be fair, remarkably few multi-airfield packages do provide anything like this, but it is a strange omission, given that in the real world, finding an airfield can be remarkably difficult and the vast majority rely on visual reporting points (VRPs) to help establish VFR traffic in the circuit. Aside from VRPs, many circuits have 'no-go' areas, usually over areas of housing whose inhabitants the airfield authorities wish to remain on good terms with - and the villages, lakes and other natural features with which airfields are surrounded form an important part of visual circuit navigation, it being as easy to get lost in the real world as it is in Flight Simulator. UK simmers can, of course, buy the VFR Photographic Scenery (with which all the UK2000 packages are compatible), which provides realistic ground texture scenery for all of England and Wales, taking care of the VRP problem big time, but it isn't every simmer that wants to go to the trouble and expense of assembling such a sophisticated setup, let alone tolerate the extended load times that inevitably result.

The UK2000 Scampton is incredibly atmospheric, with its clutch of wartime hangars and oddball runway/taxiway arrangement, all of which is brought out nicely in Gary's scenery. The field has been around since 1916, seeing major expansion in the thirties and again during the Cold War - the latter period accounting for the interesting taxiway configuration at the runway thresholds, the bays being put there originally to hold warmed-up nuclear bombers ready to go at three minutes' notice, as far as I am aware. With the bonus file installed and maximum AI active, I watched a pair of Red Arrows' Hawks taxi out and depart, while the rest of the field slowly came alive - there are a couple of E3As out on dispersal, a clutch of C-130s, various Tornados and of course, the Red Arrows team, parked in a neat line. You can taxi into at least one of the hangars, although there is a small ground alignment issue inside, with the Cub 'sinking' in up to its hubs; which is apparently done in order to prevent texture flashing due to a small height difference between the hangar floor and the ground - but this is only a minor distraction and there is plenty of detail inside the hangar to appreciate.

From Scampton it is only a short flight northeast to Sturgate, so I decided to pay a visit for old times' sake. The field is remarkably complete in the scenery, although for some reason there is a bowser where the fuel pumps should be and - again, a minor thing that didn't spoil my enjoyment - the grass areas in front of the hangars are often so full it is tough finding a place to park, whereas the scenery only puts a sprinkling of planes out there. One reason for the density of parking on such a small field is that not only do Eastern Air Executive provide excellent servicing, but there is a paint shop in the building in front of which the Cub is parked.

North Coates is a relatively short flight east from Sturgate and repays a visit - but no matter how tempting the paved runway may look, resist the temptation to land on it, because it isn't in service. Gary has taken the broad view at this field and has very commendably included the intricate arrangement of bays that used to house a SAM site on the northeast side of the field. From there I took a hop over to Breighton, another grass strip that is a very popular destination for GA flights in northern England. Part of the attraction is that this field houses the Real Airplane Company collection of warbirds - and it is by no means uncommon to arrive and find that an impromptu display has been laid on. All circuits have to be made to the south of the field because the north side is in regular use for aerobatics and it is possible to see anything from a Fokker DR1 to a Hurricane in action there, but as far as I am aware, the AI doesn't include them (maybe some AI artist can provide us with some?) The parking is actually on the grass on the far side of the hangars from where I have put the Cub.

Beverley is another short flight north to land on another grass strip. This field demands a certain amount of respect as the runway isn't overlong at 635 m (694 yards) and there is a drainage ditch just short of the threshold of 30, which has claimed a few unwary pilots in its time. Although the building layout is correct, there is a large cage holding (from memory) a fuel tank where the aircraft are stood, the parking instead being along the hedge to the east of the buildings - this is also being fixed, but it is minor stuff.

Turning to the larger airports, we have Leeds-Bradford and Humberside. Of the two, Leeds-Bradford has had more attention paid to it, which figures, since it has grown into a relatively large regional airport since the war. This is one airport that you definitely want to have Visual Flight's VFR Terrain installed before you use it, as an undershoot at the eastern threshold leaves you looking at an impressively steep hill as the field elevation is 681 feet. As you can see from the screenshots, the scenery is extremely believable, with a couple of working air gates that have all the docking boards and other paraphenalia you would expect. Do note that you won't see the airliner AI shown in the screenshot as none of the UK2000 packages include any - for the very sensible reason that doing so would be reinventing the wheel. You do get AFCAD files though and these worked convincingly in my experience. I had some occasional problems with flashing aircraft shadows at this airport and if I parked a plane at the Multiflight hangars and switched to tower view, my eyepoint was below the ground, although this may in part have been due to having the VFR Terrain package installed, although I had the scenery installed in the top layer of the scenery library.

Verdict? A worthy addition to the UK2000 series, just one more to go and Gary will have made it all the way to the Scottish border. The package is relatively kind to frame rates and while I have some small issues with the software as it stood at the time of the review, there is nothing major and at the price, part 7 is something of a bargain. If you don't need the whole enchilda, Blackpool, Humberside, the Isle of Man and Leeds-Bradford are available as singles.