Introduction

Aerosoft's Aspen Extended (an updateof their 2007 Aspen X scenery) was released in 2016. That updateincluded the runway and taxiways that had been extended in 2011 at thereal world airport, along with a complete overhaul of virtually allairport structures, 5m elevation mesh, high resolution photoscenery,etc. (see the full list of features below). Version 1.10 was releasedlater in 2016 which included some extensive fixes and improvementsincluding the addition of static private jets, improved seasonalblending of the photoscenery and optimization of model rendering. In2017, version 1.20 was released adding P3D v4 compatibility. Althoughsome parts of this scenery originated in 2007, is it is still anairport worth owning in 2020?

Features

• Up-to-date rendering of Aspen Pitkin County Airport (KASE), including extended runway and new taxiways, Fire Station (with Oshkosh Striker 1500), Fixed-Base Operator, terminal and hangars.
• Fully baked high resolution textures with ambient occlusion shadows and light maps for all airport and town models.
• 100 square kilometers of high resolution photo scenery (30cm, LOD17) covering the Aspen Valley, with full seasonal and night variations.
• 5 meter (LOD13) mesh covering 2400 square kilometers of the Rocky Mountains around Aspen.
• Tarmac and runway markings with realistic wet weather and specular effects.
• All current VFR and IFR approaches.
• Detailed rendering of the Aspen Valley Hospital and emergency helipad (CO50).
• Dozens of custom local landmarks, including Aspen High School, Aspen Chapel, Aspen Recreation Center, Hotel Jerome and Benedict Music Tent.
• Animated 'Silver Queen' gondola to Ajax.
• Extremely dense custom Aspen-style autogen houses and mansions.
• Static CRJ-700s in United Express and Delta liveries.
• Realistic new runway and street lighting system.
• Animated windsocks.
• Compatible with Vero-FS 'Heart of Colorado' photo scenery.

Installation

Aerosoft's installer makes installation quite easy. The downloadsize is 2.7 GB and it requires 3.7 GB of disk space once installed. Ireviewed version 1.2 which, as noted, includes an option to install toP3D v4.

My evaluation of the scenery is based on use in Prepar3D v4.5hotfix. My system specs are: Intel Core i5 4440 @ 3.10 GHz, 16 GB DDR3@ 665 MHz, GeForce GTX 1050 with 2 GB memory, running Windows 10Professional 64-bit. I consider my computer to be an average systemthese days.

There are already a couple of online reviews on this scenery thatwere done right after it was released in 2016. What I would like todo talk about how the scenery still holds up compared to morecontemporary scenery and to talk about how it performs in P3D v4. I'malso going to talk a bit more about some of the challenges of flyinginto this airport as that is a reason you might be considering addingit to your collection. In fact, the tagline in the product manual is:"Only one usable runway direction, Located at nearly 8,000 feet,surrounded by mountains, often prone to bad weather. Are you pilotenough to handle this airport?"

Coverage

When you purchase airport scenery you expect to get a decent chunkof the surrounding world with the airport and Aspen Extendeddefinitely delivers on this front. The scenery area includes theentire valley surrounding the airport along with three major skislopes and the city of Aspen. The photoscenery extends further souththan north of the airport for this reason, but it also provides youwith appealing views when flying into the airport since you willalways be approaching from the north.

There are three seasonal changes in the photoscenery. Winter andspring are the same snowy scenery and summer and fall are the othertwo variations. There is also night lighting for the airport andsurrounding city. The scenery is designed to blend in with thedefault landclasses but it also blends well with Orbx's global baseshown in the images below. As you can see, the scenery uses naturalbreakpoints to define the edges of the photoscenery so that blends inand doesn't look like an unnatural rectangular swatch.

The scenery includes three major ski areas: Aspen Mountain, AspenHighland, and Buttermilk. It leaves out the largest ski area nearAspen called Aspen Snow Mass, but including that ski area would haverequired the total scenery area to more than double in size. Whilethat was probably too much to do back in 2016, it wouldn't beunreasonable today. Who knows, maybe in the next release?

There is plenty of high-quality scenery surrounding theairport. There are many custom scenery objects around Aspen includingski lodges, the Aspen Valley Hospital and helipad, the Harris ConcertHall complex, the Aspen chapel, and the elementary and high schools toname a few. The other residential and commercial buildings are alltypical of what is found in Aspen, a generally upscale resort townfrequented by the rich and famous. Though you will not want to flyinto or depart from Aspen at night, the night lighting of the town andairport is excellent.

Aerosoft provides you with instructions on how to disable certainfeatures including the animated Silver Queen gondola, the night lightsin town and at the airport, and the static aircraft at the airport toimprove performance. I didn't find any performance issues on mysystem with all of those enabled. In fact, the manual calls theanimated Silver Queen gondola a "high resource" bit of scenery, butgiven how little effect it seemed to have on my system, I wish therewere animated ski lifts on all the slopes - or at least static ones.A smattering of downhill skiers would also be fun to see.

This leads me to one of the only minor complaints I have (and haveseen from others) about the scenery - it is a bit of a ghost town.Except for AI aircraft, there is no life at the airport. There are noAI ground vehicles or people to be seen anywhere and the road trafficin town is very slim. I expect this is one case where the age of thescenery shows. Given the concern about performance described in themanual, these extras may have been seen as untenable at the time thescenery was first released. The flip side of this minor issue is thatthe scenery currently has very little impact on system performance, ona system like mine.

The Airport

The attention to detail at the airport is the biggest selling pointof this scenery. Buildings, vehicles, and other objects lookfantastic even when held up against airport scenery created today.

The modelers didn't cut any corners when creating the airportstructures. For example, the logo on the side of the West Staraviation maintenance building is made of 3D raised letters. The sameis true for signs for the Atlantic Aviation FBO building. Securitycameras, antennas, and even the golf carts are modeled in detail andlook realistic even up close.

Airport vehicles and static aircraft are all modeled in detail.Text on various signs is legible up close and the 3D models haveenough complexity that they don't seem blocky as you taxi right pastthem. The surfaces are detailed and show weathering and lookprofessionally done.

The terminal building is realistically modeled with tremendousattention to detail. Although the large glass windows don't look intoa 3D interior, they are done well and have a dynamic reflection thatcreates a good impression of glass.

Paved surfaces all have a custom, seasonal textures and all linesand markings are custom made to match the real-world airport.Three-dimensional runway and taxiway lights and taxi signs arepresent. I was a little surprised not to see 3D grasses in any season.This may be another one of those tradeoffs that the authors decided toleave out for better performance.

The airport looks good in all seasons. Below are images fromwinter/spring, summer, and fall.

Flying KASE

Almost half of the manual for this airport scenery discusses thechallenges of flying into and out of Aspen-Pitkin County Airport.This is because much of the appeal of this location is the flyingchallenge. Instrument approaches are particularly intense. Flyingthem is a little like trying to land your plane at the bottom of abucket. They are so difficult that real world pilots are required tohave a certification check flight before attempting them on their own.

Aspen has three non-precision instrument approaches, all consideredcircling approaches. In case it has been a while since yourinstrument check ride, a circling approach is one where either thefinal approach is more than 30° off the centerline or the descentexceeds 450 ft/nm. In the case of Aspen, the high descent rate neededto get into the airport is what makes them circling approaches.Circling approaches require a higher minimum descent altitude (MDA)because the idea is that the instrument approach only gets you to agood enough position where you will be able, with some maneuvering, toline up with the runway. Because you will need to have the runway insight while maneuvering, the minimums are higher (in the case ofAspen, around 2,000 feet above the runway).

The first approach is the VOR/DME-C approach that brings you downon a heading of 163° which means that when you reach your MDA, theairport is at about 11 o'clock and you'll be heading straight for aridge west of the runway. This requires you to make a 10° left turnto line up on the runway. To make life even more difficult, thedescent angle is 9.61°! If the clouds are all the way down to theminimums, you'll find yourself popping out at about 2,400 feet abovethe runway on a three-mile final, so you'll have to make one finaldiving turn to the runway threshold. Add in your high true airspeedat that altitude and this a landing that requires nerves of steel. Asyou can imagine, getting fully configured for landing at the top ofthe descent is critical: full flaps, gear down, and speed brakes ifyou have them. The RNAV (GPS)-F approach follows the same azimuthinto the airport with the same MDA, but the approach is stretched outa little so the descent angle is only 6.49°.

On March 29, 2001 a Gulfstream III crashed at the end of runway 15while flying the VOR/DME-C approach into Aspen. After that accident,Aspen added a slightly less difficult localizer approach (LOC/DME-E)which aligns with the runway. This approach is localizer only sovertical guidance depends on following the waypoint altitudes on theapproach plate. The descent angle for this one is 6.59°, still morethan twice the typical 3°. On this approach, class A aircraft candescend to 2,003 feet above the runway and they will reach that MDA 3miles out, but at least the runway will be straight ahead.

These approaches take some practice, but if you are fullyconfigured for landing and you haven't let your airspeed get away fromyou, you should be in a good position to bring your plane in for asmooth landing. That's assuming you haven't made some other baddecisions like deciding to see if it's really that hard to land with a30 knot tailwind!

Because of the high mountains to the south of the airport, missedapproaches can't be flown straight out. Instead, all three instrumentapproaches require you to make a hard, right, climbing turn to aheading of 303° to line up with the I-PKN localizer. Making thatdecision at the missed approach point or MAP is a low risk propositionbecause you'll be above any nearby terrain. Waiting until you havefloated halfway down the length of the runway due to a strong tailwindbefore realizing you're not going to make it doesn't leave you withany good options. By that point you will have some sharply risingmountains to your right and you will have to turn right towards themwhile wishing your airplane was a helicopter.

The altitude of the airport is yet another challenge of flying intoand out of Aspen. Not only are you dealing with a true airspeed thatis about 20% higher than indicated, you are dealing with thinner airand therefore lower compression in an internal combustion engine thatlacks a turbocharger. Prepar3D simulates the impact of altitude andair temperature on engine performance and it is fun to experiment withtakeoffs and landings to test the limits of various aircraft you mayhave. For example, trying to takeoff in the Alabeo Cessna 172 RGCutlass II when fully loaded on a hot day takes most of the 8,000 feetof runway. Once airborne however, it is then unable to maintain therequired 460 ft/min climb rate without losing airspeed even at fullthrottle. On a cold day it is a whole different story; the coolerdenser air has more oxygen and the Cutlass II accelerates faster andmaintains the needed climb rate, though not with a big margin.Turbocharged aircraft are much better at handling the altitude, aswould be expected, and manage the climb out even on warm days. Afterexperimenting around with different aircraft, I can say that having aturbine engine or two at your disposal is a huge benefit when flyingin and out of KASE. They have the climb rate that allows you tocomfortably ascend up and over the mountains that surround you withrelative ease.

Aspen airport is closed to all flight operations between 2300 and0700 local. Furthermore, all departures are prohibited after 2230.This restriction is both for safety and to limit noise levels atnight. IFR flight after sunset is prohibited. If flying VFR from30 minutes after sunset until 2300, pilots must have an instrument ratingand be IFR equipped and have completed at least one takeoff or landingat KASE within the prior 12 months. Since flying at night in themountains is a really good way to shorten your lifespan, it's nosurprise that there is very little traffic after sunset.

If you prefer to fly big jets, Aspen is probably not the airportfor you. Jets with wingspans over 95 feet are not allowed but thatdoesn't close the door on early model 737s. In fact, all 737 100s -500s just make the cutoff and can land and takeoff from its 8006 footrunway if not heavily loaded. Commercial operations in and out ofKASE are all done with regional jets (CRJ-700s mostly). AmericanEagle, United Express, and Delta Connection all service Aspen.

Conclusion

Aerosoft's Aspen Extended airport scenery has held up surprisinglywell over the years. Its price point is on par with comparableairports. The design of the scenery results in excellent performancein the current generation of P3D on average hardware by today'sstandards. The small price you'll pay is the cost of giving up a fewbits of eye candy like moving people and vehicles in and around theairport. Overall, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this scenery toanyone.

Gregory A. Goodwin

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