Introduction

Hello everyone, my name is Jay, AKAMrYorkiesWorld, and in today's review I'm going to be talking aboutAerosoft Sim-Wings Ibiza for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Ibiza is one of the airports I really love to visit in the sim,especially during all this global doom and gloom because it reallygives me a sense of the summer holidays. It's a really nice piece ofscenery by Sim-wings (published by Aerosoft) and I'm really excited toget into the review.

About The Airport

So, in terms of the airport itself, which carries to ICAO codeLEIB, Ibiza Airport is the international airport serving the BalearicIslands of Ibiza and Formentera in Spain, located about 7km southwestof Ibiza Town. As the island is a major European holiday destination,it features some year-round domestic services as well as several dozenseasonal routes to cities across Europe.

The airport itself has just one runway, obviously with both ends ofthat single runway being used. The runway numbers themselves beingrunway 24 and runway 06.

By 2017, the airport itself was handling around 77,000 aircraftmovements per year, and if you consider how popular the holidaydestination of Ibiza itself is, you can sort of understand why therewere so many flights in and out of the airport.

It isn't the biggest airport in the world, but it's certainly onethat sees a lot of action on a regular basis.

Features, Graphics And Modelling

The in-sim scenery from Aerosoft is truly second to none, with allthe parking areas and taxiways correctly and accurately positioned toadd that extra bit of realism, and the scenery also includes some ofthe surrounding areas of the island as well which helps it to blend inperfectly with the existing Microsoft Flight Simulator scenery.

The airport looks really nice on approach from either side, withplenty of details being rendered even from a distance, and whendeparting out of the airport you get to see some of the gorgeousscenery that is featured alongside the main airport itself aswell.

Custom taxiway signage means the taxiway signs are really clear andprecise depending on the time of day. They can easily be seen in bothdaytime and night time. The font looks legible and the actualmodelling of the signs themselves appears to be of really high qualityas well, however I did notice at times the text on the ground and onthe signage did seem a little pixelated. This could be because I'mrunning the sim in 1080p and was really getting quite up close andpersonal with the drone camera at times when I was checking it out,but from a distance it really doesn't seem to cause any issues, andI'd say if you're just arriving or departing from the airport youprobably wouldn't notice the slight pixilation on the text -especially from a distance.

The airport terminals and general buildings throughout the airportitself look really well-made. The textures are sharp and realisticregardless of what time of day it is in the simulator which isnice. There's nothing worse than arriving at an airport in the sim andthe models and textures not quite being the same as reality, but withthis scenery they really do appear to be spot-on in my opinion.

One thing I did notice is that some of the road textures behind theairport building could have been improved on. Some paths where carsare driving don't really have any road markings or textures, and Ithink the scenery could definitely benefit from having these added inor improved in places. Overall though, not really an issue if you'renot bothered by that sort of stuff.

The scenery has custom animated jetway models as well which seem towork well in all kinds of aircraft. Personally, I use the A320 for themajority of my flights and I've not had a single issue when arrivingor departing from a stand or gate with a jetway - they've alwaysworked great for me every time.

Performance

Taking a look at the performance of the scenery in MSFS and I haveto say I've been quite impressed. Even with a really detailed airportarea which is extended to some of the surrounding areas, the Ibizascenery really doesn't take up too many of your frames, and moreimportantly it doesn't induce a lot of stutter either. In my case, Iwas able to get anywhere between 40 - 60 fps in the sim, even whenusing the A320 Neo by FlyByWire.

Performance at night, as expected, seems to drop a little, but thisis probably the case with most scenery out there and it doesn't reallycause any major issues in terms of immersion. Personally, I'd ratherput up with the slight drop in frames just to take a look at thespectacular night lighting that Ibiza airport and the surroundingareas have to offer.

More than likely, as future sim updates are added I assume that anyexisting performance issues with this scenery will only get better andbe further ironed out, but overall this is a really good startingpoint as far as Ibiza scenery goes for MSFS and I didn't have anyissues at all when flying around.

Night Lighting

Speaking of night lighting, I was really impressed with what thisscenery has to offer at night. A lot of sceneries tend to look reallygood in the daytime and then struggle at night, but in the case ofthis one I think it's safe to say Aerosoft have really gone intodetail to try and make things look really nice and immersiveregardless of the time of day or night.

The environment around the airport area and the surroundings lookreally nice during a sunset or sunrise and you can see from the screenshots how well the night-lighting has been reproduced aswell.

The ramp looks nice, as do the taxiways and the runway. Everythingseems to be in the right place inside of the scenery and it's easy tonavigate around at night or in dark conditions by using the lightingitself and the illuminated signage, etc.

Accuracy

When it comes to accuracy, I think it's safe to say Aerosoft havedefinitely got it right with this one. The airport seems to have allof the major gates and stands, taxiways and runways. Everything seemsto match pretty well with its real-world counterpart and I wasn't ableto find any major differences worth noting that would really cause anylack of immersion in the scenery itself.

The outskirts of the airport match up well with the in-sim scenerytoo, which is great for those of you who like VFR flying around thisairport and checking out the sights. I wasn't able to find any hardborders where you can obviously see a change or a difference inquality so they seem to have done a really good job there in making itfit in well with the surrounding scenery of Ibiza.

The ILS for both runways works just fine. I was able to complete anumber of approaches to runway 06 and runway 24 without any issueslining up properly with the localiser or glide slope, and I managed tohit the touchdown zone on both runways quite nicely as a result.

System Requirements

So according to the Aerosoft web site, the requirements for thisscenery to work well on your system are as follows:

• Microsoft Flight Simulator (Version 2020)
• OS: Windows 10 (Nov 2019 Update - 1909)
• DirectX: DirectX 11
• CPU: Intel i5-4460 or Ryzen 3 1200
• GPU: NVIDIA GTX 770 or Radeon RX 570
• VRAM: 2 GB
• RAM: 8 GB
• HDD: 3 GB
• Bandwidth: 5 Mbps

Price And Final Verdict

So you can pick up Aerosoft Sim-Wings Ibiza for MSFS eitherdirectly from the Aerosoft web site, or you can purchase it from theFlightSim.Com Store using the links in the description. The productitself, at the time of this review, is priced at £15.52 inBritish Pounds, which equates to $19.99 in US Dollars.

Personally, I think the price is very reasonable for what youget. It's a really great rendition of Ibiza airport and thesurrounding areas, and it looks absolutely fantastic in the simulatoritself. It's great on performance and visuals, and it's very accurateto its real-world counterpart as well.

If you're looking for a really good Ibiza airport scenery add-onfor Microsoft Flight Simulator I would highly recommend AerosoftSim-Wings Ibiza.

Once again, I'd like to thank my good friend Dom Smith over atFlightSim.com for providing a copy of this scenery to review.

MrYorkiesWorld

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