Introduction

Fishburn Airfield is a small, grassstrip located in County Durham in the north of the UK and holdsparticularly fond memories for me as I flew into it about 40 yearsago. It was also included in one of my early scenery collections forFS98 and then later on for FSX.

The airfield is on the east coast of the country and is located afew miles inland from the seaside resorts of Hartlepool and the oldmining town of Peterlee, so is ideally placed for touring the eastcoast of the UK.

As airfields go, it's relatively new, having been opened in June1995 by the then local MP and Leader of the Opposition Tony Blair. Itwas named as "Airfield Of The Year" by aviation magazine Flyer in 2004for its welcoming atmosphere and bacon butties (very tasty but notparticularly healthy).

The airfield's single grass runway measures 2590 feet (790 m) and isat an elevation of 370 feet. From memory, I remember it sloping up tothe west when I landed there, and the default mesh supplied by FlightSimulator 2020 certainly represents that well. From the air, theairfield is also relatively easy to find, being just east of a largequarry off the A1(M).

Installation

After purchasing the product from the FlightSim.Com Store, you areprovided with a single zip file. With the file unzipped, it's just asimple case of placing the extracted folder into your Flight Simulator"Community" folder.

As mentioned in myprevious review,there is no need to add the airport in the simulator's scenery library(as in the case of previous versions of MSFS), as this is all doneautomatically for you.

Documentation

The single text document included in the package contains a briefintroduction to the airfield, an installation guide, and a changelog.

Looking Around

Swapping the ultralight for a trusty bicycle, I made my way slowlyup the country track to the airfield. As I approached, I noticed somecustom made 3D cows to the left of me, along with appropriate fencingand vegetation. After making suitable noises at them and getting noresponse, I proceeded up to airfield.

One of the most impressive features of this scenery, has to be thestatic de Havilland Venom located at the airfield's perimeter.

Once the pinnacle of British aviation, it now a permanent fixtureat the airfield.

Our next stop is the Aviator Cafe just a few meters furtheraway. This is another extremely well made custom model, surrounded bystock hangars and what I would call airfield "clutter".

The Aviator Cafe, as mentioned, is entirely custom made, and assuch is a very good likeness of its real life counterpart. Both thetextures and modelling are of good quality, as is its objectplacement. There are picnic tables and chairs located at the front ofthe cafe, and the whole thing looks very inviting....oh how I could dowith a bacon butty right now!

Another interesting addition to the scenery is yet another custommade static model, this time around, of a de Havilland Dove.

Leaving the bicycle behind, and heading to the air, it's clear thatwhen viewing Fishburn from above, the developer has made sure that(within reason), buildings are placed as accurately as possible. Thisincludes not only the main hangar buildings and huts found at theairfield, but also the farm located just to the north.

Night Lighting

Obviously, like most grass airfields, Fishburn is only allowed tooperate during daylight hours, so there is no obvious night lighting.

Performance

Being at the top end of Flight Simulator 2020's systemrequirements, my i7 9700F, coupled with a 1080Ti and 32 GB of RAM hadno problems in regards to running the scenery. Everything was buttersmooth and I experienced no slowdowns or stutters.

Conclusion

As mentioned at the beginning of this review, Fishburn makes for anideal starting location for touring the east coast of the UK (flyingover the harbour at Middlesborough and then landing on the small grassstrip at Yearby is one possibility).

With its custom made objects, such as The Aviator Cafe and the twovintage aircraft, the developer has managed to add a little bit ofrealism to an otherwise bland default airfield. If you fancy touringthe North East, then Fishburn is the ideal package and a worthyaddition to your collection.

Review System:

• Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
• Windows 10 Professional
• Intel® Core™ i7 9700F CPU 3.00 GHz Processor
• 32 GB RAM
• NVIDIA® 1080Ti

Neil Birch

Purchase Taburet; Fishburn Airfield for MSFS 2020