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Review: Orbx Washington AirportsBy Shawn WeigeltIntroductionI guess you can call me a "scenerysnob." What can I say? I really like high quality scenery and as onewho formerly dabbled in creating freeware World Editor scenery forX-Plane 9 and 10, I have a good grasp of what goes into it. Utilizingscenery libraries containing object and texture files painstakinglycreated by others within the X-Plane community is not really thatdifficult once you get the hang of the workflow. Actually, the wholeprocess becomes quite like a flight simulation version of Minecraft orLegos. Though I spent many hours doing it, building airports in WEDnever really felt like significant work to me. Rather, it became alot of fun trying to figure out what buildings from which library toplace where, and how to draw the edges of the taxiways and paint onthe tarmac in order to most plausibly match a real world airport. Thekey word here is "plausible." /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-11.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-12.jpgDefault scenery in X-Plane is decent but not great. Custom-madefreeware files, on the other hand, edited by members of the community,vary wildly in quality levels. These range from projects that wereobviously rushed and bear only passing resemblance to the real place,to the extremely ambitious and meticulously crafted projects that makeyou wonder "how is this freeware?" If you doubt that high-endfreeware scenery exists for X-Plane, I would encourage you to checkout the work done byMisterX6,Freddy De Pues,andCami De Bellisto name only a few. When I was building scenery, I always shot forthis upper tier of the quality spectrum, but my skills with creatingcustom objects in SketchUp were non-existent and I could never figureout ortho-imagery. Alas, near photoreal airport creation eluded meand I eventually gave it up for...what was it again? Oh yeah, writingreviews for FlightSim.Com! X-Plane 11 currently has some very scenery packages available forpurchase to those users wanting to visually upgrade some areas of theworld beyond what the default and community airports have to offer.While I have often perused this content on various web stores, I havenever found something that I really wanted enough to make me want tofork over the cash. The main reason for my hesitance to buy istwofold. One: most of the payware airport packages represented verylarge international airports in regions of the world where I neverfly. Two: none of them were made by Orbx. I am not ashamed when I tell you that on more than one occasion Ihave browsed the Orbx web site looking longingly at the PacificNorthwest airports created for FSX and P3D wondering if I had investedall this money on the wrong flight simulator. Seriously, is thereanything worse than wanting what you can't have? /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-coverage.jpgWell, life went on and I continued flying in X-Plane and made dowith the boring old, uninspired default airports that all look way toosimilar. Where was the variety? Where was the spice that would makeflying into my favorite destinations actually enjoyable? Finally,following closely on the heels of the release of Orbx TrueEarth USWashington, some of their popular Washington airports have been madeavailable for us long suffering X-Plane 11 users! Here I take a lookat three absolute beauties: 1S2 Darrington Municipal Airport, 74SAnacortes Airport, and WA56 Israel's Farm Airport. Will they performas good as they look? Do they hold up to scrutiny when compared toimages of the real places? Do they enhance the flight simulationexperience enough to earn your hard earned money? Let's find out! Darrington /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-05.jpg1S2 Darrington Municipal AirportDarrington Municipal is a very nostalgic little airport for me interms of X-Plane. You see, I once created a WED version of Darringtonat the urging of my good friend, Dom Smith, and have spent many "sim"hours flying in and out of this quaint little airport. I freely admitthat I derived a little inspiration at the time from the Orbxrendition made for FSX when building "my" airport. While perfectlyuseable, my take on the sleepy little valley airport nestled in theCascades of Washington's Snohomish County fell woefully short of thework of the experts. There is just no comparison. /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-07.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-08.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-01.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-02.jpgWhen I tell you that the Orbx Darrington Municipal Airport made forX-Plane 11 comes as close to reality as is currently possible in aflight simulator, I mean it. The development team has really donetheir homework not only in terms of the buildings and other objectspresent on the airfield itself, but also in the surrounding town.North of the field lies a massive lumberyard (Hampton Lumber Mills)where seemingly each log pile has been modeled and textured. TheFirst Baptist Church, Glad Tidings Assembly of God, DarringtonHardware, the Darrington IGA grocery store, and more have all beenmodeled and textured to exacting detail. Houses and streets areplaced properly, and the town feels truly alive and like a place thatactually exists. Gone is the boring sterility of the default airport. /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-09.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-10.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-03.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-04.jpgOn airport, the scenery takes on an even more enhanced aestheticaccentuated by 3D grass, custom pavement textures, picture perfectbuildings, vehicles, aircraft, and objects like signs, fences, andtrash bins. People are present as well, but they do not move and looka little blocky and less realistic than I would like, but this is acompromise I am more than willing to live with. I love the fact thatthe lines and runway numbers perfectly matches that of the real oneand is not marred by huge swaths of obnoxious rubber skid-marks onboth ends. That is one of the things I absolutely loathe aboutX-Plane 11's default scenery that totally dashes any semblance ofplausibility when it comes to flying at a small airport. The runwayof Darrington Municipal shouldn't look like SeaTac's! Fortunately forus, the Orbx designers pay attention to these sorts of details anddon't forget the flight simmers who love General Aviation flying fromsmall airports. /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-13.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-darrington-06.jpgOne feature of Darrington (and the other two airports I havereviewed) that I particularly appreciate is the proper placement andheight of the surrounding trees and bushes. While the textures andmodels themselves are repeatedly used throughout the scenery package,they look exceedingly more realistic than what is available by defaultfrom X-Plane or from any of the third party scenery libraries that Iam aware of. This is important not only for plausibility's sake, butin terms of flying as well. Taking off from this short runway is achallenge (even in a Cessna 172) so the fact that the surroundingtrees are the proper height makes approaches and departures all themore realistic. Anacortes 74S Anacortes AirportAbout 50 statute miles west of Darrington lies the scenic littlecoastal city of Anacortes along the western tip of Fidalgo Island.Anacortes Airport is a small but relatively busy airport for GeneralAviation flying and is an excellent launching off point for tours ofthe nearby San Juan Islands. /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-anacortes-01.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-anacortes-02.jpgAnacortes Airport was one of those places that I always wanted to"build" in World Editor but, unfortunately, I did not possess thetechnical know-how or the patience to flatten the woefully uneventerrain that has always seemed to exist at the airport since X-Plane9. This has always bothered me tremendously as either user submittedrenditions or, more recently, default scenery has always had many ofthe hangars to the east of the runway either buried under or floatingover the ground. This was such a shame as the Anacortes Airport andsurrounding area has tons of charm and bountiful natural beauty. /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-anacortes-03.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-anacortes-04.jpgNeedless to say, when I first loaded up X-Plane 11 from the Orbxrendition of 74S, the first thing I did was to hop out of my airplaneand check the ground near the hangars. Phew! I was so relieved tosee that, while the ground does possess some uneven gradients, none ofthe buildings were floating or unnaturally buried under the ground.This revelation led me to explore the rest of the airfield where Idiscovered accurately modeled and textured building and objects.Static aircraft on the ramp appear to be look custom built andtextured and actually possess N-numbers! This is, after all, anAmerican aiport! Take a good look at the baby blue Piper Navajo inMicronesian Atoll Airlines livery on the northwest corner of the rampand then check it out on Google Earth or Airliners.net. Wow. Thatairplane has sat there on the ramp for so long that it is practicallya fixture of the airport now. Orbx did the right thing by modelingthe tired old gal and including it in the scenery. /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-anacortes-05.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-anacortes-06.jpgI have actually been to the real Anacortes Airport a few years agoand all the little details fabricated by the Orbx development teamperfectly match the quaint character of the airport and hold up verywell to scrutiny when compared to the numerous photographs I was ableto find online. Some of my favorite on airport touches include the tie down pointson every parking "T," and the concrete platforms bearing the runwayand taxiway signs. Speaking of signs, I absolutely love the ones thatask pilots to be good neighbors by making turns over the water fornoise mitigation purposes. These sorts of details bring massiveamounts of immersion to the sim and permanently erase the sterility ofwhat was available by default. /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-anacortes-07.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-anacortes-08.jpgThe ultra crisp pavement textures look very realistic and, as withDarrington, the runway is devoid of rubber skid-marks with accuratelyapplied lines and numbering throughout. Pavement edges are seamlesslytextured with a gravelly appearance that serves to further enhance theimmersion level. I love how the pavement of the ramp is coloredslightly differently in large sections as though it were re-paved instages over time. This exactly matches current satellite imagery. /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-anacortes-09.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-anacortes-10.jpgGrass and tree textures look amazing, though in some spots thegrass looks patchy and is far too tall for my liking. The high resortho imagery surrounding the airfield looks great...from the air,but, as with all ortho work, natural "grassy" textures look likeamorphous blobs of color up close on the ground. Thankfully, the Orbxteam's expert placement of 3D grass helps alleviate this unfortunateside effect, which serves to give the airport a vivaciousaesthetic. Israel's Farm /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-israels-farm-01.jpgWA56 Israel's Farm AirportApproximately 26 statute miles east of Anacortes lay WA56 Israel'sFarm Airport adjacent to Washington's winding Skagit River and justeast of the city of Sedro Wooley. Today ownership of the farm haschanged hands and is now called Baldham Farm. According to theexpertly shot drone video I watched onBaldham Farm's web site,the previous owner flew airplanes from the pasture designated WA56which is now no longer active. The video producer/narrator even mademention of the Orbx rendition of the airport as initially released forFSX back in 2011. /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-israels-farm-02.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-israels-farm-03.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-israels-farm-04.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-israels-farm-05.jpgWell, despite the facts that Israel's Farm Airport may no longer beactive and that the scenery has essentially been ported over toX-Plane 11, it still looks absolutely superb and serves as an idyllicplace to fly some of my favorite simulated airplanes. Just panningaround the airport (if one can call it that) revealed tons offantastic details like plastic jugs on the barbed wire fence of therunway threshold, rusty old tractors and farming equipment, andperfectly modeled and textured buildings. 3D grass and appropriatelysized and textured trees make the airfield feel alive. If you have avirtual hangar full of old tail draggers or other piston singles, thisis the ideal place to fly them! /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-israels-farm-06.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-israels-farm-07.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-israels-farm-08.jpg /images/reviews/orbxwaap/t/orbx-israels-farm-09.jpgWhile the Orbx team has expertly crafted the buildings andsurrounding objects to a high degree of fidelity, it is thehigh-resolution ground textures that I appreciate the most. The siltgray Skagit River in particular with its winding bends, numeroussandbars, and driftwood logs looks impressively realistic from theair. I loved cruising over the river and surrounding pastures ofIsrael's Farm, just taking in the sights. I should also note that itis a perfect halfway point between Concrete Municipal to the east andAnacortes Airport to the west. So, when are we going to see Concretefor X-Plane 11, Orbx? ConclusionOne of the most important things I need to point out about thethree airports I've reviewed here is that they seamlessly pair withthe Orbx TrueEarth US Washington scenery package that completelycovers the State of Washington. I didn't test Darrington, Anacortes,and Israel's Farm without the TrueEarth scenery installed, so I don'tknow how these airports would look amidst the comparatively blanddefault X-Plane 11 scenery. I imagine it would make one wantTrueEarth US Washington all the more. All three airports combined with the TrueEarth package performedbeautifully on my machine from a graphical point of view, although thesimulator loads up significantly more slowly than it used to before Iwent scenery mad! I'm not running the highest performance iMac by along shot, but it's no slouch, either, so take that for what it isworth. We all know that there are a lot of variables to consider whenit comes to settings customization in the simulator, so adjust X-Plane11 to suit your needs. If your machine doesn't run well even withminimal graphics settings and default scenery, Orbx stuff may not befor you. While I lumped three airport packages into one review here, I feelit necessary to point out that they are sold separately on theOrbx Simulation Systems web site.Darrington and Anacortes are both priced at $22.61 USD with Israel'sFarm priced at an impressive $8.89 USD. Seriously, folks, theseimpeccably crafted airport packages are an excellent value in my eyesand will greatly enhance your immersion in X-Plane 11's world. Orbxis sure to make a scenery snob of you, too!