VFR Photographic Scenery: East & SE. England Review - by Mark "Frugal" Bush
When I first installed FS2002 I was massively impressed with the scenery, compared to previous versions it was a huge leap forward. But as impressive as that scenery looks, it isn't really good enough for flying true visual flight rules. My first real moment of disappointment in Flight Simulator 2002 came when I loaded up Southend airport with the intention of flying VFR to London. following the major roads that I am familiar with in real life. Sure there was a big road heading in the general direction of London but that's where the similarity ended. I wasn't expecting to be able to see my house, I just wanted that sense of familiarity.
Then along came Visual Flight and they said Frug, if you want to fly out of Southend, down the A127 to London checking out your house on the way we'll make it happen. They then got on the phone to Get Mapping who immediately sent some planes up equipped with cameras to photograph the area. Now those guys at Get Mapping are an enthusiastic bunch and ended up covering the whole of the UK. No problem said Visual Flight, we'll convert the whole of East and South East England into terrain for FS2002, that should keep Frugal happy and if he gets bored in the South East area we'll follow up with Central and Southern England, and then if he wants to fly near his mums house we can do SW England and Wales, and then we'll do Northern England to complete the set. Once this terrain was all done Just Flight stepped in and said, hey, you can't give Frugal the terrain without a nice installer and some quality packaging, let us put together a nice package, and so thanks to Visual Flight, Get Mapping, and Just Flight I have finally been able to live out that dream of flying over my house in FS2002.
Ok here's how it really happened, taken from the Get Mapping Site and the VFR Terrain manual :)
The VFR Photographic Scenery project is a collaboration between Getmapping plc and Visual Flight. Its objective is to develop add-on scenery for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 using imagery from the first ever highly detailed, seamless photographic map of the UK - The Millennium Map. So what is this Millenium Map?
Getmapping plc was formed in 1998 with the specific aim to create the first full-coverage and up-to-date photographic map of the UK.In April 1999, Getmapping commissioned four Rockwell Aerocommander aircraft, specially equipped with state of the art photographic equipment, to fly the length and breadth of the country acquiring highly detailed vertical aerial photographic images. Since that time, Getmapping has built up the most comprehensive and up to date photographic archive of the UK. Getmapping intends to complete, and to maintain complete and up-to-date coverage of the UK on a 5 year rolling cycle.
In early 2002 Visual Flight realised that an opportunity had been created whereby advances in computer hardware coupled with the enhanced capabilities of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 led to the realistic possibility of using the Millenium Map data to create an entirely new level of realism in consumer-level flight simulators. The VFR Photographic Scenery is made by draping high quality aerial photography over a 3D model of the terrain so that it can be used by MS Flight Sim 2002 to display as it would be seen from a plane in real-life.
So where do Just Flight fit in? Well Just Flight are the publisher, they have formed the terrain into a professionally packaged final product that bears all the hallmarks of quality that many have come to associate with Just Flights products.
As I intimated in my somewhat fancifull intro the terrain comes in 4 volumes, this review looks at volume 1. East and South East England, the other volumes are as follows.
Vol 2 : Central & Southern England
Vol 3 : Wales & South West England
Vol 4 : Northern England
Each volume weighs in at £29.99 but you can get the full set direct from Get Mapping for £99.99
Installation was pretty straight forward and very long. The installer splits the terrain into Northern section, Central Section, Southern Section, Water Textures and mesh so that people with low HD space can install just the area they wish to fly in, This is pretty handy considering the full install takes up close to 2 gigs.
It took an age to go through all 3 cd's. It wasn't completely problem free though. I had to tell FS2002 where the scenery was, I think this was because the installer failed to detect my FS2002 installation due to it not being in the registry (naughty Frug, should have reinstalled FS2002 when you reinstalled windows instead of the lazy copy FS2002 folder from back up approach). Also for some reason or other (most likely my afforementioned FS2002 folder copying antics) the water tiles didn't want to install no matter how often I installed and uninstalled that part of the scenery. After some investigation I discovered that the water was being installed to my OS partition instead of my FS2002 folder which is on another partition. Not sure why this happened (folder copying antics perhaps) but it was easy to copy the files into the correct folder once I'd found them.
The documentation provided with the scenery is far better than you would expect for an add on scenery, Visual Flight have really exceeded my expectations in this area. The manual is 32 pages long and covers installation and uninstallation just as you would expect, but it also goes into detail about how to get the best from the scenery. It also contains tips for getting the best out of your system with FS2002 and the scenery. Pretty much everything you could want or need to know is covered in detail by the manual.
For my first flight I took off from Southend airport and within minutes I was completely amazed. The difference in the scenery really is incredible. I was able to recognise the area around Southend airport in an instant. The flight from Southend to Basildon following the A127 was the most enjoyable flight I'd had in FS2002. It was fantastic being able to recognise landmarks like Rayleigh Wier, my childrens schools and of course my own house. I then flew along the Thames enjoying the view and was particularly impressed by Tilbury Docks.
The scenery made this the most immersive flight I'd ever had in any sim, period!! Once I followed the Thames into Central London I was met with my first disappointment, because the VFR scenery removes the default 3D scenery I found it very difficult to pick out many of Londons landmarks like St Pauls, the Houses of Parliament etc. This was a real shame because I spend a lot of time flying in and around London and not being able to see those familiar buildings was a heavy price to pay for the scenery. Fortunately Visual Flight had realised this and posted a London Landmarks download on their site which resized and repositioned the original MS buildings in London to make them compatible with the VFR scenery, once again I was happy.
My next journey took me from London City airport to Gatwick, passing over the place of my birth on the way.
Because the scenery is photographic rather than photorealistic everything is exactly where it should be, every road, every building, even every tree. What you see in the sim is exactly what you would see from a real plane. The scenery also comes with a replacement mesh which is pretty good, it isn't as good as Lago's mesh but it's a lot better than the default mesh.
The scenery is not without its limitations though, there is no night lighting and no seasonal textures. This means that if you want to fly at night you are better of disabling the scenery. When flying in different seasons you get subtle lighting changes but the scenery looks the same, this is only really a problem in winter and even then not a major problem as we don't tend to get much snow here anyway. The scenery isn't compatible with autogen so no 3d trees or buildings down low, again for me this wasn't an issue as the photographic scenery looks far better during normal flight than the autogen scenery. Another limitation is that the scenery is only suitable for relatively slow movers, the terrain can't keep up with fast moving jets. I don't see this as a major problem as its rare to fly VFR in the heavies anyway, although it is a shame for combat jet jocks. The terrain doesn't look great down low, but then again neither does the default, once you get a little altitude though the scenery is breathtaking, looking its best at between 2000 and 5000 ft. The loading times with the scenery are quite painful too with loading times of up to 4 minutes, again I'm willing to live with this and spend the time reviewing my flight plan and checklists, or making a cup of tea :o)
If you primarily fly heavies or fast jets then this scenery isn't for you, again if you prefer to fly at night then this scenery isn't what you are looking for. If on the other hand you fly relatively slow movers like the prop planes or Helos, and you like to fly VFR, and you want to see the landscape as it actually appears in real life, then this scenery will give you that. The scenery achieves what it sets out to achieve very well, making true Visual Flight Rules possible in FS2002, and it has massively increased my enjoyment of the sim. At £29.99 per volume or £99 for the set it may seem quite expensive, but when you consider what it took to make, and the sheer volume of textures provided, it works out very good value for money. Despite the limitations mentioned above, I have no hesitation in giving this my highest reccomendation to anyone wishing to fly VFR in the UK.
