Las Americas MDSD : full test

FS9 and FSX. Las Americas airport has something special : thanks to tourism business, it has grown so fast that there are plenty of different kind of hangars and terminals. It's a motley place but a real unavoidable airport located  here in the very center of Caribbean. And at last, FSX users can enjoy the place. I am not even shure there were any decent sceneries in FS 2004 (DomAero ?) and in FS 2002../..

Despite the size of this aiport, Latin VFR succeed in designing more than 90% of the buildings, including areas of La Caleta, Boca Chica, Andrès plus the homelots extensions, at east of Santo Domingo. The capital itself isn't depicted but the defaut FSX city had already basically some interesting ground textures.

The airport is surrounded by two-lane roads with custom traffic, giant posters and poles along the streets (that's news).

The bad :

* The airport's entry with the parkings, gas station, minute lane is superficial and has not been worked very carefully. The grounds are made of too low defnition textures (but sometimes, designers can't get the best imagery because it simply doesn't exist yet). On some aspects, this part might even looking like some old Tropical Sim works (and even T.S. has improved since). However, once in my cockpit, i don't really pay attention to the terminal main entrance...!

Low definition ground textures and no cars in main parking. Picture updated at best quality settings (FSX, Ati HD 5850)

The good :

* The terminals are very nicely designed with high definition textures everywhere, even in difficult corners and angles. And at night, photoreal textures are completely changing the look of the airport.

* The ground textures (parking, taxiways, runway) are - as usual in the last sceneries - irreproachable.

* The choice of Las Americas airport is a smart choice. If you like to fly over Caribbean, this will be a wonderful stop. There are also a lot of long hauls from Europe, North or South America.

* The scenery really worths its price (18 €/22-23 $).

Probably the best combination of night lights and jetways in any of Latin VFR sceneries.

High definition ground textures

Installation

The FS 2004 file is 79 mb, the FSX, 100 megabytes. The installation is really easy and automated.

Your first stop in Caribbean...?