Aerosoft / GAP Friedrichshafen. Our impression.

FS9/FSX. 2012 is off to a very good start and today I bring you my third impression of the year. I invite you to join me as we head to Southern Germany this time to a small town near the Swiss and Austrian boarders right on the shores of beautiful Lake Constance.

Welcome to Friedrichshafen!

Now here is a very lovely little scenery with a very good representation of an airport with a lot of history. The GAP team delivers on the quality we have come to expect in recent years and they do not disappoint. Even Mr. Oliver Pabst, has put in his two cents worth a billion dollars to bring this airport to life with his world renowned AES lite. In fact, almost any airport without AES lite tends to seem… well… a little… stagnant. And there is no shortage of ground traffic roaming the streets and roads in the area.

Now I’ll be honest here. There are some qualities within the scenery product that were done very well and others, well not so much. First, I’d like to point to what I did like.

There is a growing trend among developers adding 3D personnel objects to their sceneries. Now some do this well and some don’t. The high level of “people quality” I found in this work is well, the very best I have ever seen in static people objects. Note the extreme level of detail in the following screenshots. I could even make out the designs on the clothing. It’s clear; we are looking at models of real people and the clothing they wore.

The two kids playing with the Dornier slide really seem to be having fun. Well done here!

GAP did a great job capturing the look and feel of this historical airfield and museum. The airport is well nestled in a heavily wooded area surrounded many trees which I like. Parking lots full of 3D cars, detailed trees, and perimeter fencing are very important additions to airport sceneries developers honestly want to accurately capture the look and feel of their airports. This was done very well here. 

Now, I am no Rainer Duda screenshot master, but I do my best…

Now my next focus is the airfield and it’s most important object: The Zeppelin! This all was very well done in moderate detail. Now, in my opinion, EDNY is not comparable to the likes of FSDT, Drzewiecki or Fly Tampa. However, it doesn’t really need to be because where it succeeds, is where it matters most. And that’s capturing the environment and architectural accuracy of the airport itself. GAP really has lived up to its name here.

And on to the winter environment. My first flight into EDNY was a very short hop from LSZH in a Q400 in low visibility. The trademark low frame rates I normally get with GAP sceneries live up to their name. Or should I say down? A very smooth approach, touchdown, and taxi. Now as with the summer textures, the winter textures look great from up above, but tend to look a little too smooth or I might even say generic  up close giving me the feeling of artificial turf. This could have been done better, I am thinking of the grass textures of the recently released freeware LH Sim LHPP…

The summer textures…

And the winter textures…

Now one impressive aspect of the scenery was the night lighting. I really loved how the terminal lights cast hues of vibrant light. It’s very realistic as well building, runway, and ground lighting. Modeling this airport was a great idea and I believe it will sell very well.

Now I really need to point out 2 issues I have with this scenery. The first is, whereas all the buildings are modeled very nicely, on some buildings such as the museum, the textures look pretty bad the closer you get. This is not the case with all buildings, but the museum could have been much, much better detailed. This also applies to ground textures outside the airport. I was quite disappointed to see the trains don’t even have rails.

The second issue is, given the size of this airport, I am very disappointed about the size of the scenery area and how the scenery area blends with default terrain.

I am sure you’ll agree this could have been much better. And again, given the size of the small airport, why did the developers choose not to model the town of Friedrichshafen? Friedrichshafen is a very beautiful place and not seeing it in the scenery gives me the feeling that something is really missing. At the very least, the scenery area should have been expanded to the lake shoreline to create a nicer scenic approach similar to that of Gianni’s Approaching Innsbruck scenery. The scenery area is just too small even for a small airport such as this.

All in all, I honestly, really love this airport scenery and I am quite happy with my purchase. There are some pros and cons here but GAP has delivered us an airport that truly represents the history of such a beautiful and historical place.

But enough from me, head over to Aerosoft, get yours, and see for yourself.

You can find it here: http://www.aerosoft.com/cgi-local/us/iboshop.cgi?showd590!0,,D12179

Along with Rainer Duda’s much better screenshots!

Thanks for reading and good night!

((-D'))

Reviewed by D'Andre