Aeropuerto de Cozumel. Our impression!

FS9/FSX. Mega airports, mega airports... One thing that is undeniably true: The FS community does not exactly want to move away from massive mega airports. We want them. But we are also hungering for the smaller more homely airports that still serve a major purpose nonetheless. If you click our reviews tab on the top right hand corner of the blog, you will not only find some nice reviews from my partner Dominique and myself, but you will also find that most of those recent reviews are of the smaller airport genre. This time Dom and I together fly to a small coastal Mexican island where for the first time, we both will give our impressions the same scenery. Come with us, should be fun!

Now Dom will cover FSX and I of course will give a look at the FS9 version. So that we don't bore the FSX users with my lovely FS9 banter, we will start with Dom. 

COZUMEL / THE FSX TEST

File FSX : 148 MB
Installation : all automatic.
Framerate : excellent (higher processors in VFR will even need fps limitation value 40/50).
Manual : 9 pages english + 8 pages for charts.

The bad :

* The airfield in the south, Capitan Eduardo Toledo could have been added ! (but there is a freeware version of it though).
* Much appreciated, the whole island with roads and all the watermasks around it.
* The display of real boats on water (these a re photoreal textures) could have been fixed.

The good :

* During day, the main apron, the textures and static aircrafts give the airport a real charm and exotism.
* The fair price (18 euros / 23 US $ )
* The excellent location between North America, Caribbean and Central america.

Personal note :

This is the first time, if i am not wrong, that Latin VFR is able to drive two projects at the same time (we still don't know where is the second one). So, yes, Cozumel has probably been made by the team #2. But starting with this rather simple airport is a good way to improve technics although this airport is technically good (high quality ground textures, and the design of the terminal that totaly fits the rest of the area). I support that.

From a vertical point of view, the high quality of apron and taxiways textures.

A few static aircrafts are enhancing the scenery.

Colorful local houses !

 Besides the airport, you will find that the coastline is depicted with its resorts. There are also some nice wave effects.

Cozumel at night.

The main terminal at dusk.

The night lights are much more effective than dusk ones.

Compariso between FSX and Latin VFR Cozumel...

And now on to FS9 version of Cozumel:

As I mentioned earlier, smaller airports are really becoming a big factor in what today's flight simmer is looking in an airport. One reason why I think this was an important airport is it's geographical location. There are several high quality airports in the area that are enhanced with AES. Thus if it's the short quick flight you are looking for, this is the airport for you. Now there are some things I really like here and some not so much. Let's have a look.

Here we get a good overall look at the scenery coverage area.

The ground textures are pretty much what I would expect from a scenery of this size / region.

The default autogen trees are plentiful and some tree walls were added. Now whereas I am not a fan of tree walls, what I will say here is the walls do have some good textures but really should have been accompanied by actual trees. Instead there was a lighter far less resolution type of bush tree that seems to actually distract from the scenery. In fact they look so bad, I may look for the file to remove them. From a distance you get the idea of the look the developer was going for but up close... I would have elected to just blend the high res 2D tree walls with the default agen trees.

Another feature I did like was the custom autogen houses.

Good environment!

Here we have some custom trees but in the background, those horrible bush  trees seem to distract me. On a good note the building textures and photoreal glass on the terminal. This was very nicely done.

The best quality of static aircraft available.

Some nice ramp shots here. Looking very nice!

Some nice quality buildings here.

At night the airport lights up well!

This is a feature I simply loved! The street lights!

Good night textures on the terminal and ramp.

Overall it is a lovely scenery and I do like it. The terminal building was perfectly modeled and nicely textured. As it is a small airport I don't let my expectations get too high and for the price of $23bucks for both FS9/X versions it is a good buy. Lets not forget the beachfront hotels and resorts added as well. This airport project marked a new step in the right direction for LatinVFR as now there are 2 teams which means more LVFR products for us! Overall it's a great small scenery and honestly the only thing I would change is those ugly trees.

Besides this, as an improvement to the scenery, I would have liked to see the entire island modeled with that lovely autogen. We are looking forward to more projects from the second team!

Keep up the great work!

This fun little airport and it's now available on Simmarket!

Cheers!

Dom & D'Andre 


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