Flightbeam Studios - KIAD - Washington Dulles HD v.1.2.2
A review by Maxim Pyankov
According to Wikipedia, Washington Dulles International Airport (KIAD) "is the busiest international airport in the Northeast outside of New York metropolitan area," serving about 60,000 passengers on a daily basis. It is this airport, in all its beauty, that has been provided to me by the generous staff over at Flightbeam Studios for a review.
Purchase, Download, and Manual
You can purchase this product, for $34, directly from Flightbeam Studios’ website. Once the purchase is complete, you will receive an email with the product serial number, which you would use to register and activate the product. The download process is straightforward and consists of getting one installation file, which is about 533MB. This airport is designed to work with FSX and P3D (2.2).
The product manual, which you get with your purchase, is available for download directly off of Flightbeam's website (and you also get a copy of it upon installation of the product). The install process itself is very simple, and the installation wizard takes you right through it. One note of caution (and I had to reinstall because I did not follow the instructions in the manual) - be sure to completely turn off your virus software, including its auto-protect features. I could not properly register the product until I completely shut it off--I am running Norton 360.
Once you properly install the software, you would use the Add-on Manager (accessible through the Add-On menu) to fully register and activate the product. I recommend that you switch your FSX to windowed mode for this task, by hitting the ALT+ENTER combination.
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You don't get a new program group in your Windows Programs with this installation - the manual (and airport settings) can be accessed through the aforementioned Add-On Manager. The manual is seven pages long and provides short and precise sections on airport history, a page on airport layout, a couple of pages on airport installation/configuration, a page explaining the airport's jetways, as well as explaining that with this product you get FSDreamteam's GSX, for this airport only, which is a very good add-on, and is a real value add feature in this package. I own a stand-alone, full version of FSDreamteam's GSX, so I can only imagine that what I saw is precisely what you would get, in this airport.
As a final step in my installation process, I referenced the manual and made sure that my FSX/Scenery Settings were set at least at the recommended level to get the fully intended experience.
First Impressions and Airport Features
For my first look into this scenery, I loaded PMDG's 777 parked at Gate A16, designed to accommodate heavies. Before I even had a chance to get out of the aircraft and examine the vastness of the airport, I was staring into a terminal window, which I could see through so well so that I could almost read out the Arrivals and Departures schedule on the timetable TV screens! Incredible. Without any delay I proceeded to engage EZdok's World cam to explore the airport. To be sure, terminal buildings, and the inside contents thereof (chairs, TV screens) are 3D models and look terrific.
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Meticulous attention to detail is ever-present throughout this whole airport scenery. There are so many features and details modeled here that you can easily spend a couple of hours, in your flight simulation application, doing nothing but examining the airport from one building to the next, from one taxiway to the next.
Washington Dulles is one of the few airports using what is known as a "mobile lounge,” or a "plane mate." These are somewhat other-worldly creature-vehicles, roaming throughout the airport and shuttling the passengers between the aircraft and the terminal buildings. As I understand it, there are plans to replace these with a train system, but as it stands we get to marvel at and enjoy these "plane mates" throughout this airport. There are a lot of them that are simply parked, and many more that can be seen traveling around the terminal buildings.
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To accommodate loading and unloading these "mobile lounges," there are special terminal exits, which are modeled here as well.
Often we focus only on what is inside the airport; we accept the outside as a simple 2D photo of a parking lot, or roads, or whatever else it may be for any one particular airport. I have to applaud the developers for putting the extra effort into making the front of the airport look lively and appealing. Not only did the model the parking lot, parking lot lights, trees, and other objects, but they have also given us 3D models of parked vehicles, which adds to the atmosphere of the airport.
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There are many objects, peppered throughout the airport, that infuse the atmosphere with an air of busy hustle. As I examined the airport with the world cam for a few hours, zooming from one side of the grounds to the other, I have not come across one object that was poorly modeled, or had incomplete textures, or was otherwise deficient. These objects come in various shapes and forms - for example, there are dozens and dozens of sitting luggage carts, all throughout the airport. Obviously, most gates have these, and the sight is very representative of the real world airport environment. In addition, there are parked trucks, cars, and trailers all throughout. Like everything else, attention to detail is amazing. The models presented are sharp and the textures used are in high resolution.
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The aircraft parking spaces are also superb. Ground markings present many various kinds of wear and tear: for example, in many high-usage areas the ground paints are worn out and look faded and washed out.
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The jetways are superb as well. They are modeled to such an extent, that as you pan around an entrance into one, you cannot resist the urge to enter one and explore it from inside out.
Another round of applause goes to the developers for putting the extra effort into the objects around the airport - miscellaneous buildings outside the immediate airport perimiter, as well as the lush and alive forest in the immediate vicinity of the airport. There is no doubt that the buildings and forest in and around the edges of the perimiter will be enjoyed every single time you land or take off from this airport.
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Night Light and Seasons
Seasons
Wonderful job was done on making sure the airport is well dressed for all seasons of the year. The screenshots below display the same airport navigation sign presented in three different seasons - the summer, the fall, and the winter.
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The effort put in into making sure the winter seasons are presented fairly is very much appreciated. Not only do you get the white snowy cover throughout the airport, but you also get what appears to be a texture designed specifically for the winter season. In the example below, you will notice tire marks on what seems to be a very thin layer of snow/ice. It looks great and adds tremendously to the sim and the environment.
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Likewise, the fall textures bring its own style to the table. The ground textures (cement and concrete) look wet and damp. The grass - drowned by the rain and washed out. It looks great.
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Night Lights
Night lights rendering continues to add to the theme of overall attention to detail, quality textures, and remarkable effort put into this scenery. The airport is very well lit around the usual heavy-traffic areas, like the gates. The light produced by the huge light fixtures around the airport is bright and feels warm. The inside of the terminal, which I raved about at the top of this review, comes to a life of its own in the nighttime. The insides are well lit, the coffee kiosks and newspaper stands come to life, and all of a sudden I can see the tired night-time business travelers waiting to board the plane to go home.
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The signage and navigation lights are all well lit and produce the light that you would naturally expect to see from those fixtures. The runway lights are bright and throb with life.
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Test Flight
For the test flights, I did one inbound and a few outbound flights. My KIAD inbound flight was a late morning flight, taken in good summer weather. In the given weather, the airport was well visible from the air and there was no mistaking it with others in the vicinity.
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Upon aligning with the runway heading, the glide slope navigational lights were easy to see and follow. The forest, which I talked about above, most definitely added tremendously to the realism leading up to touch down. It was an amazing rushed feeling, to approach the lush green forest from above, and to see the tops of the trees zoom by beneath my landing gear.
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Taxiing to the parking spot, using a GSX Follow Me vehicle was easy and hassle-free. We parked at gate B72, which was a gate, brought to life by GSX services, provided with this scenery.
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On my PC, which is capped at 30 FPS via FSX Settings screen, I received very solid 26+ FPS during approach and touchdown. There was no slowdown of any sort throughout the final approach and touchdown. I did experience a slight hit to the frames-per-second number during my taxiing to the gate - my frames, as measured by Fraps, hovered between 19 and 26. It did not distract or take away, from the experience, in any way.
For one of my outbound flights I chose PMDG's 777, dressed in United's livery, for a short flight into Chicago. In this scenario, during the static (but very busy) 15-20 minutes on the ground, I experienced very solid, in the 26-30 range frames-per-second. In this time, I was talking to ground/tower (using Radar Contact), running Fraps in the background, running REX Essential Plus Overdrive, and AivlaSoft’s EFB product on top of everything else. I was doing a lot of panning and zooming, enjoying the scenery and the bustling activity around the aircraft, and did not experience any issues.
Similar to my inbound experience, the hit to the performance was evident during my taxi to the runway. Again, my frames hovered in the 19-26 range, which really was not an issue at all. During take-off and climb-out on this slightly cloudy, but otherwise clear day, I again experienced very solid performance. Racing down the runway in PMDG's 777 felt fast and conveyed the aircraft's speed. The scenery played along nicely, and the experience was very immersive.
During the initial climb, I again did a lot of outside view shots, as well as views from inside the cabin, and I never experienced a single flicker on the airport footprint. I should mention that I am running my FSX in the non DX10-mode.
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Closing Remarks
This is a very solid, top of the line product. The attention to detail is amazing, the textures are superb, and the quality of the package speaks for itself through consistently high performance (high and consistent FPS, no flickering). For the price of $32 you also get, on top of the airport itself, a fully integrated FSDreamteam Ground Services X (for this airport only). I experienced any sort of issues only one time, and that coming at the end of a heavy 4-5 hour EZdok World Cam session at the airport, during which I was doing a lot of Season/Weather/Time of Day changes, a lot of screenshots using Fraps, and running multiple other Office programs in the background. So, from my personal experience, I am not going to count it against the product. In the one landing, and four departures I executed during the review, I had no issues at all.
Regardless, at the time of the review I received an email from Flightbeam Studios, which informed me that they were working on a patch that would add "a significant boost in performance and [reduce] some artifacts". That's good news, although I had no issues in my experience with the scenery.
What I Liked
- Everything!
- Buildings and Gates
- "Plane Mates"
- Environment
- Forest Around the Perimeter
- Performance
- Season-ready Compatibility (Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring)
What I Didn't Like
- I really do not have anything I would change about this product. This is now one of the best add-ons I have on my hard-drive.
System Specs I Reviewed On
- Intel® Core i7-4770K @ 3.5 GHz, Overclocked to 4.4 GHz
- Installed RAM: 8 GB
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780
- Running on Windows 7 Home Premium, Service Pack 1