Aircraft used: default & LVFR 320, ATR, PMDG 738
Live weather: on
DETAIL
My first DD airport (I’ve since purchased Salzburg — one for another review) and I must say, it’s got a very ‘Flightbeam’ feel to it — they’ve achieved a similar level of authenticity with their texturing, on both buildings and the ground. However like Flightbeam the majority of the textures are medium to low resolution, presumably to try to bolster performance on Xbox.
The terminal looks pretty stunning and its main feature is definitely the imposing train station (despite it not actually being part of the main terminal), which has been beautifully recreated. It features an impressively modelled interior, plus the train tracks and associated power lines. We don’t get trains but we do get an animated tram which looks great.
Airside ground textures are fantastic, being some of the most realistic I’ve seen — the taxiways and runways have some gorgeous ‘gritty’ textures and plenty of stains and reflective rubber marks. It really does generate plenty of immersion while taxiing to stand after landing. General terraforming within the airport is excellent too, with the runways exhibiting the correct slopes and bumps.
The landside textures in the immediate vicinity of the terminal are decent, with all roads modelled, although not to the same standard as the airside areas. Disappointingly, away from these areas the textures revert to default, and some of them do look a little dodgy, even when viewed from considerable height.
The landside itself is detailed, with various peripheral buildings extending a good way back from the terminal area. There are plenty of custom vehicles, including tourist buses, although some are quite low res. Typically, the texturing quality decreases the further from the terminal you get but, as always, you’re not going to notice these areas during everyday ops.
The terminal interior, while not the most detailed I’ve ever seen, is very nicely done, with some fantastic masonry (typical of French airports) and glasswork faithfully recreated. It really does look quite incredible!
PERFORMANCE
Sadly stability is on the poor side. Not the worst I’ve seen but not great, given that LFLL isn’t what you’d describe as a large airport. Black screens are common and CTDs relatively frequent, even if laying off the drone. Often just changing exterior views a couple of times is enough to cause problems. One thing it does tend to do as a precursor to these problems is remove huge parts of the terminal and the train station, leaving empty shells. I’ve seen this before at add-on airports but not to such a noticeable and detrimental degree. Sometimes the terminals will pop back once you get close, but other times the basic structures persist, which typically is a hint of an impending crash. It’s a shame as framerate performance is very good.
VERDICT
This airport looks great but the detail is clearly causing stability issues, which have not been addressed in the 18 months since its release. There are similar sized, more stable airports that generally use higher res textures.
Unless you have to have LFLL in your collection it’s perhaps best avoided unless you want to be pretty much restricted to the cockpit during operations. It really doesn’t take much view swapping to cause problems.
It really is such a shame as this is one of the most authentic feeling airports I’ve yet come across in MSFS — the runways and taxiways look so impressive as you traverse them and that huge, prominent, architectural masterpiece that is the airport’s station just commands attention, wherever on the airfield you are.
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