Aircraft used: PMDG 738, LVFR 320
Live weather: on
Released at the same time as their Gold Coast, Gladstone is by indy dev Rob Byrne, whose previous work includes Rockhampton and Mackay.
DETAIL
Despite being by a different dev than Gold Coast (by Matteo Veneziani), Gladstone is similar in many ways; particularly in featuring some lower-res texturing in places. In the case of YGLA, it’s some of the surrounding roads and railways rather than airfield assets, and as such it’s perhaps a little less noticeable. If I were to be really picky, I’d say SOME of the airside ground markings could do with being a tad sharper, but that’s being overly critical.
Almost everything about this airport impresses me. The terminal looks fantastic, inside and out. The interior is complete and features static passengers. The landside exterior is somewhat disappointing, being quite bare — and the parked vehicles have a very short draw distance — but the majority of pilots won’t be scrutinising this area. At least the landside roads are custom modelled, instead of being left to the default satellite imagery.
The focus here has clearly been on the airside area, which is arguably where you’d rather it were. The two-tier apron is quite a novelty and has been superbly modelled, complete with all walls, barriers and walkways. It really does look incredible. In fact, the terraforming across the entire airfield is excellent, with similar work having been done on the opposite side of the field, around the GA area. There’s custom airfield lighting, too, which looks great. The airside terminal exterior more than makes up for the lacklustre landside, although I’d say a touch more weathering would have made it perfect. Still, it’s far from bad as it is.
The real attraction here, though, is what’s modelled outside the perimeter fence. We get a selection of roads and railways (not the highest resolution but acceptable, given the height they’re typically viewed from) plus some beautifully-crafted bridges and underpasses. On the rail tracks we get both static and animated trains, which thankfully have been given more attention than the lines they run on. Further away there’s a huge power station that dominates the skyline to the north of the airfield, it’s two chimneys belching out animated smoke/steam. Rob might not have put in as much as he perhaps could have, regarding surroundings, but what he has included makes approaching and departing this airport incredibly immersive.
PERFORMANCE/STABILITY
I installed this airport under SU14 and the animated trains seem to cause some issues (black screens, CTDs) when viewed up close or when they feature too heavily in the frame. However in the latest SU15 beta things seem much improved and I had to push it to get it to black-screen.
Unfortunately, the scenery is a little more stuttery than in the previous SU, but that’s a decent trade-off for the apparent increase in stability.
Worth noting that, although both multiplayer and live AI traffic were on, there were no other aircraft in the area, human or sim-generated. Not surprising given the remoteness of the city; but live weather presented some pretty heavy, multi-layered cloud cover so I think it was sufficiently challenged.
VERDICT
It’s getting hard to pin down stability and performance issues across the latest builds but Gladstone is acceptable in all of them, given the level of detail. Even in SU14 it wasn’t terrible — I just needed to be careful when using exterior view or the drone. I’d still recommend a little caution with the new beta but it does seem to be the animated trains that cause any problems.
That aside, it’s a fabulous-looking airport with some real-life quirks that have been faithfully recreated. The immersion added by the custom surroundings can’t be overstated and I’m not sure words (or even images) can do it justice. I’m a real fan of flying in Oz (despite not being from there) so this and Gold Coast were no-brainers for me; however YGLA is well worth checking out if you want something a little… different. This is the kind of airport that makes you fall in love with a particular place, rather than the place leading to a love of the airport.
If you regularly fly Australia’s east coast, it’s a must. And if you don’t, the reasonable price probably warrants a nosy anyway! The sheer number of airports now available in this region of the country means you’ll never be stuck for variety — a 20-minute hop or a 2hrs+ flight?
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