Aircraft used: ATR, BlackBox BN-2 / Shorts 360
Live weather: on
DETAIL
TQPF was the very first airport scenery by one-man-band SLH Sim Designs and is, surprisingly, one of the best in his Caribbean series. It’s apparently an airport he knows extremely well, which no doubt helped him get the level of detail just right.
The terminal is gorgeous, inside and out, although as usual with SLH the arrivals part of the interior has been omitted for security reasons. While on the subject of the inside, we get static passengers and every sign, poster, bin and decoration has been faithfully recreated. The landside area features plenty of static vehicles (not the highest res) and the usual SLH attention to detail, such as fully modelled roads/car-parks, signage and vegetation. There are lots of advertising billboards dotted around, too, which presumably are a feature of the real airport. At the end of runway 10 part of a main road has been modelled, including static traffic, streetlights and a small intersection exhibiting a stylised ‘Anguilla’ sculpture.
On the ramp the textures are great and the taxiways and runway feature convincing signs of wear and tear.
The standout feature for me is the inclusion of a plethora of static aircraft, ranging from Islanders of the local commuter airlines to large luxury bizjets. Their quality is outstanding and it really is a pleasure to fly in and see them all, parked where they would be in real life. Unfortunately, due to demands made by PC owners, the static aircraft are no longer a feature of SLH’s airports, and the LVFR statics pack has little coverage in this region (of SLH’s current collection, only Pointe-a-Pitre is covered). I don’t know the ins and outs of add-ons such as FSLTL and FS Traffic on PC but I was under the impression that they didn’t include the sort of aircraft this airport primarily hosts.
Finally, there is a little more off-airport detail, in the form of a handful of boats and ships in the surrounding waters. They’re quite nice but I’d rather have seen a little more detail around the airport perimeter, rather than on the water. I have Seafront Sim’s excellent Vessels: Anguilla, St. Maarten & St. Barths pack, which does a better job of populating the nearby waters. Still, if you don’t have this add-on, every little helps…
PERFORMANCE
It’s quickly become apparent to me that SLH’s airports are 100% stable, even with the detail increases seen in the last couple of releases. TQPF is no exception and I have full confidence in this airport — I have whizzed around in the drone for prolonged periods many times and everything has always been fine upon my return to the flightdeck. Given that SU14 destabilised many decent airports on Xbox, TQPF puts in an impressive performance. I get absolutely no stuttering.
VERDICT
The dev’s knowledge of this airport has ensured the level of detail is higher than his other projects from the same period. It’s not THE most detailed out there but it does nicely capture the flavour of a small Caribbean gateway and it has just about enough surrounding detail to make flying in here a pleasurable experience. That said, I think there could be slightly more modelled in the airport’s immediate vicinity, to offer VFR pilots a bit of eye candy.
An enormous plus point for this scenery is the inclusion of those beautiful static aircraft, which really add to the immersion. Furthermore, the dev plans to upgrade his older sceneries to bring them in line with the latest examples — since this one’s already very good, I’m really looking forward to the update!
Unfortunately, away from St. Maarten, St. Barths and Saba, the default scenery in this region isn’t the best. It’s not the worst either but I’m hoping the next World Update (the Caribbean) will address many of the islands SLH has covered with his airports. In spite of this, I have thoroughly enjoyed flying into and out of this small airport — the proximity of both the Netherlands Antilles and SLH’s other airports make island-hopping great fun, and the appropriate Seafront Vessels pack really brings the entire area to life.
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