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FLYTAMPA has increased quality throught years, this item look awfully old compared to the new ones. Good on framerates, but should cost the half of the selled price. FLYTAMPA LEGACY - BOSTON V.3 FSX FS2004.
One of the most historic cities in the United States, Boston, Massachusetts is home to the sprawling General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport (IATA: BOS, ICAO:KBOS). With six asphalt runways, four terminals and an iconic Air Traffic Control Tower (ATCT), Boston Logan airport serves as a focus city for Delta and Jetblue, and a hub for regional carriers Pen Air and Cape Air. The city also has scheduled international service to destinations including Beijing, London, Dublin, Frankfurt and Qatar.
The longest runway (15R/33L) is 10,083 feet long by 200 feet wide, and the airport is capable of handling aircraft as large as an Airbus A380 superjumbo. For the past years, the most well regarded flight-sim rendition of the airport was FlyTampa’s past edition of Boston Logan. However, as the time went by, the airport was changed by multiple construction projects and changes to the terminals, gates, taxiways and airport environment. As well, the dated FlyTampa version did not work in the latest version of Lockheed Martin’s Prepar3D, and had fallen out of date. It was announced some time ago that the scenery developer was working on a new version of Boston Logan, packed full with the latest features, including dynamic lighting, updated buildings, night lighting, and textures. After months of build up, the scenery was officially released around two weeks ago. George from FlyTampa kindly provided AirDailyX with a copy of the scenery to review, and over the past weeks I’ve done a good amount of flying into and out of the new Boston Logan scenery.
Installation Out of the “box” FlyTampa Boston is very similar to their other recent sceneries. To install it, I downloaded an.exe installer and a data file. Running the installer, I provided my purchase information, and it then automatically installed into Prepar3D v4. It is worth noting that this scenery is only available for Prepar3D v4, and will not work in older versions of Prepar3D. This is good for v4 users because it means the scenery was compiled with the v4 SDK, resulting in optimum performance in v4. Once the installer had completed, it automatically ran the FlyTampa configuration tool.
It lets you change things such as the season, approach lighting, etc. It’s fairly straight forward and, again, remains the same as their other products.
Initial Impressions I loaded in at Boston first in the FSLabs Airbus 320 as JetBlue has a large presence at the airport. My initial impression was very good; performance was on par with most major sceneries, and the buildings looked fantastic. For some reason one of the runways (4R/22L) is not showing up in the location selection screen, but I otherwise had no issues. I flew during the first of three Nor’Easters that has hit Boston in the past two weeks, and was not disappointed. The snow textures and attention to detail are simply stunning, and the airport truly felt bogged down with snow.
FlyTampa incorporated a lot of little details that make their scenery come alive, including the little status signs above gates. Instead of just leaving random flight information in the signs, FlyTampa included a “Contact GRD 121.9. WICKED!” message, emphasis on the “Wiiked” Baaahstahn accent. They also included a little fluffy suprise up in the tower cab, much like they did in their post Boston edition. Go check it out! Buildings and Terminals. FlyTampa included the multitude of improvements and changes to their new Boston scenery.
The Bravo terminal was expanded and had one side rebuilt a couple years ago, with a variety of new United Airlines gates, a colorful mural and a new, modern, glass wall looking out to the west over the airport. The Charlie terminal, which is mostly occupied by JetBlue, as well as Spirit, Sun Country and Alaska, has received some improvements and modernizations, and the entire terminal is well depicted.
The international/echo terminal has been widely expanded recently, including more heavy gates and a gate capable of handling the A380. The terminal does look slightly out of place compared to the rest of the airport, but it’s a nice modern touch. Overall, the modelling is truly fantastic. Along with the usual FlyTampa flare (a little surprise in the Air Traffic Control tower and the wicked gate signs) the modeling was clear and well detailed. The scenery takes advantage of new Prepar3D v4 features including dynamic lighting and reflective glass surfaces. Comparing photos I took the last time I flew out of the real Boston Logan airport to photos I’ve taken in the sim, FlyTampa’s Boston Rebooted comes extremely close to the real airport. One downside is that the airport does not feature SODE jetways.
SODE has been used more and more by scenery developers the past few months, and many were expecting it in the new Boston scenery. With that said, this scenery comes with some of the best ctrl+j jetways I’ve ever seen. They have a very good level of detail and work well as well. If you’re someone who wants an easy jetway connection and just pressing two keys and being done with it, you’ll definitely enjoy this feature. If you were expecting SODE jetways you’ll be disappointed, but I also think these particular ctrl+k jetways are about as good an alternative as they come. Textures In the ever-evolving simulation market, users are always looking for higher quality textures.
FlyTampa’s Boston Rebooted meets the high standards set forth by the current generation of sceneries, and the recent spell of storms through the Northeast provided the perfect opportunity to examine them. Boston Rebooted comes with a full set of 2048 resolution textures for multiple seasons, which can be switched out using the FlyTampa configurator tool found with their other sceneries. The winter textures were truly fantastic. Not only does the scenery have snowy textures for the field, the taxiway and runway textures have snow on them, looking as though they were recently plowed but it is still snowing.
As well, the scenery has 3D snow piles in between taxiways, something I hadn’t considered relevant until I actually saw them. As well, the night lighting is fantastic. FlyTampa Boston plays well with Prepar3D v4’s new dynamic lighting, and I found the taxiway and runway lights to be quite realistic. Especially with the earlier sunset during the winter months, good night lighting is a MUST for a Northeastern US scenery, and FlyTampa did a great job making Boston come alive at night. The level of immersion added by the high quality textures is impressive, and is yet another reason why FlyTampa Boston Rebooted is worth the money. Conclusion After months of anticipation, FlyTampa Boston Rebooted is here. FlyTampa continues to keep themselves among the top of flight simulation scenery developers.
Their new Boston scenery features a modernized airport, superb modelling and fantastic textures. It is unfortunate that the scenery does not have SODE jetways, however it otherwise is among the best sceneries currently released for Prepar3D. It has the typical FlyTampa “flair,” and takes advantage of new features added in to Prepar3D v4. It’s worth the price many times over, and would be a fantastic addition to anyone’s flight sim.
“FlyTampa One, contact Baaahston Depacha, see ya!”.