Just like the Flight Simulator itself as well as all other computer software, scenery design evolves overtime. Besides eventually becoming outdated with respect to the realism in which they depict their real world "counterparts", scenery Addon-ons for Flight Simulator also become outdated quickly in terms of the technology used to produce them and their visual quality overall. Unlike most other software however, scenery Add-ons often have no immediate successors while the demand due to the scenery's location is still there.
While we always try to produce innovative state-of-the-art Addon-ons that supersede our previous releases, we also wish to make new costumers aware that not all of our products are the same in terms of technology and visual quality. We will therefore be adding the term "Legacy" to our older products. The term "Legacy" indicates that we consider the given product not to be up the standards of our current releases anymore. Legacy products will be supported and updated by us as long as they remain compatible with the current version of the Flight Simulator. As far as brining these legacy products up to par with out latest releases, a complete rework from ground up is required, in which case they will become new releases completely replacing the legacy version.
I keep adding FlyTampa airports. So far I have SAN, SFO, SEA and TNCM. I love them all. The attention to detail is phenomenal and framerates take little hit if any at all.
One of my usual flights is from SAN to LAX and I was particularly impressed with Lindbergh. Compared to the default, this addon is a radical change.
If you want VFR realism or just a nice place to blast out of in your A340, FlyTampa airports are money well-spent.
It's all about the frame rates when it comes to add on scenery. Fly San Diego didn't disappoint my P4 3.0G 1.5GB ram 256MB NVIDIA system...no negative impact noticed with my sliders all at their normal 80 percent. The airport itself is pretty small (true to life), but I think it is modeled very well from what I've seen from my many real life visits and passes by runway 27. I really liked the taxi to parking as the hangar doors open for my arrival! I would rank this product 3.999 out of 5 only because of the small area covered. FlyTampa should follow the model of SimFlyers with bundle offers and pricing. I would have gladly added another 10 bucks for San Francisco. I'll still get it...if i get around to it. If San Fran's sitting next to a new jet on display, it loses out...that's the scenery upgrade game...slow!
Very good scenery, it gives you the feeling of being there and frame-rate friendly. The only problem i find is static aircrafts which are useless when using an AI traffic programme. Nevertheless the scenery is highly recommended.
Fly Tampas ability to create extremely frame rate friendly sceneries, while keeping details to a max, continues with this impressive add-on. The textures give the look of an airport 'in use' and not squeeky clean like so many payware sceneries. You can almost smell the grease and oil, the textures are that good. San Diego's approach, for those who don't know, is unique in the way you actually fly 'through' downtown with skyscrapers to the left (mostly) and the right. Martin has modelled the infamous garage on R27 perfectly and this scenery is almost worth the money for this alone. Lots of active cars move about, even on the 405 freeway. The only downside is the jetways aren't active but I can live with that! Go get it....
Yet another G-MAX speciality from Mr. Martin Brunken, this time offering the user San Diego in California. The previous review mentioned no impact on framerates, due to the small size of the airport, however on my machine framerates are slightly worse than any of the other three 'Fly' sceneries. I'm not quite sure why this is (maybe it's the huge amount of autogen in the immediate airport vicinity), however I won't let it influence the rest of my review. With San Diego, we have the now almost standard 3D taxiway edge lights (first used in FlyMiami) and the amazing custom tarmac textures, plus the usual landside detail such as car-parks, 3D cars, trees, etc. There are, however, two things which really stand out in this scenery; first is the US Coast Guard facility, which necessitates a trip out of the airport boundary and across a main road. Here, there is a helipad and a pier reaching out into the sea, moored to which are several examples of the USCG boat fleet. The pier can also be used by sea-planes, which is a nice little touch. The second thing I really like is the moving cars (yes, I did say MOVING cars!) which zoom across the raised part of the Pacific motorway (or freeway if you're American) - this really adds to the realism when on short finals to runway 27! To make the approach that bit more difficult, the multi-storey car park right at the end of this runway has also been included. In short, this is another excellent 'Fly' scenery, although I'm not entirely convinced it's worth 18 Euros, especially when compared to the bigger airports in this series. In addition, with this airport being mainly domestic, its lasting appeal is also questionable. I'm still going to give this a respectable 4, however if you live near to or often frequent San Diego airport, then this may well be deserved of the full 5.
As with the other FLYTAMPA airports, their KSAN is very well done and captures, nicely, the feel of San Diego Intl. Because of its small size, this airport barely impacted my framerates, too. Great stuff.