
Bhutan is a mountainous kingdom in the eastern Himalayas between China and India. Paro airport (IATA: PBH, ICAO: VQPR) is the only international airport in Bhutan and company operates there : DRUK AIR, the Royal Bhutan Airlines services to Bagdogra, Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Delhi, Dhaka, Gaya, Guwahati, Kathmandu and Kolkata
The airport is located 6 km (3.7 mi) from Paro in a deep valley on the bank of the Paro river at an elevation of 7,300 ft (2,200 m).
There is 1 passenger terminal, 1 cargo terminal and 4 aircraft hangars. The airport has two taxiways, asphalt runway which is 6,445 feet (1,964 m) in length.
Important!!!! please read carefully and do as instructed.
Mesh in the FSX is not good. The airport will sink into the ground.
You need to download Himalaya mesh file name fs_him_01.zip (http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?FileName=fs_him_01.zip) freeware from www.avsim.com (recommend) or use Fs Global program.
Drukair AI package (freeware) : www.world-of-ai.com
Features
- All major airport buildings included with high resolution textures.
- High detail photoscenery with 60 cm/pixel (higher than this is not available in Bhutan.) cover the area of the airport and Paro city.
- Ground poly of the runway and taxiways with high detail custom made textures.
- Custom Gmax ground texture from satellite photos will make you feel like being in the real airport
- Surrounding area including the village near by the airport. Typical Bhutanese houses, Gmax models not autogen.
- Real 3D grass.
The package can work with FSX only.
Same thing with the aproach to RWY 33, missing monastery, powerlines and a few houses that are used as reference points for aproach are here missing too.
I am of the opinion that; since these are key parts of the whole experience and procedure for landing at Paro, that these should have been included. As for now, you are forced to use your imagination, wich can be hard if you've never seen the real thing :)
Other than that, wich I hope will be resolved in a future patch, the airport and surroundings are well done and well worth the price. But, as I said, I am a bit dissapointed that, in my opinion, these key scenery points are missing. That makes for a complet airport and valley floor but leaves you with your own imagination in terms of visual cues/reference points when performing a correct approach to either runway.
It would have been 5 stars had it not been because the scenery is, in my opinion, lacking integral parts. So I'll give it 4 for now.