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.
The scenery, especially the airport itself is reasonably well-made. Other reviewers have mentioned the lack of critical landmarks in this area, and I can't agree more with them. It'll be four stars if not for this. Initially I installed LOD10 mesh as instructed and encountered LOD update radius nightmare where everything outside that radius is depicted in horrible FSX default mesh, thus creating discontinuity in mesh. I sent THAI Creation an email but never received any reply. This unfortunately takes another star off. I figured it out myself after checking out a few other mesh made by Sandmann on AVSIM. New buyers are strongly advised to install not only the LOD10 mesh but also the LOD9 base mesh made by the same auther, this way the base mesh and buffer mesh eliminate the discontinuity.
I would have given it 4+1/2 stars but they don't do that here. Truly Excellent scenery, fantastic HQ textures in and around the airport. However I believe that 'Mr. Smiths House' the Visual Waypoint on final approach is missing, and there are a few little gaps between textures on the runway, but these are the only criticisms I could find. A must-buy if you like flying dangerous approaches, or just like the airport in general. Thai Creation have done a fantastic job, well done!
Simply fantastic scenery. Airport and its surroundings are in high quality but still bend into default scenery with good mesh very well. Must have for anyone who wants to have some difficult approaches with bigger planes.
Very nice, enjoy it to he full. This is not a deal breaker, but there are still some things left to want, namely some of the visual cues used for the approaches. I.e RWY 15, there are some houses on the first ridge that you are supposed to aim at after passing the apt, then, after decending and completing the 180 turn back to the airport, there is a blue monastery in the hillside that is used for reference missing. Also, Mr.Smiths house on the last turn before short final is missing, or hard to spot as there are a few custom-generic houses there.
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.