London City Airport is an international airport located in the East end of London. It was first proposed in 1981 by Reg Ward, a former director of the British Airports Authority. The proposal was initially met with scepticism, as the site was a former dockyard on the River Thames that required extensive redevelopment. However, the project received support from the London Docklands Development Corporation, which saw the airport as a way to stimulate economic growth in the area. Construction began in 1986, and the airport officially opened on November 5, 1987, with a single runway and a small terminal building. In the beginning, the airport was only used by Dash-7 aircraft due to its STOL abilities, but later the BAe146 become its most famous frequent user.
The airport initially served only a few routes, including Amsterdam and Paris, but quickly grew in popularity due to its convenient location and fast check-in and security procedures. In 1991, a new terminal building was constructed to accommodate the increasing number of passengers.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, London City Airport continued to expand, with the addition of new airlines and destinations, as well as improvements to the terminal and runway. In 2005, the airport underwent a major redevelopment, which included the construction of a new control tower, extended runway, and a second terminal building.
Today, London City Airport serves over 4.8 million passengers annually, with flights to over 45 destinations across Europe, including major business centres such as Frankfurt, Zurich, and Geneva. The airport has become an important hub for business travellers and has contributed significantly to the economic development of the surrounding area. London City Airport has recently installed the world's first Remote Control tower, consisting of a high platform housing multiple cameras. ATC is now performed many miles in away. The Airport has a single 5500ft runway with ILS and a steep 5.5' glide path. Only certain aircraft types are certified to fly into London city, but it's a growing list, mainly consisting of EMB170/175 190/195.
**Please note you must install the 'UK2000 Scenery Common Library'**
I would like to give this scenery more than two stars, however the current state of the addon is, in my opinion, unacceptable for the price.
Before I get into the issues, however, I'll start with the positives:
The scenery itself looks very nice. The textures aren't very high-resolution but they aren't necessarily poor, just could use some work. The terminal buildings I believe look better than the alternatives as they do feature a surprising amount of detail. I also do like the ground textures and I believe while they are somewhat low resolution, they look nicer than the other alternatives.
Other small things I like about this scenery include:
- The animated DLR (Docklands Light Railway) trains and the station, all fully modeled.
- The animated "wig-wag" Elevated Runway Guard Lights provide a very nice effect, especially at night (although they are very high intensity during the day time).
- The Jet Centre is modeled nicely with parallax interiors and some static aircraft (although - there is a TBM 930 present here - an aircraft which is not approved to land or take off at EGLC)
Unfortunately, the list of issues with this scenery is far too long to justify paying the full price. I purchased this scenery on sale as I didn't believe it looked worth the asking price of 17.99euro, and I'm glad I made this decision.
I will list the issues in a brief but detailed manner:
- The ground profiling on the taxiway dock edge near the runway 27 threshold is all over the place, and NEEDS to be improved. It appears to be sunken into the river, and has very large rifts and holes with floating fences.
- Some ground textures overlap each other and feature faint baked-in ground vehicles.
- There are random vehicle models littered across ACTIVE stands - this makes them near unusable, as they quite literally obstruct the stands.
- The default stand positioning (I.e. when you spawn in from the World Map) is entirely incorrect.
- No included GSX profile, with features of the scenery such as static vehicles in incorrect places making it very difficult to create one.
- Baked-in standing water textures on the corner of B intersection where it meets 09/27
- Wind sock in wrong place
- Terrain around edge of dock (on all edges which meet the River Thames) is full of rifts, holes, and it looks more like scrunched up origami than concrete. This is similar to the first point however less evident.
Generally, I think it's a massive shame that the scenery seems to have been abandoned. Updates to fix AT MINIMUM the terrain issues are NEEDED to make this scenery worthwhile. I am very disappointed with the apparent lack of updates.
For those considering purchasing, wait until a sale is on, or purchase an alternative option instead.
Saying it is MSFS 24 Compatible! Definitely isn't right now, its a complete laggy fps mess when you fly into it. This needs some re-work to be 24 compatible.