Gathering up my general comments on the scenery, I should add that all the runways and taxiways are very impressively textured and marked, and the detail also extends to 3D side boundary lights, grass edges and direction signs. The runway approach lighting structures are there in excellent detail and even the red and white hazard perimeter road side-panelling is in place. All the apron areas are finished to a similar high level of detail including lots of lighting pylons, signs, noise and blast deflectors and static objects. Slight limited flickering of textures was evident on some apron areas but this has been addressed through the release of a service pack (see below). At night, the airport lights up very impressively, with Pier A being particularly attractive and convincing. Although all the various hangars around the airport look well, they do not include any interior 3D detail but instead are limited to 2D pictures where closed doors are replaced by flat images of the interior.
On the issue of frame rates, I made a crude comparison between this scenery and the previous package I reviewed, Aerosoft’s Hannover, and with a PMDG 737 (2D cockpit view) positioned at comparable locations (runway 25R at Brussels and runway 9R at Hannover), most sliders well forward and 100% AI Traffic, the frame rates were 9 at Brussels and 16 at Hannover. This supported my perception that, even though certain elements of scenery only appear within a minimum distance (e.g. docking arms), Brussels is on the heavy side with regards to frame rate
The original AFCAD file that came with the scenery was a disappointment in that there was poor use of available parking spaces and none of the spaces designated to any airlines. Fortunately this has been put right through the release of a superior AFCAD file by Jean-Philippe Delwiche, which is available at AVSIM as afcad_ebbr.zip or by downloading Service Pack 1 from the Dreamfactory website (www.dreamfactorystudio.eu). Service pack 1 addresses, in addition to the AFCAD issue, some very minor and cosmetic imperfections with the scenery (mainly texturing).
In conclusion, I would say that although the Dream Factory rendition of Brussels Zaventem does incorporate all the main features of the airport very well, it is a competent but not outstanding scenery addon when compared to other payware scenery addons available. It is held back slightly by somewhat reduced frame rates and lack of attention to detail in some buildings texturing and in the product manual itself. However, if you want to fly to a convincing major airport in this part of Europe, it is a worthy addition to your scenery collection.
An image gallery is on the next page.
Editors Note: Product is published by Aerosoft and is available also at simMarket as Download and Boxed versions.
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Pity however is that the scenery creates a lot of telephone and electricity poles and billing boards someway NW of Zaventem and ruin therefore the airfield of Grimbergen scenery.