Trees. A very useful tool for the everyday pilot, as they can be used to judge height above the ground, show wind direction and, if you’re in the situation to need them, believe it or not, they can make the difference between a survivable crash and a fatal one.

They’re also something of a discussion point within the flight simulation community, as natural looking foliage is one of the challenges facing scenery designers. 29Palms, scenery developers themselves, have now attempted to to simplify that issue by releasing a pack of 3d volumetric tree models for developers, including a license to use the models in both free- and payware scenery projects.

The package includes the tree models in two different modelling application formats for customisation or modification, as well as FS9 and FSX MDL format ready to be added to sceneries directly or added to an object library. More screenshots and details about this latest ‘growth’ in the developers’ toolkit can be found here.