Review: JustSim – Nice Côte d’Azur Airport NG Series for MSFS

Review by: Rick Desjardins

Nice Côte d’Azur Airport, ICAO: LFMN is an international airport located near the city of Nice in the Alpes-Maritimes department in south-west France on the Mediterranean coast. It is the third busiest airport in France and serves as a hub for Air France and an operating base for EasyJet. In 2023 it handled just over 14 million passengers. Due to its close proximity to Monaco it also serves as that city-state’s airport. The airport has three terminals; Terminals 1 is mostly for domestic passengers with the newer and larger Terminal 2 handling all other destinations and the small Business Aviation Terminal collocated with terminal 2.  

The airport has 2 runways; 04L/22R @8,432ft and 04R/22L @9,711ft

Installation

Installation was very straightforward using the SimMarket app.  I downloaded the scenery zip file to my PC and promptly unzipped it. Once that was done I simply moved it to the location of my choice. I use MSFS Addon Linker so for me I put it in my custom location community folder.  

Visuals

Overall I was wowed by what they’ve done in this regard. The level of detail, the amount of detail and the overall results were amazing.  

Ground Texture

Detailed and realistic are two words that immediately came to mind as I took a close up look at the work they did in this regard. Throughout the entire area covered by this scenery I was very impressed by the quality. No matter where I looked I was extremely happy with what I saw. Quite often developers use less detailed ground textures on the arrivals side of an airport but that was not the case here, these textures were every bit as good. So if you are the type of simmer who likes to explore all parts of the scenery coverage area, be ready to be impressed.

Structures and Objects

I was equally blown away by what I saw with regards to the structures.  The airport has two large passenger terminals, a business terminal, a freight/cargo terminal, ATS/Met/control tower complex, a fuel storage area, fire station and several small hangars. On the arrivals side there are a couple of large multi-level parking garages. Overall the diversity of design makes it an interesting airport to explore.  Looking closely at the various structures it quickly became evident that this developer put a great deal of effort into making each one of them as realistic as possible. The hand crafted buildings include lots of discrete details; 3 dimensional walls, windows, doorways and roof tops. From top to bottom nothing seemed to be overlooked.

Modelling the interiors of buildings is a feature many developers now include and this airport is no exception. Here they’ve modelled the interiors of Terminal 2, the fire station garage and the control tower. The level of detail is amazing to say the least.  As with the exteriors they clearly set the bar very high for quality and they did not disappoint. When I was exploring the interior areas, especially Terminal 2, I felt as if I was there in person. For many I am sure they may think that the effort gone into this part of the scenery is a waste of resources and a potential drag on your computer. Let me say that performance was never impacted. Even though I may only explore these interior spaces on a very limited basis it is interesting to see what they look like and it can certainly help to showcase the quality of the developers work.

Of course no airport scenery would be complete without including all those objects that go into the necessary daily operations or all of the items needed to bring that sense of this being a hectic and vibrant area with so much going on.  As with the other visual aspects they ticked all the boxes and more including everything you could think of seeing at a large commercial airport.

Something they’ve done that I can’t say I’ve seen, at least to this degree, is the placement of static people throughout the entire airport seeming to take part in whatever activity is appropriate for that location. Most developers might add static people to the interiors of the passenger terminal and control towers when those areas are modelled however that is usually the extent of it, here they have taken it that extra step which I think makes a huge impact on overall realism. This may seem insignificant at first but it is a subtle visual enhancement that helps bring the entire airport to life, all this with no noticeable impact to performance.

Animations

The airport includes animated buses, fire trucks and fuel trucks that can be seen moving along some of the airport service roads.

The airport also has a tram that shuttles passengers between the two terminals and that has been modelled with two trains that can be seen moving along the dedicated track system.

Night

The night time aspect of the scenery was equally well done. The intensity and coverage areas of the various types of lighting made for a realistic experience throughout.  

Approaches

The approaches available to the pilot vary depending on which runway is chosen. For runways 04L and 04R you have the option to use precision approaches. In my experience with the scenery they worked as per the charts. For runways 22L and 22R the only approaches available are non-precision.

Final Thoughts

In my opinion, based on the various MSFS airports I’ve experienced, this has to be one of the best payware airport scenery products currently available for MSFS. I could not find anything negative as far as my experience goes with this product. Superbly rendered airport with great performance!

I am anxiously awaiting to see what airport will benefit from their next generation upgrade as I have no doubt it will be worth every penny.