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Madeira X

Product Information
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Publishers: Aerosoft

Description: Scenery for the Portuguese Archipelago of Madeira .

Download Size: Format: Simulation Type:

1.2 GB Download/DVD FSX

Reviewed by: Allen Lavigne AVSIM Staff Reviewer - February 5, 2009

Introduction:

Just north of the better known Canary Islands and 326 miles southwest of Portugal, two islands of this autonomous (only since 1976)
Portuguese archipelago called Madeira are inhabited; Madeira and Porto Santo. The capital, Funchal (pop. 100,033), is not far from
where you will find the unusual airport called Madeira, for which you are required to have a special license to land. You'll soon see why.

The other airport, Porto Santo, is smaller with only about 300 flights per month (excluding military) of which only one is a daily flight to
the mainland and 3 are to Madeira.

So what makes this scenery so interesting? Plenty.

FSCommander view Porto Santo Madeira

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Map of Madeira

Installation:

During installation, which will occupy 1.35 Gigs of your HD space, the path to FSX is found for you from your registry and if you desire
to install the scenery elsewhere, you can point it to another folder: but... I found that it will only accept a path to a valid FSX
installation, you cannot just dump it on another partition, like I did with the massive VFR-Germany-1 (12 Gigs).

However, once installed, you can move it to another partition and edit your scenery library accordingly (you have to know how to do
that and I cannot explain it here). This can help you save space on your FSX partition which may be getting full by now. Remember
though, to return the files to their original locations if you ever decide to uninstall Madeira X. As the installation is not that huge in size
by today's standards, you should not have to concern yourself about its location. You will find Madeira X in the Aerosoft folder of the
main FSX folder.

A manual and charts are included, accessed from the start menu/Aerosoft/Madeira X.
Test System
System requirements:
Vista64, SP2(beta)
Flight Simulator X with SP2
quad Q6600 2.4G, 6G RAM
●

Processor with 3 GHz, recommended Dual Core

BFG GTX260 max 896MB
●

3D graphic card with 256 MB (512 recommended)

FSX + acceleration / DX9c
●

1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended)
Active Sky Advanced +ASG+FEX
●

1.5 GB free space on your hard disk

Ultimate Traffic X / WOAI
●

● Windows XP, Windows Vista

Flying Time:
You may chose to update your airport data base for your FS Commander 8.x and for Radar
11 hours
Contact 4.3 if you plan on using these with the Madeira scenery, but I did not notice any
differences (not there aren't any...). This package comes with its own custom AI planes and
schedules. I could not get Radar Contact to recognize any runways nor any ATC frequencies at
Madeira, but all worked well at Porto Santo.

I would suggest making LPPS your destination and departure if you wish to use Radar Contact to and from the mainland. When flying
between the two island airports, you might want to use the default FSX ATC system. In the controller info page of RC4.3, the runways
for Madeira are listed in the Porto Santo page.

PORTO SANTO:

Porto Santo has the appearance of barren rock with some tenacious vegetation. It's only city (other than a couple of villages corners), is
Vila Baleira, a tourist resort that boasts a nine mile beach of white sand. The island's highest point is 1788 meters, or 5865 feet.

The instrument approach to runway 18 (by VOR/DME or NDB) is unspectacular until short final. You can see in the progressive series of
snapshots below; first you encounter dangerous cliffs, then you have a sloped runway with walls of rock on each side, and finally the
nice little terminal only becomes visible half way to the end of the runway. The experience is well worth the price of admission: it is
quite interesting, with a well done rendition of this tiny airport.

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Just a dull rock ? But beware of the solid cliff Rock walls on either side

Terminal finally visible In the clear only at RW end Vila Baleira with 36 in sight

Landing on rwy 36 is easier to approach, as it requires less diligence with the slope in your favor for stopping with a difference in
elevation between the button for rwy 18 and the button for rwy 36 of 31 meters, or 102 feet, with the button for 18 being the higher.
Turnarounds near the end of 36 allows you to get back to the terminal where there are also six military parking areas.

At 10,234 feet in length, heavies should be able to land here, but in real life they usually do not. AI planes seen landing at LPPS are of
the ATR type. They are custom AI that come with Madeira X, and are subject to the traffic sliders of FSX.

Airport layout Turnaround and military area Larger Madeira in distance

Aerosoft includes a full complement of approach and departure charts accessed from the start menu.
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Approach chart Comparing the real terminal to Aerosoft's work.

MADEIRA AIRPORT:

Now this is the airport with an architecture that defines eye candy. Although not stylistically superb, what catches your imagination here
is the geographic challenge and the engineering marvel of the elevated runway, a third of which is supported by pillars. On one side you
have the sea, and on the other, a rocky slope or a manmade inclined wall.

Looking at this pillared section makes you wonder just how safe it is. ATC will not give you a clearance for any straight-in to the button
of runway 23: it is a VOR (213) instrument path, without glide slope either, as seen in the snapshots below for the two visual VOR
instrument approaches as supplied by Aerosoft. I suspect that this type of engineering may be one of a kind, or of a rare few.

Pillar support for runway 23 Pillars seen from other end Following published procedures

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Vis (VOR) for 05 for 23 Compared to Google

I read on Aerosoft's support forum from a member who just happens to have lived on Madeira, and he remarked that the airport layout
is superb and remarkably well reproduced, but that the surrounding landmarks and objects, except for the near vicinity of the airport
itself, were lacking. It seems to me too, even without having lived or ever visited there, that the further you get from Madeira airport,
that scenery objects look more generic and scattered (though they may be that way naturally). Nevertheless, the product is a beautiful
work and I urge you to buy it if you want an FSX playground with higher than normal frame rates because of this isolation. The scenic
qualities are amazing, just like a miniature New Zealand.

View from above of Madeira Day and night views of airport building.

I found some cliffs to be displayed as "stretched" textures until you are right near them. The island of Madeira does show an abundance
of small inlets and rocky slopes, creating quite the nice panoramic view. The city is properly dense, but seems to suffer from a lack of
custom modeling for the local architecture.

There are more AI planes parked as well as coming and going at Madeira (LPMA) than at LPPS, as it is in real life where there are
thousands rather than hundreds of flights per year. There is custom AI in this package as I've noticed the new entries in my simobjects/
airplane folder with suffix _Madeira for three A320s and two ATRs, the only planes I saw there. By removing the Madeira traffic file, I
noticed that there are no AI contributions from either Ultimate Traffic X or WOAI. I can thus leave all sliders maxed, even water, but the

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blurries will develop at these levels regardless, unless you are flying real slow.

Odd "stretched" cliffs Departing Madeira 23 Full house of AI

Various levels of roads Tunnels, turnpike, and hillside autogen near airport.

On a little tour of Madeira:

From the map of Madeira (above, introduction) it is clear there are quite a few little villages. I took a little tour of the island and show
here some villages and geographical points of interest. Most autogen seems precisely placed on top of the aerial photos' imprints of
buildings with only angular misplacement. Each house is very similar though and I thought they could have used more variety and local
architecture. Perhaps they will be in the future?

The largest city, where you will find an abundance of autogen and buildings, is the capital, Funchal, where you will also find a couple of
cruise ships docked. Depending on the power of your PC, the textures will come into focus according to your system's capabilities. You
cannot just fly around the island fast and expect to see all this as I depict it without some blurries occurring. Most of these snapshots
were taken in pause mode and/or after waiting for the scenery to be in full focus. But even so, the focus was pretty good although not
perfect during flight. Take a slow VFR ride and it will be better.

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Aerial of the island (FSX) Capital city of Funchal Ponto do Pargo

Porto Moniz Boaventura Machico

You can certainly have fun in and out of valleys with acceleration's zippy P-51 racer.

Influence of the LOD_RADIUS (advanced users):

As I found with VFR-Germany 2 or any scenery for that matter that involves distances, the setting for LOD_RADIUS has an influence on
the visual quality you experience. I set mine to 8.5 for this scenery package and always had everything in focus, as that high a
Level_Of_Detail value may just be enough to cover the entire island.

As explained in my earlier review, this is limited by your Video RAM, and with mine being 896MB, it is sufficient. Less, and you would
require a lower setting for the LOD_RADIUS. Default in FSX settings is 2.5, minimum and 4.5 max. If you reset any values under your
graphics settings for FSX, this value of LOD_RADIUS will revert to your defaults value. You can then manually change it again by editing
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your FSX configuration file. If you do not know how to do this; don't do it; just use the available regular graphic settings in FSX.

I also have 6G of system RAM, and I noticed that my peak usage got to 4.3 Gigs, so your PC's performance will vary depending on this
amount.

LOD_RADIUS of 2.5 LOD=4.5 better LOD=6.5 almost LOD=8.5 perfect

Summary / Closing Remarks

Performance was fluid at all times in this scenery (<15 to >35 fps) with my system, which has become almost mediocre lately with the
new i7 technology. This unusually good performance from our teasing friend FSX could be due to the minimal hit from such a small
amount of AI, even set at 100% (at most 11 AI planes at 100% settings), and the island's total isolation from other terrain that would
be making draw requests.

It certainly helps to have a powerful computer to enjoy the scenery offered here. An LOD of 8.5 was my favorite setting with little effect
on performance, yet a dramatic enhancement for immersion. If your system specs are a lot less than mine (quad Q6600, GTX 260), you
can expect a correspondingly lesser quality, and vise versa. I was able to keep both custom scenery and autogen sliders at 100%
without any noticeable performance degradation. Not surprisingly, grazing the terrain in the cockpit of an F-16 at full throttle does
result in considerably blurred scenery.

I was expecting a little more custom buildings in the cities of Porto Santo and the Madeira Islands, as was the case with both Helgoland,
Monaco X and Venice X. At least there are a few cruise ships docked around the bend from both airports, but I never saw them depart
or arrive. Road traffic looping around the airport of Madeira was indeed nice, but was lacking or absent in most other areas, as roads
are then simply aerial photography and not laid out as road textures. Some roads seemed mismatched to the mesh as they were drawn
into cliff faces or slopes of higher than normal grade. The bridges on Madeira were very well placed and there are some with tunnels, all
with road traffic, and seemed to match their corresponding roads perfectly.

I enjoyed flying back and forth between airports and taking leisurely tours of the mountainous terrain. This scenery package makes a
nice little playground if you are short on time and just want to scoot around, but if your system is old, you may not get enough
performance to make it worth getting. But with a descent system, performance is enhanced by the relative isolation of the terrain such
that you could possibly enjoy FSX with all sliders maxed.

What I Like About Madeira X

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● Two faithfully and highly detailed airports.

● Full complement of approach charts.
● Madeira airport is amazing with the support pillars.
● Easy on frame rates.
● Breathtakingly surreal photographic terrain textures.
● Has 5 airplane types for AI (but no military?).

What I Don't Like About Madeira X

● Some cliff textures stretched, and some roads at unnatural tilts and/or grades.

Printing
If you wish to print this review or read it offline at your leisure, right click on the link below,
and select "save as"

Madeira X

(adobe acrobat required)

Comments?

Standard Disclaimer
The review above is a subjective assessment of the product by the author. There is no connection between
the product producer and the reviewer, and we feel this review is unbiased and truly reflects the
performance of the product in the simming environment as experienced by the reviewer. This disclaimer is
posted here in order to provide you with background information on the reviewer and any presumed
connections that may exist between him/her and the contributing party.

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