Tahiti X for FSX v1.01
Published by Aerosoft
Review by Joe (Mutley) Lawford
November 2008
Introduction.
Here I am facing the onset of those winter blues, dark evenings, cold
and dull days. DST has just ended so not to be stuck in a rut I started
looking around for something to brighten up those upcoming evenings.
Looking first at one of my favourite developers to cure my malaise, a title
jumped off the screen into my view, Tahiti X. Tahiti X? hmm, sounds exotic,
sounds warm, sounds just like what the doctor ordered? Let’s have a look.
This software is not just about Tahiti, it’s about French Polynesia, in the
South Pacific, romantic names like Bora-Bora, Tahaa and Maupiti are all
part of this archipelago.
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The spec looks promising, it features 14 islands, 9 of which have detailed
airfields modelled covering a staggering 2,500,000 square kilometres!
Here is the list of islands and airports, to the unadventurous simmer these
names probably don’t ring a bell, but to me, the explorer, that just makes
me want to visit more!
Here we go:
Island |
Airport |
|
Bora Bora |
Motu Mute (NTTB) |
|
Huahine |
Fare (NTTH) |
|
Maiao |
-x- |
|
Manuae |
-x- |
|
Maupihaa |
-x- |
|
Maupiti |
Maupiti (NTTP) |
|
Mehetia |
-x- |
|
Moorea |
Temae (NTTM) |
|
Motu One |
-x- |
|
Raiatea |
Uturoa, (NTTR) also Fetuna, Motu Nao Nao (NNAO) |
|
Tahaa |
-x- |
|
Tahiti |
Faa'a, (NTAA) |
|
Tetiaroa |
Tetiaroa (NTTE) |
|
Tupai |
Tupai (NTPX) |
Be on your guard though, I thought there were 2 airfields missing, NTPX and
NNAO but they appear as TPX and NAO in flight sim. That nearly caught me
out, I found the easiest way to find the airfields was by setting the region
to French Polynesia and hey presto there they all are! There are 6 islands
without airfields, now that is just crying out for a float plane such as
the Beaver or Twin Otter! In fact a twin would be your ideal choice as some
of these islands are separated by hundreds on miles.
Installation
Purchase and installation followed the well established pattern of a
download link and key code sent by mail after payment, how much I hear you
ask! Well only €17.95 available only as a 193Mb download. This software
delivery method is fast becoming the norm, I must admit I do like to have a
shiny dvd but I am too impatient, it has taught me to keep safe back ups of
my software so that is not a bad thing.
The supplied pdf manual is brief and to the point. You can find a list of
ICAO’s to go straight to any airfield. It also offers sensible hints on the
setup of your display config. One must do is to set your marine traffic to a
high level as there are a lot of ships and boats included in the scenery.
Exploring.
For my first airfield, not having any local knowledge, I “plumped” for
Maupiti MTTP.
This was a good choice! There was a well equipped airfield with a
maintenance hangar with aircraft insitu and a large wooden hut style
terminal. Scattered around are other interesting visual features such as
construction traffic wood piles and cargo waiting for collection.
The terminal area was populated with several passengers, some animated but I
did a double take as I have seen these characters before in another
piece of software. As with the other scenery program these animated characters
do have a FPS hit. Some of them I thought were unnecessarily animated,
particularly a young lady who is marching on the spot and not actually going
anywhere. With this said, I felt this airfield had a real feeling of a
community existing here. In the distance I could see boats moored and even a
school of dolphins leaping out of the water in formation!