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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.
 


Motu Mute - Bora Bora


Tetiaroa

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


Choose French Polynesia region

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!


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