Introduction
Mega Airport Frankfurt is Aerosoft’s latest masterpiece. It is an incredibly accurate and detailed scenery rendition of this international airport.

The real EDDF handles over 50 Million passengers a year and is the largest airport in Germany, it is also one of the largest airports in Europe.  According to the Frankfurt Airport website, as of October the 29th 2005, EDDF main was the only official A380 airport in the world, they actually had a boarding bridge service the upper deck too.  As well as this work to enable handling of the A380, they are also constructing a maintenance facility.

Frankfurt Main prides itself on its integrated transport network and it’s hard not to notice the moving rail system when you fire up this scenery for the first time.  From above, you can see the close proximity of the railway station.  This makes life for passengers using this busy airport that little bit easier.
There’s loads more info on the Official Website

                       

Installation
Installation is incredibly straight forward and just requires confirming your default FS directory, entry of the serial number provided by e-mail (or with the cd box) and confirming your choice of traffic.  You can choose from various options including static traffic with add-on traffic and no static traffic with default traffic.

Unfortunately though, there are some problems.  It is necessary to re-run the traffic tool after installation to remove duplicate traffic, there is already a service pack which fixes an uninstall virus message as well as flickering textures at other airports.  It seems to have solved the problem I recently had flying to Fly Tampa’s Dubai where the textures were a complete mess on approach. However, these are minor problems and they are probably included in the latest executable.

                      

First Impressions
Not much needs to be said here really, it looks absolutely fantastic and in terms of feeling “busy” puts everything else out there pretty much to shame.  My previous favourite airport, Dubai by Fly Tampa seems quiet by comparison.  This airport really seems alive, with pushback trucks and even fire engines racing past with sirens blaring.  There is also a mass of surrounding scenery including hotels, City Centre Frankfurt and the Commerzbank Arena, home of Eintracht Frankfurt football club.  Unfortunately though, moving jetways are not modelled, this is surprising considering the polished feel of this scenery, but performance issues probably accounted for it.

                      

Overall Impressions
After quite a few flights in and out as well as many an hour spent exploring, it is very easy for me to say that this is definitely my favourite FS airport.  Anyone who has seen the screenshot section of this and the Just Flight site can attest to, I have based quite a few of my recent screenshot series on it.  It simply has an immersive quality never before seen (by me anyway) in FS.  The wow factor as you hear those sirens is just fantastic.  I have no doubt that many of your future flights will either start or finish here, perhaps even both!  It will be a long time before you have noticed every little detail as there is literally so much. Other than the vehicles, highlights including people on the balconies, A380 signs and numerous hotels. With an add-on camera such as Walk + Follow, it really is a pleasure to explore this scenery and it easily justifies its €25 (Approx £17) asking price.

                      

Performance
I know that this is probably the most important consideration for all the flight simmers out there.  There’s a good chance that you’re probably thinking your machine won’t be able to run this highly complex scenery.  I would say that if you run any of the other large add-on airports satisfactorily then you should have no problem with this.

View my machine specification and addons

To give an idea, running the above programs and add-ons with the described settings, I get about 10-12 fps in both 2d cockpit view and spot view.

I appreciate that my system isn’t low-end, but it certainly isn’t high end anymore either.  Remember that these results are from maximum detail.  It would be a simple task to drop AI Traffic to 80% and disable ground scenery shadows.  I like the eye candy for screenshots though and can live with relatively low frame rates. For comparison, I can confirm that my frame rates at the default Paris Charles De Gaulle were about double those on takeoff and approach and about the same in spot view.

                      

Conclusion
This is by far the best airport scenery for FS2004 out there at the moment.  Somehow they have managed to make this incredibly detailed and busy airport frame rate friendly as well.  This can only be good for us simmers as the other developers out there are going to have to raise their game.  It’s not so welcome news for the other 3rd party designers out there though. 

The team are now working on Mega Airport Hanover. If it’s anywhere near as good as Frankfurt I will certainly be purchasing it and I urge everyone reading this to do the same.  If you’re listening though Aerosoft, please do Manchester!

For now, for me, with add-on scenery like this, FSX can wait.

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