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Introduction

When looking around for somewhere new to visit I was hoping to find an airport with something unique that made it special in some way. Eventually, I came across Tromsø, situated 370 km (229 mi) inside the Arctic Circle at latitude of 69.4°N.

Tromsø, in the north of Norway is known as the capital of the Arctic and is surrounded by beautiful fjords and mountains. From 20 May to 22 July, the midnight sun is a special experience, with daylight 24 hours for two months. Between 21 November and 21 January, the sun disappears below the horizon and the polar night sets in. It is not completely dark in the middle of the day, the light and colour in the sky is very special - it is called the blue twilight.

Tromsø X from Aerosoft looks to be my ideal companion, it’s one of the latest creations by developer Jo Erlend Sund who has also created other Norwegian airfields such as Oslo, Bergen, Stravanger and Trondheim.  

History

In the 1930‘s a water aerodrome was established in Tromsø, during its early years it served as an hub for Norwegian Air Lines. Nothing more than an water aerodrome existed until the 1950‘s when it was stated that Tromsø should have its own hard surface airfield.

Early plans were conceived and the area of Langnes was chosen as the most suitable location. Construction finally began in 1961 and the airfield was opened three years later in 1964. In 1977 the original terminal was replaced by a newer building, shaped like a semicircle. The current main terminal was built in 1998 as part of a comprehensive expansion and modernisation of the airport; it included a new control tower and, for the first time, passenger jet bridges at several gates.

Location Coordinates: N69°40.88' / E18°55.07' Elevation: 32.0 feet MSL Magnetic Variation: 7° East Tromsø Airport, (IATA: TOS, ICAO: ENTC) is situated at Langnes, on the western side of the island of Tromsøya, 1.7 nautical miles (3.1 km; 2.0 mi) northwest of the city centre. As mentioned above, the airport is more than 200 miles inside of the Arctic Circle. Runway: 01/19 7,848 x 148 ft (2,392 x 45 m) — paved — lighted— threshold 19 displaced 1,286 ft (392 m)

Location

Product Features

Aerosoft promise us the following features.
        • Highly realistic recreation of Tromsø Airport, Langnes (ENTC, BGO)
        • Fully compatible with FSX ACC, P3Dv1.4 and P3Dv2.2
        • High detail models of all airport buildings and installations.
        • Highly realistic taxiway and runway textures.
        • Realistic shadows on the ground and objects.
        • Realistic 3D grass and vegetation.
        • Numerous custom made static objects.
        • Includes highly detailed terminal Interior.
        • High resolution textures (2048px) included as an option.
        • All seasons included.
        • Realistic night time effects.
        • Static aircrafts included as an option.
        • Animated passengers move inside the terminal.
        • Fully functional docking system (FSX and P3Dv1.4 only)
        • Compatible with all major AI traffic packages.
        • Includes Configuration Tool for optimal performance.

Availability and Installation

Tromsø X can be purchased from its publisher Aerosoft, on line, or from one of the many online FS resellers. Aerosoft’s servers are very fast and the only limitation in download speed will be your connect speed. At 650MB it is a large chunk of data so a download manager is advised.

Installation is automated with only the selection of the base simulator required. Once the installation is complete you must run the configuration tool so you can adjust the complexity of the scenery, this way you will be able to deactivate certain features and have better performance on lower end systems. Options included are shown below


        • 3D Lights - This option you can choose between simple or complex taxi, runway and approach lights.
        • 3D Passengers -This option controls the display of 3D people sitting and walking around inside the terminal.
        • Dense Equipment - This option controls the amount of static equipment located around the airport.
        • Static Aircraft - Static aircrafts are included as an option.
        • Docking System - Fully functional docking system is included in this scenery. (FSX and P3Dv1.4 only)
        • Animated Vehicles – This option controls the use of vehicles running around airside.
        • 3D Grass - The scenery includes three different options regarding 3D grass, none, lite and dense.
        • Street Lights - This option controls the street light orb you can see along roads close to the airport.
        • 2048 Textures - 2048 sized textures to be included in the scenery.
        • City Models - Includes custom models of the city of Tromsø.
        • Extra 3D Passengers –More animated people inside the terminal
        • Runway Markings – A choice of white or yellow is available, In the future all Norwegian airports will be repainted with white markings.
        • Season – This option controls seasonal textures of the objects and season has to be selected before selecting the equivalent season is FSX
          (a script rums to swap out the correct files).

Documentation

In the Windows Start menu we have presented 2 documents in the Aerosoft / Tromso X folder. The main product handbook runs to 22 pages split between English and German. The manual offers offers information about the real world airport’s history and location along with an explanation of the features included with the config tool as shown above.

The second document is a useful collection of navigational charts over 22 pages including area, approach and terminal information.

Scenery Coverage

The coverage area provided by Tromsø X measures approximately 22 km2 (8.5 sq mi) and includes the whole island of Tromsøya . The scenery features photoreal ground textures covering the island with 50cm/pixel resolution, with the airport itself covered with 20cm/pixel resolution textures.

Level of Detail

The scenery includes all buildings and installations at the airport, taking advantage of texture baking to create realistic shadows on the ground objects.

Interior modelling of the terminals are also included, the interior is filled with static objects and (in the main terminal) passengers can be seen pacing around from outside or inside the cockpit at the gate.

Terminals

Inside the Main Terminal

Much of the island features generic buildings but does include many custom buildings especially on the east side of the island in and around the city and docks of Tromsø. Included are landmark buildings like the wooden cathedral, university, 3 ski jumps, and the 2 connecting bridges to the island.

I have spent quite some time looking at the buildings in the surrounding scenery was surprised at how many custom objects have been placed and can be directly compared with their Google Earth counterparts. One detail in particular which impressed me was the Tromsø Flyklubb buildings and the graffiti on an adjoining building which is right there in the sim and on Google Earth.

Flyklubb - Google Earth

Flyklubb - FSX

Quality of Buildings

Overall, the quality of the buildings are very good, as is the norm, the more important the object is, the better the detail. In the town there are some distinctive shaped objects that are recognisable as real world, but when you zoom into them there was little or no detail in the textures. I understand the reasoning that the polygons are being put to good use elsewhere.

There are two distinctive road bridges which can be seen from several miles away, they are the Bruvegan Bridge to the east heading into the main town, and the larger and more impressive Sannesund Bridge to the west which can clearly be seen on approach to both runways and is modelled with 3D lights and light spots on the road at night.

Sannesund Bridge	Ski Jumps
Wooden Cathedral	City Detail and Bruvegan Bridge
Industrial Area	Airport Entrance and Car Park

The terminal buildings have many angles, inclinations and curves. The developer has definitely showcased their skills here, but to be honest, the airport is more functional looking than easy on the eye. There is a wide selection of buildings from huge hangars, to smaller offices, many have recognisable signage of global companies, some buildings have no identity but have a unique shape.

The design and quality of the control tower is pretty much in keeping with the airport, sturdy and capable. As the developer has the technology it would have been great to see a couple of controllers in there as well.

Airport

This is a medium sized international airport. It has commercial areas to the west and east of the runway with the western side within the airport environs.

To the east of the field is fencing gives it security from a road and the commercial area but unfortunately there is a long distance of fencing missing to the north which seems to be simply an error. There is a small flying club, the Tromsø Flyklubb on the eastern perimeter which has access to the runway via two taxiways. There are a few more buildings on this side and quite a lot of low growing shrubs.

Moving to the southern approach, the CL/XBAR approach lighting is built out to sea on rocky pontoons and looks well modelled and accurate, two thirds in, the localiser aerials can be seen making the overall effect very believable. Just below the threshold is a tunnel under the runway which takes traffic from the bridge and airport to the city. This is a very nicely modelled feature and not one you would notice on approach.

01 Approach	19 Approach
Road Tunnel Under Runway	Missing Fence for Half Runway Length

Moving onto the apron, to the south is a de-icing area, there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of de-icing equipment, just some tall floodlights, the same is true at the northern end of the apron albeit the area is more distinguishable as a de-icing facilty.

The terminal complex comprises of two buildings. The older terminal is semi-circular in design with a flat roof and of typical 1970’s pre-fab construction. It is quite featureless and practical looking and has no piers for docking aircraft so passengers would always disembark to the apron. It does have seats insides behind the glass but no animated passengers.

Old Terminal	New Terminal
Air Bridges	Apron Clutter

The newer (main) terminal is a much more contemporary design of steel, glass and rounded corners. It has three air bridges coupled with fully functional docking systems (Not P3Dv2). Behind the glass there are animated people who can be seen roaming the terminal. In and around the main terminal there is plenty of clutter such as crates, baggage trucks stairs and tow bars etc. There is one animated object being a minibus making its way from one terminal to another. They have made good use of texture baking most noticeably shadows of buildings, hangars, lighting towers and gantries on the tarmac. With the 2048 texture option active the buildings and objects are noticeably crisp, another positive point.

To the north west of the airfield is the GA area. The use of prefabricated buildings is very much in evidence here too. Local offices for SAS and other companies are modelled and are surrounded with a plentiful supply of commercial clutter such a Maersk trailers, vans, mini busses, crates and baggage carts all making the scenery that bit more realistic.

Wideroe Hangar	Augusta Maintenance Hangar
De-icing Area	Northern End of the Airport

Moving on from the commercial area with have a couple of hangars, one, labelled 'Agusta Authorized Service Centre', has a static helicopter outside which has an emergency service type livery. This is a great place to park your helicopter if you are in to whirlybirds. There are more nameless buildings which look to be cargo operations with plenty of room to manoeuvre your freight aircraft.

Finally, at the north of the apron is a large hangar operated by Wideroe, the huge doors are closed so not much interest but there is a static Widero DHC-8-103 Dash 8 parked up in front with a West Air Europe CRJ 200 Package Freighter nearby.

Seasons

The photo-real ground automatically switches between seasons, but according to the handbook, due to certain limitations in FSX and P3D it’s not possible to do the same with native FSX/P3D 3D models. The seasonal textures for those objects are controlled with the configuration tool.

Midnight Sun - Christmas Day	Polar Winter - Midday Arrival
Snow Piling Up	Snow on Static Aircraft

Understandably, the most stunning looking season is winter. All the important airport buildings and structures have a deep layer of snow on top, it portrays that iced in, deep cold scenery perfectly. The snow effect does not extend to the rest of the island, the 3 ski slopes have no snow on at all which I feel they should have had.

Night lighting

All around the apron are tall lighting poles, they emit a cone of downward white light, an unusual effect but one which is being seen more often with newer sceneries. Other buildings adjoining the apron have down lights which light the side of the buildings but not the ground below.

Taxi lights are bright and clear as is the approach and runway lighting which can be seen from a long way on approach. There are quite a few places, especially in the commercial area to the east, which have huge light spots not allied to any street lights. They are very distracting from the air and I cannot see any reason behind their place.

Airport Entrance - Dusk	Apron Lighting
Approach Lighting	Runway Lighting

Overall, it is a pleasant experience flying in at night in good weather, with the sky often in a twilight state it gives the island and airport an eerie presence.

Compatibility

Just as I was finishing this review a major release of scenery was made by Orbx covering the whole country of Norway which will affect this airport. As of when this review was published, the developer of Tromsø X is liaising with Orbx to iron out seasonal and elevation issues. More up to date information can be found in each of the developers forums.

I don't consider this to be any fault of the product which is developed for unmodified default scenery.

Technical Requirements

        • Microsoft Flight Simulator X with SP1 and SP2 or Acceleration Pack and Prepar3D V1&V2
        • 3.0 GHz Processor (Intel Core2Duo advised)
        • Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8
        • 2 GB RAM (4 GB advised)
        • 3D Graphic card with at least 512MB (1024 MB advised)
        • .net Framework 3.5 or higher (using Aerosoft-Launcher)
        • Download-Size: 650 MB
        • Hard disc space: 1.5 GB

Performance

I found that I could run with all the features switched on with no problem with the scenery settings below. I enjoyed smooth animation at a fixed 30fps. You will not get the same results as me with the same settings, you may get more if you didn’t peg your fps or less if your machine spec is lower than mine. It’s all a question of degrees but getting a good balance of detail and smoothness was not an issue here.

Value for Money

I consider at €17.95 for all that is included, this scenery this represents excellent value for money.

Review Computer Specifications

The specifications of the computer on which the review was conducted are as follows:
        •  Intel i7 4770K o/c to 4.2GHz);
        •  GTX 690 4096MB GDDR5 graphics;
        •  16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1866MHz;
        •  Windows 7 Pro, (64bit);
        •  Lockheed Martin Prepar3D v2.3; and
        •  Additional major add-ons seen in screenshots include REX4 Texture Direct.

Conclusion

The developer has done an excellent job with Tromsø X. The main buildings are extremely well modelled and the inclusion of custom objects around the island puts the icing on the cake. It's location makes it a must go to airport, especially in winter when this part of Norway really is a winter wonderland!

Verdict and Rating

Anther superb product from Jo Erlend Sund and Aerosoft. There are a couple of niggles as listed above but they do not affect my overall enjoyment of this product.

Pros
        • High quality
        • High performer
        • Great Value

Cons
        • Awkward seasonal texture control for objects
        • Some incomplete objects

Scores:
● Scenery Coverage:	10/10
● Level of Detail:	9.0/10
● Quality of Buildings:	8.5/10
● Documentation:	9.0/10
● Performance :	9.0/10
● Value for Money:	10/10

Aerosoft Tromsø X is awarded a Mutley's Hangar score of 9.3/10, with a "Highly Recommended" and a Mutley's Hangar Silver Award.