Designed by Lago
Reviewer: Juan Martín Opacak
“Dobar dan, i dobro dosli”… that stands for “Good afternoon, and welcome”. Welcome to the airport. Prepare yourself for our short-trip from Split Kastela, in Croatia to Rome Fiumicino, Italy. You’ll take a jumpseat flight, so you’d better meet your crew. My name is Martin Opacak, and I’m the captain for this Croatia Airlines’ OU380 flight; I’ll let you experience an arrival to the great Rome airport…
Let’s now get into the review…
At our arrival to Ciampino ndb in Rome we couldn’t see the airport. It became visible just after engaging the ILS to rwy 16R. The approach procedure is not hard, but you must be aware not to descend beyond 5000 feet before CIA if you don’t want your passengers to say “any money that mountain is a bit tall… or that we’re a bit low!!”. So, when I first saw the lights of the airport when approaching I was impressed. In the middle of the darkness you can see a million of yellow lights, which serve us as our star… at where we must land, of course. Really, the light effect is very well depicted.
More closer to the rwy edge, we can see the set of precission approach lights, although I couldn’t see the PAPI, and there weren’t centerline lights either.
After landing and taxiing to our gate, I left the A319 cockpit and take a panoramic flight to see the airport one more time.
Some details that made this airport different are:
· The service street which rounds the entire perimeter of the airport.
· The “shuttle-train” which connects international and vip terminals.
· The big ammount of vehicles, some of them dinamic: cars, buses, train, baggage trucks, firebombers truck, etc.
Of course there is dinamic traffic depicted, although it seems a bit strange to see the same KLM 747 landing and taxiing to terminal. In fact, I think it’s – among an Alitalia 747 – the only type of dinamic aircraft operating at LIRF. Maybe I’m confused, and I’m reviewing Amsterdam scenery?? No, I’m not… because if I look carefully to domestic terminal, I can see the whole fleet of MD80s. And not only italians. If you’re MD fan, you must come to Rome with this scenery. It’s notable that you can set the dinamic traffic level from the LAGO menu in your FS, and also, you can define the minimum frame rate, so you get a better performance for your trip to Rome.
But this does not finish here. No. If you pay attention, and decide to look outside the airport, you can see a very well depicted car park and also the train station (however, there is no train in this demo!!!). I’ve been there, in the real life, some years ago; it’s not exactly as Lago guys done here, but it looks very well. If you want to complete your Rome experience, then you can follow the railway and the roads, which take you to the ancient city… and that needs a new review, it’s another experience.
Anyway, mine doesn’t stop here. After a cool drink at the airport bar, I decided to take a guided-tour to the control tower. Believe me, if you’re going to do same, be prepared to climb this 60 m. high tower. Once I reach the top, I was surprised. The monitors and controls were simulated – there is a ground map in one display -, and there was a controller (mmm… when I looked closer I thought she was a police officer!). I still remain amazed; I can’t understand how only one person can manage this so big airport. Really, it’s not hard to get yourself lost here, but not as in Chicago, for example. It includes 3 runways, and I’m not sure about projects to build a new one:
· 16R/34L: 3900 x 60 m
· 16L/34R: 3900 x 60 m
· 07/25: 3295 x 45 m
All of them have instrument landing systems.
The most I like from this airport is the outstanding graphic detail, as well as for the night lighting static/dinamic scenery. Everything is depicted here, although there are certain things not present here (E.g.: here are no docking systems nor marshallers, variety of dinamic aircraft, more detail in the approach lights, and a lot of things not mentioned here) that make you think twice on buying the complete Lago Italy 2000 scenery and get this detail for the whole country.
Don’t worry, you’ll have time to do so while we fly back to Croatia in our A319, OU381 flight… Thanks for reading, and enjoy this demo.
