P3D

Product Information

Developer

JustSim

Purchase From

SimMarket

Price

€21,50

BUY HERE

Version Reviewed

1.00

Press Copy Provided By

Self-purchase

FSElite's preferred Flight Sim vendor is SimMarket. (Why?)

As per our Community Charter, all of our reviews are free from bias, prejudice and favouritism. Don't forget, each reviewer has their own style and thoughts, although they all abide by the Review Guidelines - something I suggest you read.

Product Information

Developer

MK-Studios

Purchase From

Orbx

Price

$34.95 AUD

BUY HERE

Version Reviewed

1.1.0

Press Copy Provided By

MK-Studios

FSElite's preferred Flight Sim vendor is SimMarket. (Why?)

As per our Community Charter, all of our reviews are free from bias, prejudice and favouritism. Don't forget, each reviewer has their own style and thoughts, although they all abide by the Review Guidelines - something I suggest you read.

When MK-Studios confirmed they were working on a Helsinki Airport scenery back in January of this year, I could not be more excited. Finally I would get a new version of my (nowadays) home airport. Until now I had been using the Aerosoft version, and happily so, but with the evolving simulators it was starting to look dated, even with the community made SODE jetways profile.

The MO of JustSim has long been known. A developer announces a scenery, and about a month before this developer is set to release their scenery, JustSim releases a version of the same scenery. It’s an interesting debate for another time, but one thing is clear: JustSim is ready for the competition.

And this scenery is certainly a confrontation between the two. Never before have I felt so conflicted about two sceneries that set out to do the same thing: give you a good-looking, entertainable and up-to-date version of Helsinki Airport. Going in to this review, I had certain expectations about either developer and what the scenery would look like. But both sceneries were rather surprising in both good and bad ways, leaving me conflicted on both of them. In this review, you’ll see why.

I promise this will be the last time I cover anything related to Bristol Airport for the foreseeable future. I have already reviewed Pilot Plus’ Bristol Airport on X-Plane and also UK2000 Scenery’s rendition on Prepar3D. Suffice to say neither really blew me out of the water, but both provided a solid experience for their respective platforms. Now, we have the airport on the same platform by both developers. When this happened, I had a huge number of requests to make a head to head comparison of them both. These requests have brought me back to my home airport yet again, pitting relatively new developer Pilot Plus against the established UK2000 Scenery on Prepar3D only.

Quick Overview

Pilot Plus

Release date: 15th May 2020

Price: $34.95 AUD (approximately £19.24)

Store: Orbx

UK2000 Scenery

Release date: December 4th 2019

Price: £18.48

Store: UK2000 Scenery

Installation

Both airports are fully compatible with Prepar3D v5 through their installer. However, as Pilot Plus is now a partner of Orbx, you get the advantage of using their incredible Orbx Central to download, update and install the product. It’s a huge breath of fresh air compared to the archaic process of installing UK2000 Scenery. With Orbx Central, you can simply install with one-click, UK2000 Scenery on the other hand, requires you to install the airport, along with a common objects library and other files.

In normal circumstances, the tried and tested method of installing products isn’t all that bad, but when directly comparing it to the system Orbx has in place for their partner products, it just reminds you how good it could be. This makes me hope that more developers join the Orbx partnership program just to pass on the ease of installation to the customer.