Review: Scansim Fly to EKCH Copenhagen Airport

There’s a new developer on the scene named Scansim. They have released their first airport scenery which covers EKCH, Copenhagen, Denmark. Let’s see if this new developer is competitive with the current crop of developers.

When someone mentions Copenhagen I always think of the airports design. The walkway to the terminal is shaped like the paper airplane we’ve all made as kids. I never thought of Copenhagen Kastrup as a busy airport. However, 19.7 million passengers passed through EKCH in 2009. 22,000 people work at the airport or airport related services.

The airport itself takes up quite a large amount of land. It is the hub of SAS, Cimber Sterling, Norwegian, and Transavia, and it is one of the designated Star Alliance hubs. There are three terminals on the north end of the airport, Cargo terminals on the east end, hangers on the south end, and air traffic management and airport technical facilities on the west side. There are three runways numbered 04L/22R, 04R/22L, and 12/30. 22L is used the most and is ILS Cat III equipped. Runway 04L is Cat II and the remaining are Cat I’s.

Installation and Documentation

The installation is via a zipped file that is password protected. You get the password in an email or on your Simmarket account. You are given three choices when installing the scenery. Typical installation will install everything. Custom allows you to eliminate various features such as AI Traffic or photo scenery. Manual will install nothing and gives you instructions on how to do it yourself using DOS commands. This last option will never be used I’m sure. It does activate the scenery automatically in FSX so once installed you’re good to go.

The manual has some information on the airport, including ILS frequencies, and the installation instructions. You should read the manual because there are instructions on how to setup FSX to be optimized. Most of us have tweaked our systems so I don’t recommend this if you have made adjustments to your FSX.cfg file, but there’s no harm in trying their settings for comparison. One important note in the manual is how to place the scenery in your library properly. I use Ultimate Terrain Europe X and I had to place EKCH below UTX Europe in order for the ground textures to display properly.

They have included AI Traffic aircraft to replace the default AI one’s if you are not using a traffic add-on. They are much better than the default paint schemes and you will see realistic airlines at EKCH.

They have set up a support forum but they do not have a web site as of this writing.

The Airport

You can see from the comparison shots below that there are substantial improvements over the default airport.

The picture below shows the jetways are customized for EKCH. They didn’t just use default jetways.

After looking at these pictures you can see that there was allot of work into replicating the real airport. When I first looked at the airport I thought that it was above average. HOWEVER, take a look at the next set of shots. They paid attention to detail such as the flags (they all wave in the wind), the control tower with it’s odd shaped “pod”, and the glass on the gates which are clear so you can see the apron behind them. I love the grass colour they have around the runways, too. I really looks nice when landing.

Here’s two more shots. One in winter with their custom winter textures and another at night.

Conclusion

So, here’s the part where I tell you if I think it’s worth the price or not. The price is 26.12 (21.95 without VAT) Euros or roughly $36.91 ($31.02 without VAT) Canada/USA. To be honest, I find the price is a little high when compared to other airport’s I’ve reviewed and seen available on Simmarket that are of the same or superior quality. That’s really my only complaint. The scenery itself is of good quality and you do get a winter ground texture set which other developers usually don’t include. They also include an A319 that uses the default A321 VC. Don’t get excited though, it’s a really basic A319. I have not given marks for the A319 in this review because it’s really not a bonus in my opinion. There are better freeware versions available.

I look forward to seeing more work from Scansim.

Developer: Scansim

Compatibility: FSX only

Filesize: 231 mb after installation.

Purchase from: Simmarket

Price: 26.12 (21.95 without VAT) Euros or roughly $36.91 ($31.02 without VAT) Canada/USA

Andrew Barter