Review: AG Sim – Calais Dunkerque Airport LFAC for MSFS

Review by: Rick Desjardins

Calais–Dunkerque Airport, ICAO: LFAC is a small airport serving the city of Calais and the commune of Dunkerque. Geographically it is located in the Hauts-de-France region which is the most northerly region of France and is approximately 4miles east-northeast of the city of Calais which is on the French coastline of the Strait of Dover.

Primarily used by small private aircraft and for pilot training the airport has a single paved runway; 06/24 @5,036ft.

Installation

Installation was straightforward being a simple process of downloading the scenery zip file and extracting it to the location of your choice.  

Visuals

I thought I’d start with a few comparison shots just to give an idea of just how much of a contrast there is between this product and the default MSFS version of this small French airport. As you can see the contrast is very noticeable.

With a small airport such as this capturing its look and making it come alive with interesting visuals and giving the airport character are important qualities and I feel that they’ve achieved that with this product.

Airport Visuals

The airport has been recreated from the ground up using high quality, high resolution detailed textures to provide great visuals even when viewed up close. I was very happy with all aspects of the airport.  Hard surfaces were relatively clean with the exception of runway touchdown zones which are to be expected as this is a small airport seeing mostly small private aircraft. Grassy areas were modelled with 3d textures with varying colours to differentiate between grasses, livestock pasture areas and agricultural fields.

As the main focus is on small aircraft operations none of the buildings were very large. The airport does have a small terminal building, control tower, fire station, flight training buildings and several maintenance and storage hangars.  

Even though the number of structures is limited their designs are varied and the developer has been able to capture their individual characteristics. This was done by using detailed textures that have been further enhanced using excellent colouring and weathering techniques. Differences in building materials and the effects of aging and exposure to the elements are clearly discernible. To add even more visual interest most of the buildings include discrete 3 dimensional features such as recessed window and door openings, signage, lighting fixtures, stairways, fencing and rooftop details as appropriate.

Several of the hangars have open doors so in these cases their interiors have been modelled as well; adding another dimension to this airport experience.

The product covers an area that extends slightly beyond the airport boundaries and in doing so they were able to include some extra objects that enhance the visual experience when flying overhead or on an approach. As an example, at the end of runway 06 on the Rue du Canal which runs along the airport perimeter there are a number of people and vehicles stopped appearing to be plane spotting.

 A stand out feature of this product is the way the developers have given this small airport character by strategically placing relevant objects throughout.  To further bring this small quiet airport to life they populated the tarmac as well as a few other noticeable areas with people that appear to be engaged in a variety of activities such as waiting for their incoming flight, handling baggage or riding horses in the nearby paddock. Calais–Dunkerque Airport is now an airport that thrives.

 I was especially impressed with how no space was overlooked. For instance, they’ve placed what might be considered as mundane everyday objects often take for granted such as refuse bins with loose garbage on the ground and placed them in several of the narrow alleyways between buildings.

Animations

Animations consisted mostly of flags and windsocks that appeared to move with the wind.

I was intrigued and slightly puzzled by one animation. There is a ground crew person that appears to be dancing on the walkway outside the control tower.

Night

I was very impressed with the night time rendering of the airport. How light was projected on the buildings and ground areas were very good. Lighting levels that were realistic and consistent with their source.

Approaches

I was able to follow and execute both the published RNP and NDB approaches without issue as per the available charts. If you prefer visual approaches, both the airport layout and neighbouring terrain make it ideal.

Final Thoughts

If you are someone who enjoys vfr flying then I believe that this product will appeal to you. It is a nicely detailed airport located in a picturesque part of France that could definitely serve as the start or end point of your sightseeing flight.

Review by: Rick Desjardins

Developer: AG SIM

Price: EUR 10.99 (+tax EU customers)

Ryzen 5 5600X, ASUS TUF X570-Plus MB, 1 TB NVMe SSD, 32Gb DDR4 RAM, ASUS RTX 3060 OC w/12Gb VRAM, Win 11, Track IR, FSLTL AI traffic, TrackIR, MSFS graphics settings to Ultra, MSFS auto FPS app