QUICK REVIEWS: Italy Vol 1, Hong Kong 2004, Balearics &

Well lucky old me - I return from holiday in Gran Canaria and there are 4 pieces of nice Flight Sim stuff waiting on my matt at home !

Well the first was the AMAZING 747-200 RFP (Ready For Pushback) which already has me captivated.... but as this is a SCENERY posting let me talk about the others;-

ITALY VOL 1, by Lago, £14.99 from Play.com
This is a superb add-on... it covers a huge area, not just the Airports and the entire scenery is done in GMAX which means it's incredibly detailed but gives frame rates better than default scenery. As well as major cities such as Turin and Bologne, you get a tine island past Sicily, where you can really take in some gorgous scenery.... part of the scenery even extends to Tunisia, making this a truly vast add-on of superb scenery. 3 of The Airports covered are in the north of Italy making it great for Hub flights into the Alps and into Southern Europe.... Superb: 8/10.

Hong Kong 2004
I wasn't too excited about this and just ordered it because it was cheap. BUT IT'S GREAT.... as well as the main scenery (Hong Kong Intl and the surrounding area) you get some great bonus stuff... you get "Typhoon Wyllie" which includes a great activity where you start on APPROACH in the Learjet in a really bad storm and need to land... The weather has been done excellently. The Scenery itself is FAB and gives strong Frame Rates on my system. Only negative is that there are some RAISED platform taxi-ways in the Airport and if you try and taxi up then the plane disappears into mush for a while.... The other FAB addition is that the CD-ROM doubles up as an Audio CD that you can play in the background of FS2004, using Windows Media Player, and it plays real ATC audio from Hong Kong..... This is THE WAY AHEAD ! It add's SOOOO much realism having this in the background... I've used it on every flights since I got it - not just Hong Kong flights. SUPERB: 9/10

Balearics & Gibralter 2004
A cracking little add-on (although not cheap), that represents all of the Airports in the Spanish Balearics.... The Airports are SUPERB and yo7u also get a large, thick book of charts for the airports, their approaches and runways.... The Gibralter Runway has the distinctive, true to life road that passes through it.. (!!!).... and the cars continue to drive across until you are at 500 feet !!

THREE SUPERB ADD-ONS THAT GIVE YOU INTERESTING PLACES TO FLY TO, BUT THAT ALSO MAKE GREAT BASES TO DO SOME GA FLYING TO EXPLORE THE SCENERY !

I have the HK scenery. I love the thyphoon flight. You know you can use any aircraft you want in that flight?!?!?! All you have to do is change planes.!!!!!! I like to land at Kai Tak, take a boat that I downloaded across to HK island, and then drive all over the city. I have actually been there. So I reminice.