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Screen shots by Freedom Sims |
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Mount Pleasant Airbase (EGYP) is a military base for the Royal Air Force on the Falkland Islands. It is also called "RAF Mount Pleasant" and "Mount Pleasant Complex." Built after the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas war, it is home to about 2,000 British military personnel. In addition to basic facilities, it also offers occupants numerous social activities such as a gymnasium, golf course, swimming pool, cinema, bowling alley, and library. Its military aircraft include F3 Tornado fighter/bombers, C-130 Hercules transports, and Sea King helicopters.
The Falkland Islands are in the South Atlantic Ocean about 480 kilometers (300 nautical miles) east of Argentina and Chile. They comprise two main islands — East and West Falkland — plus numerous other smaller islands such as Lively Island, Pebble Island, and Saunders Island. The population is about 3,000, and the largest settlement is Stanley, the islands' capital. Fishing and sheep farming are the major economic activities. Occupied and controlled by the United Kingdom, they are also claimed by Argentina. A war over their possession ensued in 1982 after Argentina invaded and the British drove them off. Argentina still calls them the Malvinas.
Freedom Sims created a scenery of Mount Pleasant Airport, Mare Harbour, and four battlefields from the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas conflict. Freedom Sims is a new enterprise that "will be improved over time" the developer says. They said this scenery was made so RAF simmers can re-enact battles of the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas conflict.
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RAF Mount Pleasant Location
Screen shots by Bill Stack |
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| Freedom Sims | FSX |
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Mount Pleasant Airport Overviews |
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| Screen shots by Bill Stack | |
Freedom Sims touts the following features of its scenery:
This aircraft package is easily downloaded in a few minutes from the FlightSim Pilot Shop. No license key is required, but a brief end user license agreement is required. The installation program extracts all needed files quickly.
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| Terminal & Hangars | ||||
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| Hangars | ||||
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| Hangars | ||||
| Freedom Sims | FSX | |||
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Mount Pleasant Airport Details
Screen shots by Bill Stack |
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Although the scenery is called "RAF Mount Pleasant," several areas of the Falkland Islands are enhanced.
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Freedom Sims
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FSX
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Mare Harbour Screen shots by Bill Stack |
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Frame rates are the same as in the FSX default scenery because there aren't enough scenery objects to diminish them.
I am unable to verify the accuracy of Freedom Sims' depiction of the battles, but they're useful for simulated re-enactments nonetheless.
Battle of Seal Cove
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Battle Near Stanley
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Battle of Wireless Ridge
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Battle Scenes Screen shots by Bill Stack |
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The battle scenes are well done. Smoke rising from bombs lobbed at targets and military vessels and vehicles make for good battle re-enactments.
Night effects are realistic on buildings and pavements.
Dusk
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Night
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Dawn
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RAF Mount Pleasant Airbase |
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Dusk
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Night
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Dawn
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Mare Harbour |
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Screen shots by Bill Stack |
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An excellent map of the area can be found on the World Atlas website. Good satellite photos are available from Google maps. Information about the conflict and the four battles depicted in this scenery is available from Wikipedia.
The installation program did not work properly for me. It installed the three files into the FSX Addon Scenery folder, but the scenery did not appear in my scenery library. I then created a folder named "Mount Pleasant" and a subfolder named "Scenery" and put the three scenery files into that scenery folder. Then the scenery appeared in my library.
The Mount Pleasant Airbase is not fully enhanced as implied in the product description, which says: "All Hangers, Taxi ways and Airport buildings as seen viewed from goggle maps Satellite images." But satellite and other photos I found on the Internet show many associated buildings south of the runways that do not appear in this scenery. "Yes, the base is not 100-percent perfect," the developer said in response to my question. "We meant the airport buildings not the base buildings, though updates can be made."
There are no instructions or guides for locations of the battle scenes. This leaves users to fly or slew around the islands to find them and/or to search outside sources for locations. I had to look up the battles on the Internet to find where they happened, then I had to find their positions on a map, then I had to correlate those positions with the FSX map and place my aircraft at those locations to see the battle scenes. "Users of this scenery could find them by going on Google Maps, though that should have been mentioned," the developer said in reply to my question. Anybody who can make screen shots with annotations in the upper right corner, as Freedom Sims has done, can make a map showing battle locations.
In response to my questions, Freedom Sims said this is their first scenery and they will improve their future products.
This is not a criticism but a statement of fact: The scenery is limited to the Mount Pleasant Airbase, Mare Harbour, and the four named battle sites. It does not include civilian areas, Stanley (the Falkland's capital), Stanley Airport, or several battle sites identified in Wikipedia, and the developer does not say that it does.
My screen shots were made with FSX display settings on "default" because that's what I presume most flight simmers would be using and because the package recommends no special settings. I made one screen shot with the frame rate set on "unlimited" to see what rates were possible, and they were very good.
This scenery for FSX is useful for its expressed purpose: "RAF Military re-enactments of the Falkland Conflict." The Mount Pleasant Airbase is not as stated in the product description, however, because it includes only about one-third of the buildings seen in real-world photos. Users would enjoy the scenery more if maps and coordinates of the battle areas were provided. The developer's hint about issuing an update should be followed through. In the meantime, flight simmers can use the scenery for re-enacting the conflicts as intended, and the retail price is reasonable.
Learn More About Freedom Sim's RAF Mount Pleasant Airport
Bill Stack is author of several books about flight simulation, a regular author in flight-sim magazines, and a contributor to Flight Sim Com. His website is www.topskills.com
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FlightSim.Com, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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