Aircraft used: LVFR 320, ATR, PMDG 738
Live weather: on
DETAIL
Bendigo is a small regional airport and in reality there’s not too much there, apart from a tiny terminal and a selection of small FBO hangars. Impulse have faithfully recreated the whole airport in mostly high-res detail and have included a terminal interior (sans passengers, unfortunately) and custom terraformed runway. There’s some nice modelling and ground texturing both airside and landside but if the whole thing feels somehow simple, it’s likely because it’s reflective of the real-world place. A completely useless but nonetheless welcome attention to detail is the inclusion of wooden telegraph poles, complete with overhead cables. Equally useless but even cooler (pardon the pun!) are the animated AC units fixed to the outside wall of the terminal, whose fans all spin at different RPM!
Unusually for an Impulse airport we get some custom city buildings, namely the Bendigo Hospital, Sacred Heart church, Central Deborah Goldmine and, a little out of town, the Stupa of Universal Compassion.
PERFORMANCE
Equally unusual for an Impulse airport (certainly on Xbox) is the flawless stability — but given the tiny size of this airport, I’d be somewhat disappointed to have suffered black screens and crashes. Still, there do exist airports of a similar size which are problematic so it’s not to be scoffed at.
Unsurprisingly framerate performance is great too with no stuttering.
VERDICT
While the great stability isn’t a particularly impressive achievement when you take into account the size and nature of this airport, Bendigo is a great little place with a handful of nicely-modelled city features. Aside from a couple of custom animations the detail isn’t going to blow you away but I think that’s largely because there’s not much going on here in real life!
It’s a sleepy airport most of the time — and therefore likely not of interest to most simmers — but it does have an active GA community and if you’re keen to expand your Australian airports collection it’s a worthwhile addition.
IMAGES
These AC fans are animated and all spin at different RPM!
