BirdsEyeView
Official website: www.flightsim-bevs.com

I consider myself to have a fairly broad knowledge of what is available in the way of add-ons for flight sim, so when asked to review Birds Eye View (BEV) I was completely in the dark as to what this was, and assumed it was a new product. After a little research it appears that this is one add-on that has slipped through the net (no pun intended) as it has been available for several months now, so without further ado I'll crack on…

What is Birds Eye View?

This was the first question that most of you will be asking. BEV is a set of replacement ground scenery textures for North America; although it would seem that there are plans to expand further to cover the whole planet. A more accurate description would be that BEV gives FS9 an extreme makeover. It doesn't just enhance the textures, but also the autogen of FS9, as well as a custom set of autogen buildings specially created for BEV, including power line towers.

The package comes in 5 volumes:

1. USA/Canada Summer
2. USA/Canada Autumn
3. USA/Canada Winter
4. USA/Canada Hard Winter
5. USA/Canada Spring

Each volume costs £6.79 (€9.99), but if you purchase 4 volumes, and can provide proof of purchase, you get the 5th volume for free!

Download and installation of each volume is simple and straight forward, the only drawbacks I found was that the files took a long time to download (each one was over 180mb, which would pose a problem for dial-up users) and the installation took longer than I was expecting. But as this is something I would only need to do once, I wasn't too bothered as it gave me more time to research the product.

BEV was designed specifically to be another step forward towards reality, and what a step, it's more of a giant leap. The author, Steven R Stever, only began serious texture development around 3 years ago, and never even considered it as a product. The thanks must go to his wife and friends for encouraging him to do so!

BEV is easy to configure by using the included configurator. This enables you to select what YOU want to see when you're flying. There are over 90 texture options available, and each one has several sets of textures to choose from. I found myself taking nearly as long selecting the textures as I did actually flying! You can also select textures to blend into ultimate terrain, a nice touch. Golf courses, parks and cemeteries they're all there for you to fly over. With all these options some may think that it would be hard to use the configurator. Far from it. Just select the texture option you want from the drop down menu, this will then load the available textures for that option into the window, click the one you want and move onto the next one. Simple isn't it? Combine the 5 seasons together and you have almost infinite options as to how your FS world will look.

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