Introduction

THINGS-TO-COME is a great developer of futuristic add-ons for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004. Their latest product, Lunar Pilot, is a complete package of scenery and aircraft that includes: 1. A reproduction of the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, a special aircraft used by NASA to train astronauts for moon landings, 2. A P-51 Mustang and 3. A scenery that features a complex city, functional runway and a huge hi-resolution Lunar Terrain Simulator for lunar landings!

Installation and documentation

Lunar Pilot is delivered by either CD-ROM or download. The installer is completely automated and weights 58.4MB - you need nothing more than 4 minutes to have Lunar Pilot up and running.

The documentation is incredibly detailed, you can clearly see that it some work has been put into it. Besides containing all the information you need to use Lunar Pilot correctly, the manual also features an exclusive interview with NASA test pilot Don Mallik and the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle history - fully illustrated! Reading the manuals turns out to be helpful and fun at the same time.

The scenery

The Lunar Pilot scenery is set in the 1960's - it is located in Florida, next to the Kennedy Space Center and covers a total area of 3.5 km². We can basically divide it into 4 regions:

- 1. Shepard Intl. Airport

Shepard International Airport is the main airport of the Spaceville city. The airport scenery is amazing - there are huge billboards, buildings, and even a launchpad in the area. Its runway is wide and long enough to handle a Boeing 747; landings on adverse weather are also possible thanks to the ILS installed on both thresholds. There is also an international terminal full of gates where aircraft can park.

The approach to runway 36 is beautiful: as you get closer to the airport, the entire city becomes visible and you can see the huge LTS building behind it - the runway lights and the big SPACEVILLE sign welcomes you to the city as you fly over the threshold. A rainy weather at dusk makes this approach even more beautiful (and dramatic)! Landings on runway 18 require a little more attention as the Spaceville Island Parks are just in front of it - you come for the approach from the back of the city and the LTS building and Eastbay City are the only views you have, but it's also a nice approach.

   
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- 2. Spaceville Downtown

Spaceville Downtown is breathtaking, there are over 1200 custom-made buildings (most of them with landable rooftops) which make the city look amazingly dense. For my surprise, no significant loss of frame rates were noticed. All building textures are high-resolution, some of them featuring 1960's advertisement. At the very center of the city, there is the LTS tower - its top rotates accordingly to your position so that you're always in front of it!

The night lighting is also fantastic... every single building has a night texture, so the city gets very illuminated and beautiful at night. It's hard to find anything I dislike about the downtown, everything looks so realistic!

The Lunar Terrain Simulator is surely one of the most unique and interesting things ever done for flight simulator. It is a huge building located behind Spaceville Downtown that features 1km² of lunar terrain, an automatic door and an emergency space/landing pad. To start off, the LTS door opens automatically based on your aircraft's (preferably LLRV) proximity to its "extended arms", just like in the movies! By the time you get closer to the door, a green arrow is shown to indicate that you have triggered its automatic opening, just wait 5 seconds and the door's segments will start to open, giving you the beautiful view of the lunar terrain, earth and stars. The door finally closes when you get through the simulator.

You can exit the Lunar Terrain Simulator using the same door you used to enter. It works by proximity, just like the other one - as the LLRV approaches the exit, a green dot is shown and the door will open within 5 seconds. An emergency escape tunnel is also available for immediate exit from the LTS - its is a way smaller hole with an automatic door. The door will open immediately after the aircraft enters the tunnel, and after the exit there is an emergency landing pad to ensure a safe landing after LTS exit.

The only bug I have found is that if there is rain, low clouds or winds in the city, they will also be present in the LTS building. It can be annoying, but it's probably a flight simulator limitation - I'm sure they will have a look and see what can be done ...

  
Click on the thumbnails to view full-size (800x600)

- 4. NADA Launchpad and other areas

A NADA Lauchpad is located on the right side of the city, and is mostly used by the LLRV and helicopters in general. Once again, the textures are beautiful - there is a large NADA logo on the center along with many trucks and fuel pumps on the sides. A great feature of the launchpad is the ability of refueling the LLRV: there are four red marker-disks placed in the center of the launchpad for you to park the LLRV on. By pressing a button on the panel, the refueling rig will move to your position, re-fuel the aircraft and leave. Then, you're cleared to star the engine and fly away! A small heliport is also available at the right side - it is above the ground, so you can see the whole city from there.

Spaceville Island Parks, Northern Backlands and Wesport Docks are additional areas of the city. The back of the city features Spaceville Island Parks, a big park with a lake located right behind runway 18, and Northern Backlands, which is terrain a mostly composed by land that occupies the most part of the city's back. They have lower resolution than the rest of the scenery, but at higher altitudes it's not very noticeable. Wesport Docks is a port located on the city's left - there's one ship parked and what appears to be cargo packages on the floor. There's nothing much we can talk about them, they are just complementary scenery.