KLGA - old (left) and new (right) control towers. Photo by Kristoferb at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17439378
LaGuardia's going through a US$4 Billion investment project that will change the whole airport. The project will be developed in several stages where parts of the airport will be demolished and rebuilt from scratch.
The scenery
Airportech's rendition shows how the final result should be for the airport and it's filled with all the features you should expect in a high-quality product:
- Detailed models of the air terminal, ferry terminal, and other various buildings
- Includes all terminal gates
- Accurate taxiway routing
- High-resolution, custom ground textures
- Animated jetways with working docking guidance system
- Custom airport vehicles with animated wheels and lighting
- Animated ground, sea, and rail traffic
- Custom made airport diagram and gate map
- HDR night lighting support
- Support for the new X-Plane static aircraft
- Launch-day support for World Traffic
- Works with Drzewiecki New York Airports and City
- Optional static aircraft
LaGuardia 2020 is a beautiful airport with great looking buildings and a different organization from the original. The airport is pretty well built although there's a lot of differences between the project renders and the buildings in the sim - especially some parts lacking and some building sizes not seeming correct. Some textures are not exactly as one would suppose it would but most are clearly because of limitations of the X-Plane engine -- mainly the reflections.
In general, though, the airport looks very well and it's a great look into the future of LaGuardia. Purists will probably continue to use an old version but, sooner or later, Aerotech's version will be much more closer to real than any older version.
This airport is rendered out of images from the project that's still ongoing and the official screenshots try to mimic a few of the images you find online -- which is to say, Airportech has developed what's in those images. Below you can see a rendering of the project (left) and an in-game screenshot of the scenery (right).
Of course, a lot can and probably will change when the real airport is built. I hope Airportech returns to LaGuardia 2020 by then and tweaks whatever may be needed. Until then, you can have fun flying in the future (and beautiful) KLGA.
After you install the airport, there are a few options that either need some other files or some configuration tweaks. You should check out Airportech's product page and check these as they might be interesting for you -- such as the optional static and the AI aircraft and the amazing Autogate plugin.
Frame rate
Nothing to mention on this except that it doesn't have any major impact. In fact, there was virtually no impact at all on my system. I'm always concerned with frame rates on my system but I'm usually pleasantly surprised. This time was no exception.
