Orbx Peopleflow, New Animated People Tech For Fsxl
Edco Haglund
Richard Harvey managed the airfield with his wife until he died in 1995 after a lengthy battle with cancer. His wife, Kandace Harvey, and their four children have been running the airfield ever since.
The airfield currently houses over 350 aircraft and many local businesses in its 590,000 square meters area, many of which can be seen in Orbx's rendition. One of these businesses is Skydive Snohomish, owned by Tyson Harvey (Richard's son), keeping a skydiving tradition around the airfield that has been living on since the early 1960s when the Seattle Skydivers (one of the oldest skydiving groups in the United States) embraced Harvey Field.
Monroe Firstair is a privately owned public-use airport whose history is not widely - or at least easily - available. Most of my research didn't lead to many clues about anything other than the fact it was last owned by Daryl Habich (1944-2022), a dentist who bought the airfield a few years after taking private flying lessons there in 1968 and now managed by Roger Habich, a Field Engineer at the University of Washington.
Daryl also built his home there and a dental office, which he had been renting after his retirement. The news article where this is mentioned dates back to 2009 when Daryl was 65 and looking to sell the airfield for 6 million dollars, with everything else included.
One of the - questionable - sources I found at first said it was made in the 1930s by the Monroe Aircraft Corporation and then used for training by the military in the following decade. But I find it hard to believe that it could be accurate as I didn't find anything on the company itself or any information that would back the fact that this airport has existed for a hundred years.
What is known so far is that a dentist owned it for many years, and it averaged 50 takeoffs and landings daily (as of 2009). I will update the review if I find concise information on the airfield's history.
On a curious note, Monroe First Air sits right beside the Evergreen State Fairgrounds, which holds the famous Evergreen State Fair, a 12-day fair held yearly in late August - early September. The article where I found information on the airport's ownership mentions that (at least back in 2009) it was cheaper to fly into Monroe and pay the tie-down fee ($5) than drive to the fair because of the high parking fees.
Both S43 and W16 were originally released nearly 12 years ago in late 2011, making the add-on package a cult classic among general aviation simmers that happened to use Flight Simulator X and Prepar3d in the past. And it originated from an even older piece of work: Bob Bernstein's Harvey & Monroe for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, released in 2005. It was Bob's first payware scenery after a year of freeware development for the platform, being well received by the community because of its incredible detail for the standards of the time.
Orbx's first Harvey & Monroe was developed by Andreas Hegi and Heiko Glatthorn, with consultancy from Bob Bernstein himself, featuring the latest technologies from the era, such as Orbx's PeopleFlow 2, high-resolution ground imagery, animated trains and race cars, seasonal color matched imagery, quickly becoming a commercial success and the first GA payware of many.
The new package brings the classic back to life in Microsoft Flight Simulator by Andreas Hegi (one of the original developers), featuring photo-realistic UHD textures created from onsite photography, dynamic night lighting, PBR, and more.
As it couldn't be any different, I chose to fly into this airport from somewhere else, and it just so happened I was conveniently close to it with my Piper Comanche that I've been touring North America with, sitting around two hundred nautical miles away in Sisters, Oregon. With the walkaround and fueling out of the way, it was time to finally fly into the first of the two sceneries of this package: S43 Harvey Field. And, oh boy, was I up for a treat.
After nearly two hours of being thrown around by severe turbulence, I could finally spot Harvey Airfield's very characteristic hangars - with their vibrant red and white stripes - from afar and its sole asphalt runway that looked much shorter than it appeared to be. We only get a real sense of length face-to-face with it. It didn't look as scary on the Garmin GPS, I must say.
Not only is it very short, but - massive - trees are on the final approach path. These are not a big issue with a small airplane like a Cub or a 152, but they are a nightmare for a slippery Comanche with their massive wings and their inherent floating tendencies. All the speed I managed to arrest during final approach was regained on short final because of the aggressive glide path angle that I had to maintain if I had even a little hope of possibly making it to the runway threshold safely.
The 65 or so hours I had logged by then on the Comanche did not prepare me for what was about to come: even though I had landed on a few short runways, all of them had a relatively unblocked approach path with no shenanigans required, while this one is a roller-coaster after you just about avoid clipping the top of the trees with your landing gear.
So I decided to try something somewhat risky and cut the power entirely after clearing the little forest, just barely making it over the fence (a good 60 centimeters, give or take), and praying to arrest all that energy before the runway was over. While I did manage to arrest the speed, the short-field PTSD kicked in, and I felt the urge to slam it down, which I did. After a few bounces and a compressed spine, I made my airplane version of the walk of shame to the hangar, hoping nobody witnessed such an atrocious first attempt.
My first impression was, "god, that's short." I needed a few minutes to mentally recover from the humongous intellectual effort of flying a slippery airplane into a steep descent towards a scarily short strip. After the shock, I could finally take in the beauty and detail of Harvey Airfield, an FS2004/FSX/P3D classic brought back to life.
The hangars I taxied in were all open, some with empty slots, but sadly not for my airplane. The wingspan was too large to make it through the gaps, so I had to park outside while programming in the information for W16, the next destination, only five nautical miles away.
Before departure, though, I took the drone camera for a spin around the environment to check the landside parts I couldn't possibly access with an airplane. That's where I noticed the first minor drawback: most buildings are made of high-resolution photos slapped in front of a 3D model, without actual doors, windows, parallax, or anything. While it is not a deal breaker per se, it's a nice-to-have in terms of added realism.
Thankfully, most of that is, in fact, limited to the landside, with most airside objects having a greater level of detail: aircraft hangars with clutter in and out (and space for your airplane), lots of wear and tear (including rust and corrosion), contributing to the old airfield vibe that one would expect from S43.
The many businesses there, like the restaurant, the flying school, and the skydiving company, are all present with their photo-realistically reproduced counterparts, without an actual window or door frame. The detail is great, though, with many banners with phone numbers, working hours, etc. One can easily feel transported to Snohomish.
While runway 33R has trees on short final, 15L has power lines. One truly can't run away from a steep arrival, after all. Cheating with the "low and slow" technique won't work unless you are brave enough to fly between the power lines and the fence, a rather nonstandard and not FAA-approved move. Runway 33L/15R is mostly unobstructed, but it's just grass. One can also plan for runway 33L and then veer right after the trees (the path into 33L doesn't have any tall trees).
After a considerable amount of time spent checking the details out, it was time to visit Monroe First Air, a journey I initially thought would not take long because of how close together they are, as mentioned before. Little did I know, though, that W16 is way more challenging than S43, and that one was plenty tough.
For starters, the airfield only occupies 129,499 square meters, which is microscopic for aviation standards. Everything is cramped together like an airport sandwich: hangars to one side, house, and other facilities to the other, and then the airfield squeezed in the middle like a sad patch of pb&j.
But it isn't the fact it's very narrow and cluttered or small, but the geography around it: approaching runway 25 is even steeper than S43's 33R because of the Evergreen State Fair and a little hill before it, meaning you don't have a usual approach path. You can't come down low because of the many Evergreen Fair buildings.
I tried it once, twice, thrice, nothing. I found it impossible to safely arrest the speed before the threshold, always carrying more speed into the runway than I should and being forced to go around. After so many attempts, I realized I'd be there all day and still not manage even to touch the runway because I was too afraid of totaling the aircraft by trying anything bolder.
I don't think I'd ever have the courage to land on runway 25 in real life, nor the guts to attempt it, even if someone paid me a good fifty grand, at least not with a slippery plane. With a Cessna 152 or something like that, and even so, I'd still think twice.
I even wondered whether landing on 25 was allowed in real life, and it turns out it not only is permitted, but there are several videos online of people doing just that with ease, followed by many comments of how "it makes a man out of you." Maybe I'm not as good of a virtual pilot as I thought because I couldn't get it right no matter how hard I tried.
With my pride wrecked, I considered flying back to Harvey Field and calling it a day, but I thought of giving runway seven a go before that. The winds favored runway 25, but it was not a tailwind on seven, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to try. Not only did it not hurt, but I got it on the first try, nearly flawlessly. The trees on the approach path surprised me, though, as the actual photo of the airfield from 2022 doesn't show any tall trees where there were many in Microsoft Flight Simulator.
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