Aerosoft Mt. Everest Airports Vol. 2 - Phaplu & Kangel Danda

Phaplu is the closest airport to Mount Everest that is connected to the national road network. Due to rising tourist numbers there are more and more scheduled flights to this airport which is not only another Gateway to Everest but in itself a beautiful destination nested into a lush green landscape.

The airport has an interesting location along a slope with an apron carved into the terrain and the tower and terminal on top of a high wall that follows the runway. Be cautious when taxiing here as you wouldn‘t be the first pilot there who‘s wingtip would touch the wall! Approaches to the airport however are troubled by the harsh wind conditions in the valley. Due to strong wind the airport closes at noon, which means that flights are only happening in the morning hours when the weather is usually suitable for flying. Gusts of 43 knots have been recorded here.

As a bonus there’s another challenging airport included in this package: Kangel Danda, which is spectacularly located on top of a mountain between Rumjatar and Lukla. At both ends of the runway there are steep cliffs letting you gain ground clearance quickly without even climbing.

Recently there have been plans to re-commence scheduled flights here since the coms equipment got destroyed by a thunderstorm and little efforts have been made to repair it for years. The goats grazing the airport are happy using is as a welcome pasture.

Features:

• Detailed 3D terrain models of Phaplu and Kangel Danda airports with high resolution photorealistic textures
• Newly constructed Phaplu secondary apron
• Monastery
• Lots of animated people and animals
• Animated ground traffic (check out the tuktuks!)
• Realistic night lighting
• Various typical sounds
• Detailed manual

Disclaimer: The screenshots and the video are from the MSFS 2020 version, so there may be visual differences in MSFS 2024.

• Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 or 2024
• OS: Windows 10 / 11
• Processor: Intel i5-4460 | AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or better
• Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 770 | AMD Radeon RX 570 or better
• Video Memory: 2 GB VRAM
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Free hard disk space: 4 GB

Installation runs via Aerosoft One, this requires an internet connection and an Aerosoft user account!

More information about Aerosoft One can be found in the User Guide or in the FAQs.

Version 1.5.0 | MSFS 2024

• Native vegetation (grasses, trees, bushes, partly swaying in the wind)
• Updated LODs
• Update of the brightness of the touchdown markers
• Many minor bug fixes and updates
• Special features in the MSFS 2024 version:
  • Simobjects vehicles do not work on 3D terrains (in MSFS 2024)
  • Simobjects people and animals only sporadically
  • An extremely high-resolution elevation model is only a few centimeters directly below the 3D model
  • Side effects of this:
    • Detailed native grass can now be used (seeing through)
    • AI aircraft are now spawned a the parking positions, but apparently do not take off and land at the airports
    • Taxi guidance works now
    • Tighter, more performance-friendly vegetation
    • In certain lighting conditions, the ground model "rolls up" on approach (caused by the fact that the ground terrain and 3D terrain are rendered differently and are now so close to each other)