CFB Comox, British Columbia, Canada
by Vern Opperman, (C) copyright March 2002
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CFB Comox
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19 Wing Comox is located in the beautiful Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The only Air Force base in British Columbia, it is home to 442 (Search & Rescue) Squadron, 407 (Maritime Patrol) Squadron and 414 (Combat Support) Squadron. In addition, the base also houses the Canadian Forces School of Search and Rescue, and supports cadet training at the Regional Cadet Gliding School (Pacific). The civilian terminal is the hub of air travel to this area.
442 (Search & Rescue) Squadron flies the CC115 Buffalo aircraft, the CH113 Labrador Helicopter and has just recently acquired the CH149 Cormorant Helicopter (EH101). It is responsible for search and rescue in one of the most rugged and difficult flying areas in the world, from the BC-Washington border to the Arctic, and from the Rocky Mountains to 1200 km out into the Pacific.
407 (Maritime Patrol) Squadron flies the CP-140 Aurora aircraft (US P3). They carry out surveillance missions over the ocean looking for illegal fishing, drugs and pollution, and foreign submarines.
414 (Combat Support) Squadron flies the venerable CT-133 "T-Bird" supporting Naval and Air Force combat training exercises.
Installation
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1. Unzip CFB Comox into a temporary folder.
2. You must install Gerrish Gray's Trees files first and in the proper folders.
The scenery file, trees_0.bgl, goes into the MAIN FS2002 scenery folder, e.g. C:\FS2002\Scenery
Similarly, the trees texture bitmaps, *.bmp, must go in the MAIN FS2002 texture folder, e.g. C:\FS2002\Texture.
3. Cut and Paste the CFB Comox folder with its contents to where you would normally install your addon scenery.
In my example I placed it in the C:\FS2002\Addon Scenery\Canada folder
C:\FS2002\
Addon Scenery\
Canada\
CFB Comox\
Scenery
Texture
Start FS2002 and select World>Scenery Library>Add..area and your scenery.
You will find CFB Comox in your main Go to Airport Directory Menu>Search Places under CFB Comox or by typing CYQQ in the Airport ID box.
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Know Issues
1. The Options>Settings>Display 'Ground Scenery Casts Shadows' must be de-select in order for the wake of the BC Ferry to display properly. I believe this is because, if selected, each wave within the texture causes a shadow, resulting in a black wake.
2. If you face the fences at a large angle they appear black. This is normal in that if you where to look at a mesh fence at an angle you would not be able to see through it.
3. Frame rates. This scenery can result in a big frame rate hit especially near the end of runway 29 if all options are maxed out. This is because there is a large number of marcros (trees and buildings). I have a PIII 650 with 256MB and with all maxed out still find it flyable .. the worst being a momentary 5 fps around the end of runway 29. With the scenery turned down by half (medium) all the buildings and textures still show and the frame rates around the area virtually double on my computer and I honestly don't notice any difference in the scenery quality .. your choice.
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Credits
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First, Paul Jensen. An excellent scenery designer himself, he got me into this :-). It's a big learning curve but extremely satisfying when it all comes together. Thanks Paul. You can find his excellent work under BCBush at www.SurClaro .
Al Pelletier and Major Tom Mitchell. Al is retired from the Canadian Air Force and was former aircrew on the CP-140 Aurora Aircraft. He is a long standing flight sim enthusiast and has made substantial contributions to the flight simulator world. He is the author of the popular Round Robin Series published in Flight Simulator World. Al provided up to date pictures of the Base and did the beta testing. To Major Tom Mitchell for taking the time out to take some pictures. Major Mitchell is a helicopter pilot with 442 (Search & Rescue) Squadron. Thanks fellas.
To Gerrish Gray for his excellent trees routine and for helping me out with a texture problem. Thanks a lot Gerrish.
To Keith Clifford for his excellent models of the CF-101 Voodoo at the entrance to the base, the CP-107 Argus as part of the Museum, the Labrador Helicopter and also for doing some beta testing for me. They converted well .. thanks Keith.
Terry Weightman and Dan Port for beta testing and providing valuable input. Thanks guys
And finally to Tom Hiscox for his fine program Airport for Windows which made it all possible.
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Copyright
The CFB Comox scenery is the copyright (c) of Vern Opperman March 2002 and as such is freeware only. No person or company may use all or any part of this scenery package to make money without prior written permission from me.
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Questions and comments to
Vern Opperman
veropp@shaw.ca
