These 7 air fields brings the total number of airports in Iceland to 81; combined with the 21 default airports & the 53 add-on airports in my "Iceland1.zip" file. Fuel services were added to more airports with the revised airport scenery files included. Rotating beacons were added to more air fields, both default & add-on. I added rotating beacons to Iceland's air fields for locating them easier after sunset. The beacons scenery usage is optional.
Land Class scenery now covers all of Iceland. An Atlas was used to place the towns & villages in FS9. If I missed a town or village, it wasn't intentional. Land Class textures are approximately one square kilometer in size and are very general in appearance. It's nearly impossible to create a small town or village. They either look like a small city or a residential area and no in between. The land class that I added should be viewed with "tongue in cheek" & replaces the bush with some indication that it's inhabited.
As I was creating the 7 air fields and compiling this update, I discovered mistakes in my Iceland1.zip scenery files. Revised files should address these issues. They are relatively minor errors, like markings (runway center line & designation numbers) on gravel runways, file name spelling mistakes, Multicomm Radio place name incorrect, poor ai traffic ground movement behavior, etc.
- I used Blonduos instead of Bildudalur in Bildudalur's Multicomm Radio frequency name.
- Herdubreidarland.bgl, Herdubreidarland_A16N.bgl (airport scenery), & AF2_BIHE Herdubreidarland.bgl (AFCAD) should have been spelled as Herdubreidarlind (Note: the AFCAD has the correct spelling of Herdubreidarlind in FS9's Go To Airports List - only the file name is misspelled). Flateyr.bgl (Land Class scenery) should have been spelled as Flateyri. The spelling errors have been retained in this update so that the files will overwrite the originals. It is suggested, however, that these files be renamed to how they should be spelled.
- I have spent the last 2 weeks modifying all my Iceland afcad files. I had placed parking at mid field. This caused ai aircraft to take off from the center of runways & not seek the start positions at the runway ends. Parking was moved to the runway ends to eliminate this ai traffic ground movement behavior. Although, after moving the parking, I have noted that ai aircraft sometimes leave their parking stall and wander around trying to find the start position. Eventually they lock onto the start position and head towards it. For awhile it had me wondering what they're doing or going to do.
I created a flatten switch .bgl file for default Isafjordur (BIIS) to eleminate an "erroneous" mountain that's close to the runway/airport property. "BIIS_flatten.bgl" was included in the Iceland1.zip archive. I forgot about creating it and, of course, didn't mention it in my previous Readme. That flatten switch .bgl file for Isafjordur can optionally be used or removed.
7 air fields that were added:
Airport ICAO Longest
Name Code Runway
Fuel Services were added to (released in Iceland1):
- Borgarfjordur (BIBF)
- Gunnarsholt (BIGH)
- Herdubreidarlind (BIHE)
- Olafsfjordur (BIOF)
- Skogarsandur (BISK)
- Sprengisandur (BISP)
I decided to add my afcads of default Keflavik (BIKF) & Reykjavik (BIRK) in this update. My BIKF & BIRK afcads are "generic" by design, that is to say, they'll accept all aircraft model's radii & thus usable by everybody. If you want more ai traffic within Iceland, the large jetliners are of no use here. Iceland's air fields are for general aviation aircraft only. If BIKF & BIRK are to be used for Iceland's national ai traffic, then they require a fair amount of ramp parking, besides gates. I believe my BIKF & BIRK afcad file's allow enough parking for both the jetliners & the general aviation aircraft. I change my heavy gates, medium gates & small gates from 52m, 38m & 31m to 47m, 35m & 25m respectively, which is the largest radii needed for any aircraft model in the given category without making aircraft model modifications.
A bonus airport is included. It's the Wuxi Airport in China. A university student going to Shanghai University (I know him as Tom Young) sent me 12 photos of this airport in his home town of Wuxi. Tom asked me if I'd create this airport and I did several months ago. I sent the scenery to Tom via e-mail, but I never posted the scenery on-line. The Wuxi Airport comlements my China airports scenery, tibet_95.zip by Jan "Uranusjay" Martin, & china_airports.zip by Adrian Wright. I have been advised that at least 2 Chinese Air Carriers serve the Wuxi Airport, but I can't recall the airline company names. I was informed that this airport isn't in the Ultimate Traffic data base.
Miscellaneous Notes:
Land Class Scenery Installation Don't Do:
I downloaded some land class scenery recently. The author's instructions were to create both a scenery folder & a texture folder for the land class scenery. I have said this before in some of my previous postings Readme's and I shall repeat it here for those of you who don't know this.
NEVER add or create a texture folder for land class scenery. Only create and/or use a scenery folder when installing land class scenery. If the author says to create a texture folder for land class scenery - ignore his/her instructions & don't create it. The texture folder causes problems or can cause problems with the land class scenery. I don't know why, but it does. Please remember this because nobody likes problems, at least, I would like to think that nobody likes problems.
Regarding ai traffic to the add-on airports:- Air fields with parking available does NOT mean or implies in any way that they're suitable for ai traffic. See .gif image example with high terrain in the background. High terrain in close proximity to an air field can cause ai aircraft to crash because of the very "simple" ai engine (ATC) in FS9. I added AI traffic to a few air fields and the planes "crashed" into terrain while on the approach path. Wind direction would be a factor too, of course. I created ai traffic to have the appearance of some activity, even if the ai traffic didn't work very well. I thought it was better to have some activity than none at all. Trial & error will be necessary to find out which add-on air fields are totally suited for ai traffic. The number of Icelandic air fields that I have created is far too great to investigate ai behaviour at each individual air field. Those air fields I had a chance to check out proved to be not all that ai friendly, however I am sure that there's plenty of the add-on air fields that will be okay with regards to ai traffic. I did find that ai traffic ground movements were less than acceptable with parking placed in the mid air field area. I moved the parking spots to the runway ends. This seemed to resolve the ai traffic ground movements because they were taking off from mid runway and not going to the start positions. I have tried to make these Icelandic add-on airports both "as per real world" and "FS9 ai friendly", which hasn't been particularly easy.
As with my Iceland1 scenery package, no support will be given to Iceland2's new and/or updated files. This scenery update is as is. I believe that my 3 months of work on this Iceland add-on airports project has been long enough. It's time to move on to other things. The author assumes knowledge of adding add-on scenery to FS9.
Add-on airports with runways shorter than 2500 feet
may or may not have parking added to the AFCAD files.
Most of the "incomplete" AFCAD files (with no parking) only have
runways, start positions & comm radio frequency; aren't AI ready.
Bonus Scenery
Wuxi Airport (ZSWX), China:
Many months ago I was asked by a person (that I only know by the name of Tom Young) if I could create the Wuxi Airport for him. Tom's home is Wuxi, China and he is a student of the Shanghai University. Wuxi, according to Tom, is about 75 miles north of Shanghai. Tom was at the university when he e-mailed me. I had to wait until Tom went back home for him to get the information from his PC. Tom sent me 12 photos of ZSWX as he said he would, one of which was a top down view or aerial shot. I created that airport in China for Tom and sent the scenery to him. I never posted this airport as an update to my other China airports add-on scenery. So, here's the Wuxi airport scenery for FS9 that is positioned as per the real world airport in China as closely as FS9 will allow. The airport scenery files include an AFCAD file with medium gates, small gates & general aviation parking. I am a rather limited (poor) scenery designer in that I cannot create custom scenery objects. I have photos of Wuxi's terminal building, but it's not in the scenery. If I could create custom scenery macro api files, I would and Wuxi's terminal building could be seen in FS9. I chose not to use a generic terminal building because it didn't look anywhere near as it should. It was an honour to be approached by Tom Young to create this Wuxi Airport scenery and it was enjoyable for me being able to grant Tom Young's request. Thank you Mr. Tom Young; this scenery could not have been made where it not for you.
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Credits:
Derek Leung for Flight Simulator Scenery Creator 1.5.11.
David 'Opa' Marshall for Rotating Beacon Utility.
Lee Swordy for AFCAD.
Russel Dirks for EZ-Landclass v2.
Tom Young for the photos of Wuxi Airport (ZSWX).
Microsoft for Century of Flight (FS9).
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Copyright and Distribution:
- These files are released as Freeware with limitations. Copyright Curt Jardey.
- The archive must not be distributed at all, with or without modifications to the contents of the archive, with files added or removed, etc., etc.
- The inclusion of any individual file from this archive in another archive without the prior permission of the author is strictly prohibited.
- The author's rights and wishes concerning this archive must be respected.
Copyright 2005 by Curt Jardey. All Rights Reserved.
