LUIS MUNOZ MARIN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT SAN JUAN PUERTO RICO

VERSION 1 FOR FS2004 (See below for FS2002 compatibility)

By: John Young

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INTRODUCTION

A few years ago, I fell in love with the Caribbean. I have since visited from the UK on a number of occasions, either cruising the islands or staying on Barbados. Flying the islands virtually in FS2004 is not quite the same thing but none the less very enjoyable and still quite evocative. With some excellent freeware sceneries recently available, the feel of the real world is that much more enhanced and I am grateful to people like Tony Agramont, Christian Delblond, Jimmy Martin and Bill Melichar who have added to my enjoyment with excellent freeware offerings. I have been less impressed with the available payware products unfortunately.

I am sure that over time, the quality of the Island airports in particular will continue to grow and I have been steadily building a collection of my favourites. The gap for me however has been San Juan (Luis Munoz Marin International) with no detailed rendering of terminals and jetways that I could find. I have been to the airport only once and the only thing I can really remember was touching down with relief in a British Airways DC-10 on the third attempt after a tropical rain shower made life a little difficult for the captain.

I thought I would have a go at the scenery myself but soon found myself limited by so little photographic reference material on the Internet. In fact I only found three useable photographs - one landside, one of a section of jetway and the other a black and white satellite image which was taken about 10 years ago. I was however, able to download an airport diagram that gave me some clarity of the jetway layout.

WHAT'S IN THIS SCENERY?

What started off as a quick fix turned into something a little more adventurous. This is what you will find in the scenery:

* Re-designed terminal area with transparent texturing and some interior detail.

* 40 detailed jetways with physical gate numbers and taxi lines to help parking.

* New control tower.

* Re-designed cargo area.

* Added the fuel storage tank area.

* Improved the runway and taxiway night lights.

* Declutered some of the default taxiway signs, particularly on the North Ramp.

* Added flashing "wig-wag" hold lights at most runway entrances.

* Night lighting to all the new structures.

* AFCAD2 file to align with all the new gates and jetways and make taxi-ing less of a conflict on the North Ramp. Note that I have added fictitious ILS's to runways 26 and 28 if anyone wants to use them, though try as I may, I cannot get ATC to depart or land aircraft in these directions. Note that the gate numbering sequence is purely for convenience and almost certainly does not reflect the real world. Apart from the American Airlines gates, I have no knowledge of the allocation of airlines to specific gates but would welcome information. Note also that "Gates" 100-103 on the Air National Guard Ramp (furthest apron North East) are coded with "130P" to force my particular C-130 AI aircraft to park there. You might want to re-code with AFCAD2 to match your particular aircraft if they feature in your flight plans for this airport.

Although the structural layout, I think, is in line with the airport diagram that I have, I am less certain about texturing and would welcome more information for a potential next release. I have not included a static aircraft package because real-world liveried AI traffic (as in the screen shots) is a far more realistic alternative.

Note that this is quite a demanding scenery and will require a fairly high-end processor and graphics card, particularly when used with Tony Agramont's Puerto Rico scenery (see below). I know that there are lines of trees bordering the two runways but I thought it unwise to include them at this stage because of further potential degradation in performance.

INSTALLATION

The Zip file, when unzipped to a temporary directory, should have produced a nest of folders called FS Scenery\Caribbean\San Juan JY with two sub folders "scenery" and "texture" below San Juan JY. Unzipping will also produce this readme file and the same file in ".txt" format plus some screen shots and the all important AF2_TJSJ.bgl file which is the AFCAD2 file that controls the AI traffic paths amongst other things. Ignore the file "San Juan FS2002 JY.bgl" unless you intend using the scenery with FS2002, in which case, see the relevant section below.

This is all you need to do to install to FS2004:

1) Move the folder called "San Juan JY" with its two sub folders" to the usual FS2004\Scenery folder or to wherever else you keep your scenery files if you know what you are doing.

If for any reason the Zip file only produces a list of files, then create the Folder "San Juan JY" with two sub folders "Scenery" and "Texture" manually and then place all .bgl files in the San Juan JY\Scenery folder and all .bmp files in the San Juan JY\Texture folder. (note "Texture" not "Textures").

2) Place the AF2_TJST.bgl file in your Flight Simulator 9\Addon Scenery\ Scenery folder. While this file will work with the default aircraft, you really need to have downloaded and be familiar with "Traffic Tools" by Lee Swordy in order to prepare customised flight plans and aircraft that better relate to the real world. The program is available from most popular flightsim sites.

3) Launch FS2004 and from the drop down menu go to "World" then "Scenery Library" and add in San Juan JY by navigating to the folder where it is installed. There is no need to add-in the AF2 file in the same way if it has been placed in the default Addon\Scenery folder. You must then close and restart FS2004 for the new addition to become active.

IMPORTANT: If you are using my scenery with Tony Agramont's Puerto Rico scenery (see below), then my scenery must sit above Tony's in your scenery library, ie my scenery must have a lower number).

You are now ready to fly and can access San Juan (TJSJ) through the "Go to Airport" menu using the "search places" (default start up positions) or "search add-on scenery". The latter has a number of start-up positions specific to my scenery. Map view contains the additional ILS frequencies.

COMPATIBILITY WITH PUERTO RICO SCENERY BY TONY AGRAMONT

I have used the FS2004 default ground layout as the basis of my scenery, though given better information I would prefer to build it from scratch. Tony Agramont's scenery of the entire island of Puerto Rico also uses the default San Juan International, but he has made some changes and additions to the airport that I do not always find appealing. It was however, quite easy to exclude those features, including the static aircraft. My scenery can therefore be used with both the FS2004 default and Tony's wider scenery of the island (PTRICO04.Zip and PTRICOTX.Zip).

COMPATIBILITY WITH FS2002

My scenery can also be used with FS2002 but there is a small problem with a slightly different layout of the North Ramp I have fixed this with an alternative .bgl scenery file included in this zip. FS2002 users should retain the FS2004 exclude file but replace "San Juan JY.bgl" with "San Juan FS2002 JY.bgl". I have not however produced an alternative AFCAD file (the AFCAD2 file for FS2004 is not compatible) and I have not tested the scenery extensively in FS2002.

GROUND SCENERY SHADOWS AND DAWN/DUSK TEXTURE SMOOTHING

If you have problems displaying the transparency of the terminal windows with your particular graphics card, try turning off "Ground Scenery Shadows" and "Dawn/Dusk Texture Smoothing" from the FS2004/FS2002 Display menu.

REQUEST FOR HELP

This is a very first stab at a detailed scenery for the airport. If anyone would like to supply additional information, particularly photographs, then I would be pleased to develop the scenery further.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

RAFAEL GARCIA SANCHEZ, for his payware "Nova" program, used to produce scenery objects.

MANFRED MOLDENHAUER, for SCASM and Pascal Meziat, Brian McWilliams and Tom Hiscox for the freeware "Airport For Windows V3 Build 188" and a constant stream of innovations.

LEE SWORDY for his freeware "AFCAD2" and "Traffic Tools" - both outstanding "AI" programs.

LEGAL

Copyright of this scenery is with John Young and the archive may not be altered in any way without my permission. The scenery is freeware. It has been designed for the benefit of the flight sim community worldwide with thanks for all the great downloads that I have obtained over time. It may not be used, uploaded or placed on any medium that may cause money to be made in any way. Please do not upload the file to a web site without my permission.

This software is provided "as is" with no guarantees or warranty of fitness and you use these files at your own risk.

MOST IMPORTANTLY

Have fun but e-mail me if you have any problems or want to give feedback and hopefully provide me with additional information for the next release.


John Young
E-mail:
john.young@btinternet.com
April 2004