Svalbard, Longyear Airport for FSX
By Will Kotheimer
Hangar200@gmail.com
Background:
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Svalbard, Spitsbergen is a land of contrasts. An outpost in the high
arctic wilderness, it is home to advanced high-tech operations. While polar
bears roam the provincial capital Longyear (Longyearbyen), close by the
satellite ground station complex Svalsat is host to NASA, ESA and the
Japanese Space Agency. More recently (2008) the Global Seed Vault was
constructed in Longyears permafrost, a secure storage facility designed to
preserve examples of the Earths plant seeds. Coal mining and fishing have
been Svalbards major industries for decades. Svalbards place in aviation
history was established when on May 12, 1926, Roald Amundsen flew from Ny-
Ålesund in the dirigible Norge to the North Pole and back. Due to the
provisions of the Spitsbergen Treaty (1920), the islands are de-militarized
with settlement and resource rights shared by Norway (who retains sovereignty)
the U.S. and Russia. During the Cold War this resulted in the rather unique
situation of Soviet and Norwegian (a NATO-member) settlements sharing the same
island. Today, Longyear is Svalbards main airport and connects the islands
with Oslo and Tromsø, Norway via regular scheduled airline flights. The
single runway can reportedly handle wide-body aircraft up to a DC-10 but most
flights use 737 and smaller aircraft. As there are no roads connecting
Svalbards settlements, a number of light aircraft and helicopters provide
intra-island air transportation.
The Scenery:
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I have tried to capture the general look and feel of Svalbard, Longyear
airport and its immediate surroundings (the town of Longyearbeyn, the Svalsat
complex, the Global Seed Vault, some of the mining and fishing industry,
etc.). However, I have never visited Longyear; the closest I have come is
Oslo. That said, I think I was able to put together a fairly accurate
presentation of the airport from extensive internet searches. This was a bit
tricky as the airport underwent major renovation/construction around 2007; a
new passenger terminal was built, several buildings including the control
tower had a major face lift; but several other buildings remained the same.
Hopefully I have sorted it all out and the airfield facilities are mostly
accurate. The town and local industry are not so; more a general impression
with a few key vertical obstacles placed in about the right position. Another
challenge was the airfield lighting. Longyears latitude of 78 N means that
it experiences darkness for half of the year. Even a mid-day flight in
November or February is flown in twilight conditions at best. The actual
airfield has several tall light towers which I have reproduced and added
lighting effects to light up the ramp during the long nights. All of the
major airport buildings, the Svalsat complex and the Global Seed Vault are
original models. I used FSX and FSX-Acceleration models for the rest of the
scenery (Longyear buildings, vehicles, ships, people, etc.) so you must have
the FSX-Acceleration expansion to see everything. Finally, the default FSX
land-classes used to represent the Svalbard archipelago include one called
Polar and Alpine Desert which unfortunately produces trees in certain
locations. Trees dont grow this far north! I have replaced much of this
land-class around Longyearbyen but if you explore the islands you will find
trees growing where they should not, especially if you fly up to Ny-Ålesund.
Perhaps I will fix this in a future project. But for now, I hope you enjoy
Svalbard Longyear!
Installation:
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Inside this zip file you should find the following folders:
Longyear includes subfolders Scenery and Texture
[scenery .BGL files and the custom scenery textures - required]
Effects includes subfolder Texture
[lighting effects and corresponding texture files - required]
Traffic includes the subfolder path Scenery-World-Scenery
[some fishing boat and shipping traffic optional]
1) Place the Longyear folder wherever you keep add-on scenery.
2) Place the Effects folder in the main FSX folder this should simply add
the effects and their corresponding textures to the correct place.
3) (Optional) Copy the Scenery folder (the one that includes the subfolders
World-Scenery) found inside the Traffic folder and place it in the main FSX
folder. This should add the boat traffic to the proper FSX folder ( . .
.Microsoft Flight Simulator X Scenery World Scenery).
4) - Start up FSX and select Settings on the initial menu.
- From the Settings menu click the Scenery Library button
- In the Scenery Library menu, click the Add Area button
- Navigate to the location where you placed the Longyear folder and select
it. (The Scenery Area title should default to Longyear)
- Click OK on the Add Area menu and OK on the Scenery Library menu.
(FSX will then build the database for the new scenery files)
5) From free-flight mode, select the Longyear airport.
Country = Norway
City = Svalbard
Name = Longyear
Airport ID = ENSB
6) Enjoy!
De-installation:
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Navigate to the Scenery Library menu, select the Longyear area and click
the Delete Area button. Exit FSX. Navigate to the Longyear scenery folder
and delete it. You may also find and delete the Effects and boat traffic .BGL
files if you wish but they do not take up much space.
Release Notes:
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This is the first scenery I have released publically; feedback
(constructive criticism) is welcome at hangar200@gmail.com. That said,
building FS scenery isnt my day job and you did get it for free . . . so
please keep that in mind. I may or may not update it or add to it in the
future. If I do, I will probably post the update(s) to the same site where you
found this file.
Technical Notes:
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I have tested this scenery on an Intel® Core 2 Quad CPU (2.40 GHz) with 4
MB ram and Vista Home Premium, SP2 32 Bit OS. In FSX, my graphics settings
are mostly set just at or above the mid range; the exceptions are: Mesh
Complexity=18, Scenery Complexity=Very dense, Autogen density=Extremely Dense.
Target Framerate=30. Since there is little generic FSX air traffic in this
part of the FSX world you can probably max the sliders. I use Just Flights
Traffic X which includes only a couple of flights in the area (no apparent
performance hit). I have the Ships and Ferries traffic = 100%, Road vehicles
= 25%, Leisure boats = 29% (Ive never seen any leisure boats in these cold
waters in FSX but evidently in the real world people do enjoy sailing around
the islands) and Airport vehicle density = Low.
Using generic FSX aircraft (Piper J3 and Bell 206B), daylight and the Fair
Weather conditions, I routinely see frame rates in the 25 to 30 FPS range.
Your frame rates may vary.
Acknowledgements:
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Thanks to the forum moderators and contributors at FSDeveloper.com. I
learned a lot.
Disclaimer:
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Nothing in this scenery package should harm or otherwise disrupt your
computer. I cant think how it could. Nonetheless, by loading this scenery,
the user assumes all risks inherent with its use.
Copyright and Distribution:
---------------------------
This Scenery is released as Freeware. Copyright William C. Kotheimer Jr. As
freeware you are permitted to distribute this archive subject to the following
conditions,
- The archive must be distributed without modification to the contents of the
archive. Redistributing this archive with any files added, removed or modified
is prohibited.
- The inclusion of any individual file from this archive in another archive
without the prior permission of the author is prohibited.
This means, for example, that you may not upload an archive that uses my
models, textures or effects with your own scenery or include it in a package
containing scenery without first obtaining the authors' permission.
- No charge may be made for this archive other than that to cover the cost of
its distribution. If a fee is charged it must be made clear to the purchaser
that the archive is freeware and that the fee is to cover the distributor's
costs of providing the archive.
- The authors' rights and wishes concerning this archive must be respected.
Copyright 2010 by William C. Kotheimer Jr. All Rights Reserved.
