Alaskan Commuter 7 - Mostly BC: So what does British Columbia have to do with an Alaskan scenery package? Part 3 of a 3 part series including 21 airports in British Columbia which connects the lower 48 to Alaska. Airports are usually about 100-150 miles apart. Aviators can start at Seattle and fly the coastal route to Ketchikan and beyond, or start at Glacier International Airport in Kalispell, Montana, and fly the backbone of the Canadian Rockies to Northway, AK. With the Alaskan Commuter 5 and 6 downloads, a pilot can continue on with short hops to the Bering Sea. A few have float plane facilities. Replaces Nasports. By Dave Erickson Size: 4.76 MB
IMPORTANT
Be sure to read the installation instructions. Since this package is designed to work with terrain mesh. You will need to manually install the flatten switches yourself.
I have included two maps (courtesy of Jerry Alfred) showing airport locations for packages 5, 6, and 7. They are located in the main folders of the Alaskan Commuter 6 and Alaskan Commuter 7 downloads. Since these packages represent 45 default airports in all, no one could possibly remember what airports they are, or how they are lie in relation to each other. I would strongly suggest making copies of the two maps, or shortcuts to them. Drag the maps onto your computer's tool bar at the bottom of the screen, and you will have instant access to the maps for flight planning.
Scenery levels are fairly dense. Some airports have lots of trees. In the larger airports with more static aircraft and other enhancements, I eased off on the trees somewhat to keep frame rates up. Slower computers may have to tinker with density adjustments to keep frame rates acceptable (while running FS2000 go to Options/Settings/Display/Image Quality, and adjust the "Scenery Complexity" slider to allow for faster frame rates). You won't have as much scenery, but you will be able to fly.
In real life I have flown a few legs of the Alaskan Commuter Series in a friends Cessna 182, starting at my home in Montana and ending up on the Bering Sea at the small coastal community of Brevig Mission, and I have created some macros that actually reflect some of the structures that I remember at some of the airports. However, that was over 20 years ago, and I've taken a great deal of license with much of the scenery as I remember it. For example:
One of the things I remember is a unique control tower and airport office complex at Watson Lake in the Yukon. As I recall this small complex was of rough cut construction, possibly even logs. I created a similar structure for Watson Lake in this series, but I can't remember exactly how the tower was situated, or what other facilities were actually there, so I just added things where they seemed appropriate.
I have flown out of Glacier International Airport, in Kalispell a couple of times, but I never paid much attention to things while I was there. However, I did get particular pleasure out of modeling the Outlaw Inn, one of Kalispell's most notable motels, but it's placement in proximity to the airport is totally wrong. Had I placed it where it really is, no one flying into Kalispell would see it.
I have fond memories of many of the Alaskans I encountered on that trip. In fact, I recall a man and his wife in Nome at whose home we spent the night. It was here that I was introduced to Eskimo Ice Cream, which I looked forward to with a great deal of anticipation. Alas, I could not finish this odd concoction of blueberries and fish oil, which apparently the natives find quite enjoyable.
I remember Elmer and Molly, two helpful and friendly Eskimos at Brevig Mission (sorry, I didn't model this location), and I remember the delightful children of Brevig, who laughed and giggled around our campfire on the beach where we parked our Cessna and pitched camp. I remember also the howling wind off the Bering Sea, which threatened to tear our small tent to shreds.
I flew this trip in the summer of 1978 with two good friends, Paul and Gene. On our way to Alaska, Paul, our pilot, owner of the plane, and a former Alaskan himself, described a phenomenon he referred to as the "Alaska Syndrome", which he said consisted of a sometimes vacant look, strained attempts at communication, and some other idiosyncrasies which I can't remember. It was Paul's theory that continual deprivation of sunlight for long periods of time, along with isolation produced this effect. He told Gene and I to watch for it. "Oh, you mean these people go crazy up there from cabin fever?" I asked. "No, it's just something I've observed in some people," said Paul. So for the rest of the trip I watched for this phenomena, but I'm not sure I ever identified it.
However, the harsh interior of Alaska is bound to take it's toll on many. One of our stops was at Galena, (PAGA or Pitka in Microsoft). It was here, where we encountered an individual who either had too much of the never-ending dark, or was simply angry at the world because the Air force had the gall to send him to a place like Galena. In fact, I don't think many of the airmen stationed at this facility were happy to be there, because spread across one of the hangers, perhaps housing some top secret fighter jet, was a huge banner with the words, "Welcome to 'Why me God' Galena", but most of the airmen there seemed to take things in stride.
Now we didn't spend a lot of time in Galena, because we were more or less "run out of town" at gun point (Really, I'm not making this up), and I have come to the conclusion, that perhaps one of the harshest aspects of military life in Galena was one of its own commanding officers. While checking in at the airport office, we encountered a man behind the counter wearing civilian clothes. At first glance, he seemed like an airport employee, although he did seem to be about the age one would expect of a military man at the end of a long and tedious career, and he did have a bit of a military appearance; closely shaven, both about the face and well up under his baseball cap, which bore the insignia of some pro team or other.
"Could you tell us how to get to town?" Paul asked. The man in the baseball cap looked out the window, and after what appeared to be a long silence of inner reflection he finally replied. "It's just over there," and he gestured out across the tarmac. "Is it OK if we leave the plane where it's at?" Paul asked. "Yeah," Baseball vacantly replied.
So Gene, Paul, and I went merrily on our way toward town across the tarmac, looking for a watering hole and a place to pitch our tent. As we walked, we laughed and chatted about the "Why me God?" banner hanging on the airplane hangar, but at one point, we became aware of an armed military guard stationed in front of a hanger, and subsequently we noticed that each hangar was being watched over by other guards.
Gene, who was a former Air force enlisted man, and who had spent his military career flying around Vietnam in a reconnaissance plane of some sort, suddenly stopped and said, "You know guys, I don't think we're supposed to be here." Now, after spending many nights literally camping under the wing of the Cessna, sometimes just off the end of the runway, and flying into relaxed airports where the very airstrips themselves served as main streets to communities, we realized we had walked into a well guarded military complex.
The next thing we knew, one of the guards was running at us with rifle in hand, waving to us and gesturing wildly. "Go back! Go back," more in a voice of concern, than as a command. "It's no biggie! Just go back!"
"No problem," shouted Gene, "We'll go back," and we started back towards the airport office, where we could get more explicit instructions as to exactly how we should proceed to town. But before we could get back to the office, we encountered a fleet of Chevy Suburban vans, painted in bright yellow and orange, with yellow flashing emergency gumballs on top. They came racing across the tarmac to head us off, and suddenly, we were surrounded by armed military personnel holding us prisoners. Some lower officer was talking on a walkie talkie, and I heard the words squawk back out from the walkie talkie, "Detain them. Detain them."
Then appeared another Suburban van in orange emergency colors, but coming towards us at a more leisurely pace. It pulled up, and while the ring of guards opened up to make way, out stepped Baseball from the airport office, but now, rather than a quite uncommunicative sort with a detached disregard, he had puffed himself up into a caricature of an army sergeant. As I recall, he was chewing on the stub of an unlit cigar. He swaggered toward us with his lower jaw thrust out and forcing a glare that caused his underlings to take a step back as he passed by.
Here was a man clearly in the ecstasy of self assumed importance, a man among men in his own eyes; the epitome of fantasies of the most macho wannabies. I think he believed in his manly heart, the very steps he was taking towards us caused the asphalt to shake under his stride.
Now I have to admit that I probably did not help our case when he stopped in front of the three of us and glared. I turned to Gene and laughingly said, "This is quite impressive. Don't you think?" Now, I didn't mean to be insolent in the face of such obvious authority, but things were happening quickly and for no reason that seemed to warrant our present situation, but the fact is that I felt like laughing. After all, we hadn't committed any error as far as I knew, and we were just following the directions he had given us to town. Furthermore, I did truly think it was an impressive display of military pomp, none the likes I had ever seen before.
"Who's the pilot?" Baseball bellowed. "I am," replied Paul, causing Baseball to turn his full military authority in Paul's direction. "You dumb $#%^@!" he said, while poking is finger in Paul's chest. "Don't you know any better than to go walking across an airport tarmac? We got planes landing here all the time, and they don't have time to look out for the likes of your sorry ass." I looked into the sky, but saw no planes. I doubted that anything was incoming, because we were standing in the middle of the tarmac with 20 captors, with what appeared to be the man in charge.
"There are signs all over the place telling you not to go here," he railed on. I turned around to look for a sign, but I couldn't see any. I assumed they must have been posted on the fences outside of the airport, but there were certainly none visible from inside the fences, and since we landed inside the fences, we had pretty much been had. Baseball's bellowing and finger jabbing went on for a few minutes, and I kept looking at Paul, who was just smiling politely trying to demonstrate an appropriate attitude of contrition in the face of Baseball's ranting.
But even the most emotional diatribes must eventually lose steam, and so it was with Baseball's, who after an impressive torrent of insults and dispersions to our characters, and our mothers' characters, apparently came to a point where he could think of nothing more to say, and his ravings ended with a rather anti-climactic, "Don't ever let it happen again."
With that out of the way, we were released on our own reconnaissance, and allowed to walk back to our point of origin. By the time we got back to the airport office, Baseball, who had driven back in the Suburban, was again behind the counter, and had assumed his original appearance of uninterested disregard. Paul approached him and made another attempt at getting clearer directions to town and inquired if there was a place where we could get a beer. "All the bars around here are sleazy dives," Baseball eventually replied, and then after another period of silence he added, "But you guys might like them."
"Let's go fly to someplace else," said Gene, who had been fairly quiet up until now, so the three of us got back into the plane and followed the Yukon River up to Manley Hot Springs where we would eventually meet a friendly group of locals celebrating the Fourth of July.
We flew in pensive silence for a while, in a drizzling rain and under a low ceiling. After some time, Gene observed, "That guy back there has spent too much time in the dark." I thought about the odd changes in attitude, from detached disregard to a torrent of venom, and acid sarcasm. "Was that the Alaska Syndrome?" I asked. "No," replied Paul, "That was just some jerk!"
Dynamic aircraft were converted to static objects using M98toBGL by Trevor de Stigter. Thanks to the following aircraft designers for use of the following aircraft:
Bob Wening
Fred Banting
Barry Blaisdell
Jerry Arzdorf
Sandro Bernardini
Satoru Tajiri
Acle Kahney
Michael Verlin
Additional objects by:
Doc G
Mark Remien
Michael Rodriguez
Gerrish Gray
Mike Wallace
Furthermore, I made many of the objects in this scenery myself. However, other authors created many of the textures I used. Many of their sources of origin have been lost in the course of time, sometimes because that is the nature of textures, and sometimes due to my own abysmal attempts at organization.
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Conditions of Use:
This scenery is released as Freeware. It may be freely used, copied and distributed with the following restrictions: This document must be included in any redistribution. DO NOT place these files anywhere that requires a fee for downloading. DO NOT place any of these files in any commercial package or any CD collection without the authors consent. Several other designers have developed objects and aircraft used in this Freeware, and the above restrictions apply to their creations as well.
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Disclaimer:
I am not responsible for any problems or damage resulting from the installation of these files. If you have problems installing these scenes, e-mail me at dave@libby.org
