Howdy and welcome to the wild west (Okay I'm an easterner but who cares :). This is the fourth (third complete) in the series of airports that I have spent way too much of my life in. Actually out of the four this would be number one with only Toronto (my home base) and Heathrow beating it. Okay not only I have a spent a lot of time at the real aerodrome but this initial version has taken me about eight or nine months to put together. Like my other airports this is only the first version as it has been two years since I last passed through CYYC and I know many things have changed. Fortunely I will be passing through in the near future, so I can refresh my memory. On that note I should mention that this version is based on the old airport and doesn't include any recent changes to the terminal or the addition of the new taxiways to 10 that I know are under construction. Bascially as I've been staring at this for so long I just want to get the first version released so that other people can fly into and see what you think of it.
Okay now on with what I have done. Well actually quite a bit, first of all if you know my previous airports I gave you two versions to choose from. A night and day version and a night only version. Well this time I'm giving you four choices. Let me explain the two new versions. Quite awhile ago I noticed that the so-called taxi lights where pretty close together. First I thought it had to do with the different textures that I was using. Well a week ago I realized that it had to with the sizes of the textures I was using. Well I didn't want to change the size of the textures and I have never felt that the taxi lights give justice to FS98 slogan of "As real as it gets". So I thought it would be fun (in a sick sort of way) to create my own taxi lights similiar to the real thing. And that is what I have done. With that I'd like to announce my TL (taxi light) versions (tell me what you think). Basically the first version replaces all of the old taxi lights with my new ones but leaves the original runway lights. The second version replaces both the taxi and runway lights. The only problems with the runway lights are that they are not really visible until your almost on top of them. Personally I think the taxi lights look a lot better but of course with anything good there are trade offs. The lights require about 70kb of space and the runway lights another 25kb. But when you consider there are over 1400 taxi lights and about 500 runway lights (please don't call me if one burns out ;), I'll let you do the math.
Okay so now your asking what else is included. Well I have layed out an accurate rendition of the city thanks to the MapBlast website (no guarantees that all of the buildings are in the right place), including almost 200 roads and a fairly accurate recreation of the Bow River and Glenmore Reservoir. I've also included a fence around the airport (thanks to Michael Rodriguez for the great fence macros), all of the buildings around the airport including Robert Waszkiewicz's nifty control tower that I used for the ground control (see below for the tower co-ordinates), runway signs on all taxiways (again thanks to Michael for his sign macros with a few alterations) and a totally of 27 static a/c. Unfortunely due to the FS scenery buffer limit not all of them can be used at once, so you'll have to pick your a/c.
I've also created a rendition of Springbank airport. Unfortunely as the FS world is fairly flat, to get Springbank at the right altitude requires a sort of step up on the west end of the city. So if you are at YYC and you see a white line in the sky, it's just Springbank's runways hovering in the air. Don't worry if you fly there they do meet up with the ground. Ohh I should also mention that MS put Calgary about 1000 feet higher asl then it should be. So I've put the city and airport at the right altitude but about 10nm out the ground will come up 1000 feet quickly on you. Please do not panic and think of your loved ones. So basically I would suggest you stay a little high on your approach until you cross the border from forest (don't ask me what MS was thinking) to prairie and then descend to your approach altitude.
Well I think thats pretty much all that I have to say as you've probably already tuned me out but here are the installation instructions along with a way to use the TL version with the most static a/c. Ohh I should also mention that I have played around with MS scenery files to eliminate MS version of Calgary so that I have more space for mine and to eliminate the need for a exclude file but I'll explain that all below.
Files Included:
readme.txt -I think you've already found it yyc-nd.bgl -The basic airport with runways, taxiways, terminal building. Taxiway lights are illuminated night and day.
yyc-no.bgl -Same as above except taxiway lights illuminated only at night.
yyc-tl.bgl -TL version of the above with original runway lights but only taxi lights around main terminal (explain later).
yyc-tla.bgl -Rest of taxi lights (TL version) for above.
yyc-tlr.bgl -Same as yyc-tl without original runway lights.
yyc-tls.bgl -Taxi and runway lights for yyc-tlr.
**IMPORTANT - only use one of nd, no, tl, or tlr, not more then one!!**
yyc-nbld.bgl -Buildings at north end of airport.
yyc-sbld.bgl -Buildings at south end of airport.
yyc-city.bgl -Rendition of city.
ybw.bgl -Springbank airport.
yyc-fence.bgl -Fence around airport
yyc-_exc.bgl -Exclude file
F999004.bgl -Modified FS file.
yyc-aa.bgl -American Airlines a/c (1)
yyc-ac1.bgl -Air Canada a/c at Concourse A (4)
yyc-ac2.bgl -Air Canada a/c at Concourse B/C (1)
yyc-aca.bgl -Air BC a/c (2)
yyc-cp.bgl -Canadian a/c (2)
yyc-cpr.bgl -Canadian Regional a/c (3)
yyc-dl.bgl -Delta a/c (1)
yyc-kl.bgl -KLM a/c (1)
yyc-ua.bgl -United a/c (1)
yyc-wj.bgl -WestJet a/c (1)
ac-textures.zip -Textures for above a/c.
texture.zip -Additional textures.
---------------
Gate Aircraft Scenery Density Level Flight Model By
2,4,5 Air BC DHC8-100 Very Sparse Barry Blaisdell
6,8,9 Air Canada CRJ Very Sparse Camil Valiquette
11 Air BC BAe 146-200 Dense Marcel Ritzema and
Steve Weiher
12 Air Canada A319-114 Dense Peter Herrmann
14 Air Canada A340-313 Very Dense Camil Valiquette
15 Air Canada A320-211 (Raptors) Very Sparse Bob Tremblay
20 Canadian DC10-30 Sparse Carlos S. Risso DomÃnguez
22 KLM B747-300 Normal Thomas Diderich
23,32 Canadian B737-200 Very Sparse Bob Tremblay
24 Air Canada DC9-32 Normal Brian Quayle
25 WestJet B737-200 Very Sparse Bob Tremblay
26 American MD83 Sparse Andy Jung
27 United B737-306 Dense Chris van Bijlert
29 Delta B727-200 Very Dense The Freeware Works
31,34 Canadian Regional F28 Very Sparse Kim Simmelink
35,41 Canadian Regional DHC8-300 (2) Very Sparse Barry Blaisdell
37-43 Canadian Regional DHC8-100 (4) Very Sparse Michael Oxner
---------------
Other Info:
Elevation: 3557ft
ATIS: 127.20
ILS: Runway 16 - 109.3 IEM
Runway 28 - 110.9 IAQ
Runway 34 - 111.5 IYC
VOR: 116.7 YYC
NDB: 344.0 YC - 282 degress 4.2NM to A/D
233.0 Y - 342 degrees 3.8NM to A/D
254.0 C - 162 degrees 3.9NM to A/D
Magnetic Var. 18 degrees E
Springbank
Elevation: 3937ft
ATIS: 127.90
ILS: Runway 34 - 111.7 IBW (for VFR use only)
VOR: 108.6 YBW
Magnetic Var. 19 degrees E
Ground Tower View:
Click on World..., then Go To..., then Exact Location. A menu will come up and enter for Tower Location:
Latitude N051* 07' 49.8802"
Longitude W114* 00' 34.9262"
Elevation 3675'
Click okay and then scroll through your views till you hit the tower one.
INSTALLATION:
If you've already installed one of my previous sceneries, then only do steps 3 to 5 (This won't affect either scenery and you'll find you already have some of the texture files). Otherwise go directly to step 1, do not pass go and do not collect $200. There are some special instructions at the bottom.
To install this scenery:
1.) Create a directory in either your Flight Sim scenery directory or where you locate third-party scenery. Name the directory whatever you like (just as a hint, I'm planning on releasing a couple more Canadian airports over the next while. So if your interested in them, create a scenery directory for them. Give it a nice name [if you want to name it after me, I'd be honoured ] and you'll have a home for my future releases)
2.) Within this directory, create two sub-directories called scenery and texture.
3.) Place the desired *.bgl files (see below) into the scenery sub-directory
4.) Unzip ac-textures.zip and move the files into the texture sub-directory or main texture directory (you may already have some from my previous)
5.) Unzip texture.zip and move the files into the texture sub-directory or main texture directory (you may already have some from my previous)
6.) Run Flight Sim98.
7.) Click World on menu bar, then Scenery Library... You'll get a warning and hit okay. Click Files..., then Add... Type in the location of the bgl files into the Scenery area path (ie. c:\....\(directory name from 1.)\scenery\*.bgl). In the Scenery area title type in a name (this box won't be active if you type in the wrong file location). Set the Scenery area type to Local, click the Scenery area active, and enter a Scenery area level. Click Ok three times and your done.
8.) Happy flying.
This scenery was created using the wonderful program Airport Designers Toolkit V1.00 Beta 3 (Airport 2.50). I'd recommend having Apt and Vod texture files installed but you probably already have them.
Special Instructions:
Which one:
-As I already mentioned I've included more static a/c then can be installed. Basically you can install a maximum of 460kb of scenery and then things start disappearing. I would suggest you first install everything but the a/c first, take a look around and decided which version you are going to use, and then add the a/c. I have tried to cramp as many a/c in as small a file as possible by grouping the same a/c together (like the Dash-8's) and creating sets. In the files included section, the brackets at the end indicated the number of sets in the file. For example yyc-cpr indicates 3 sets which means there are three different types of a/c but in reality there are actually 8 a/c in the file. See the list below for the maximum number of sets in each version.
To Exclude or not exclude:
-Okay basically what I have done is taken the original FS scenery for the airports for Canada and deleted Calgary. This means FS doesn't draw there version, my exclude wipes it out and then draws my version. This saves frame rates as things are only drawn once and it frees up some scenery space. So you're thinking how does this affect me and what do I do. Well basically if you have installed the scenery files for Canada onto your HD, move F999004.bgl to a backup directory and place the enclosed version in it's place. If you do this, you do not need yyc-_exc.bgl. If you're running the Canadian booster off the CD then you can either replace the file everytime you start FS (don't forget to run through the scenery library) or use yyc-_exc.bgl
Maximizing TL:
-So you've decided to give my TL version a shot but you're wondering how will this affect the number of static a/c. Well unfortunely the best I could do was 9 sets but here's a comparison
Sets
tlr + tls 6
tlr 9
tl + tla 7
tl 9
nd or no 9
max. 12
Okay basically as you can see the way to maximize the a/c is to discard scenery files that you don't need when you're around the terminal like the tax lights by 34. So how do we do this. Well if you've installed my static a/c for Ottawa you already know the method. What we do is create two different scenery directories and two entries in the scenery library. We then toggle between them as needed. Well let me do it step by step for you,
1.) Complete the above installation.
2.) Create a second scenery directory (name what you like) with all the fixings.
3.) In the original scenery sub-directory put tl/tla or tlr/tls plus anything else you like (if any are a/c remember above limit)
4.) In the second scenery sub-directory put tl or tlr plus the a/c along with anything else (hint if you can't see it from the terminal, don't install it)
5.) Either put all of the texture files into the main texture directory or make a copy in the second texture sub-directory.
6.) Go into the scenery library and install the second scenery directory but make sure you only have one active.
7.) Now toggle between the two when required (ie the first one for taxiing around airport, take-off/landing and the second for around the terminal.
Acknowledgements:
I'd like to thank:
-the designers of Airport Designers Toolkit so that I could design this scenery
-the creators of the a/c (which are listed above)
-Trevor de Stigter creator of M98toBGL
-Michael Rodriguez for his taxi signs and fencing api's
-Robert Waszkiewicz for his street lights and control tower api's
-all the people that emailed me with comments and suggestions (you already know who you are ;)
Copyright and Distribution:
This scenery is Freeware and may be distributed freely. No one is permitted to charge for this scenery or include this in any commerical products.
Copyright (C) Kyle Duncan.
The Future:
Well all that I can say is I'm soooo happy that I'm finally done for now. After I have refreshed my memory, I will work on an update for Calgary. I've already started TBay 1.2 and should have an update soon. First I'll work on and release an upgrade just for the airport and then do some work on the city. I think I'll put together a TL version for TBay and Soo if people like Calgary.
-Sault Ste. Marie (cyam) -Version 1.2 done, possible TL version
-Thunder Bay (cyqt) -Version 1.0 done, future version in the works
-Regina (cyqr)
-Saskatoon (cyxe)
-Calgary (cyyc) -Version 1.0 done finally
-Ottawa (cyow) -STAR files done
-Version 2.2 done
-NavDash Database -Version 1.0 done, updates to be released as necessary
-CYVR STARs added
Vote:
For users of SurClaro here is where I'm suppose to plead with you to vote for my scenery. But instead I think I'll give a Canadian garden tip for the month of August. Gurb season is upon us here up in the Great Cold North and now is the time to kill the little guys before they bury themselves deep in your lawn for the raccoons to dug them up. Just remember after you do your application water your lawn throughly to get the chemical down to where the guys are. Happy gardening and enjoy the rest of the summer.
Comments:
Comments, suggestions, questions, problems, and anything else is always appreciated. Happy landings.
