Airport Facility (AFCAD) files for southern and central British Columbia

by Holger Sandmann


This folder contains AFCAD* files for 47 small airports in southern and central British Columbia, Canada.**  Of these 47 facility files, I made 25 from scratch, substantially changed the default facilities of 19 others, and made some modifications to three airports (CYLW, CYXS, and CYNJ) that already receive some AI flights in the default FS2002 setup.  Once the AFCAD files and associated flight plans are installed, you'll find a variety of small and medium-sized AI aircraft at 43 of the airfields.  Blizzard Run (BLR5) is a potential substitute for Campbell River (CYBL), if you're a fan of Michael Carr's fictitious Blizzard Run scenery (see below).  Kaslo (CBR2), Tsuniah Lake Lodge (CAF4), and Gang Ranch (CAY2) are fully functional for AI traffic but are not serviced by my flight plans.

All airfields work with the default visual scenery (except for BLR5) and have tower locations and (mostly fictional) traffic frequencies as well as carefully tested parking spaces, taxiways, and turn-around loops.  Some airports have certain runway directions closed for takeoff or landing to force AI aircraft into a specific flight pattern (see BC Flightplans readme.txt).  If desired, this can easily be reversed using AFCAD; please consult the AFCAD manual for how to do this.

*  If you are unfamiliar with the term: AFCAD files are invisible maps that control the movement of AI aircraft at and near an airport (have a look at the example screen shot CYKA_Kamloops_AFCAD.gif in the images_and_documents folder).  In addition, they define some of the parameters visible in the 'map view' and GPS screens, as well as the radio frequencies.  They do not change the visual appearance of an airport, such as gates or taxiways! 

** Two of the airfields are outside of B.C.: Friday Harbor (KFHR), is in Washington State, USA, on San Juan Island, and Jasper (CYJA) is in Jasper National Park, Alberta.



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Installation:
See the installation instructions in the readme_first documentation.



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Using Blizzard Run by Michael Carr:
For those of you using Michel Carr's wonderful Blizzard Run (fictitious) scenery on Quadra Island (blzrunv2.zip, available avsim.com), you might want to redirect the AI traffic from Campbell River to there.  If so, open my GA_flightplans.txt file in a text editor that allows for automatic replacements (such as Word or Wordpad) and replace all instances of CYBL with BLR5.  Save GA_flightplans.txt and continue with the general installation (see the readme_first documentation).




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Other Add-on Scenery:
I designed the AFCAD files for Kelowna (CYLW) and Cranbrook (CYXC) on the basis of two great freeware scenery add-ons: CYLW2k2.zip by Dean Kenyon and cyxc_v1.zip by Vern Opperman.  Both are available at avsim.com or flightsim.com and I recommend them highly.  However, my AFCAD files will work fine without them.

Two small but nice additions to the Kelowna airport are Cal Jordan's taxiway signs (cylwsign.zip, at www.fsfreeware.com) and Dave Hazell's ILS/DME for Runway 15 (kelowna_ils.zip, at avsim.com; not used by AI aircraft though).  Similarly, Wayne Senft's scenery add-on for 34 Canadian airports (CNDtaxilights.zip, at avsim.com) features green colored taxi lights at six of the airports covered by my AFCAD.  Very cool!

While I was working on my set of files, Frank Betts uploaded his "Canadian Short Legs" scenery series (canada_short_legs.zip, canada_short_legs_2.zip, and canada_short_legs_trois.zip, available at http://www.flightsimsetc.dhs.org/ and avsim.com).  Six of the nine airfields that he spruced up with great-looking details --- Revelstoke (CYRV), Nakusp (CAQ5), Pemberton (CYPS), Likely (CAX5), McBride (CAV4), and Barkerville (CAS3) --- are also featured in my AFCAD files.  Due to Frank's artful and restrained placement of static aircraft and other objects, our files work perfectly together.  Highly recommended!  One note of caution: a few of Frank's add-ons have slight problems with discrepancies in runway vs. taxiway/parking elevation.  You might notice that AI aircraft take big "leaps" when entering or leaving the runway.  Hopefully, some day Frank will supply us with patches for the affected airfields: CAX5, CAS3, and CYSE  ;-)

Paul Jensen's BC Bush series (available at www.flightsim.com and http://www.timberwolfaviation.com/) contains visual upgrades for Prince George (CYXS) airport and city.  My AFCAD file does not interfere with his scenery and the hangar full of veteran planes as well as the "flock" of Snowbirds on the tarmac provide a wonderful backdrop.

Vern Opperman is the author of a great add-on package for the Comox CFB airport (CYQQ).  The three files are named comox_v1.zip, cyqq_upd.zip, and cyqq_N1.zip, all available at avsim.com.  There are many buildings and static aircraft in this scenery with a corresponding frame rate impact on slower systems.  Again, my AFCAD file works well with Vern's scenery and I have placed the parking spots and taxiways to keep the AI aircraft out of the way of the static aircraft.

Finally, I suggest installing the series of freeware files known as the Dangerous Airport Scenery Enhancements that enhance the visual scenery with approach beacons and small details (e.g., vehicles and people).  Files are named 'dad-xxxx.zip' with xxxx being the airport code and are available at avsim.com.  Relevant airports covered in this series by Phil are CYKA, CZGF, CYCZ, CYLW, and CYYF.  Again, no compatibility issues with my AFCAD files and flight plans.



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Disclaimer:
The author is not responsible for any damage, which may result from the use of this product.
Use at your own risk.  No warranty is offered.



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License:
This file package is released as Freeware.  As an End User, you can do whatever you want with it.  For redistribution on storage media or via the Internet (which I encourage), a number of conditions apply:
1) 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.
2) The inclusion of any individual file from this archive in another archive without my prior permission is prohibited. 
3) 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.
4) I request a brief email notifying me of the website and/or procedure used for redistribution.



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Author:
Holger Sandmann
hsandman@sfu.ca
My aging system: PIII 750Mhz, 256MB RAM, Radeon 8500 (64MB), 20GB HD, Windows 98SE.

March, 2003
