Svalbard, Longyear Airport for FSX
By Will Kotheimer
[email protected]


Background:
----------

   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 Longyear’s permafrost, a secure storage facility designed to 
preserve examples of the Earth’s plant seeds.  Coal mining and fishing have 
been Svalbard’s major industries for decades.  Svalbard’s place in aviation 
history was established when on May 12, 1926, Roald Amundsen flew from Ny-
Еlesund 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 Svalbard’s main airport and connects the islands 
with Oslo and Tromsш, 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 
Svalbard’s settlements, a number of light aircraft and helicopters provide 
intra-island air transportation.

The Scenery:
------------

  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.  Longyear’s 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 don’t 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-Еlesund.  
Perhaps I will fix this in a future project.  But for now, I hope you enjoy 
Svalbard Longyear!

Installation:
-------------

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: 
----------------

   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:
--------------

   This is the first scenery I have released publically; feedback 
(constructive criticism) is welcome at [email protected].  That said, 
building FS scenery isn’t 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:
----------------

  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 Flight’s 
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% (I’ve 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:
-----------------
  Thanks to the forum moderators and contributors at FSDeveloper.com.  I 
learned a lot. 

Disclaimer:
-----------

  Nothing in this scenery package should harm or otherwise disrupt your 
computer. I can’t 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.