FS2004 – Gander CYQX Airport

FS2004 – Gander CYQX Airport.  Gandeer is on the east coast of Canada and is the closest North American airport to Europe on the great circle route. In the early days of transatlantic flight, and in fact into the 1960’s, this made it very important as a refuelling stop either before the ocean hop or just after. Since then it’s importance as an airport has faded somewhat as planes now fly directly to the larger city destinations. It is still an active air force base for ocean patrol and search and rescue planes, and military flights are around half of the total flights into and out of the airport. The main attractions of the airport now are the long runways and the cheaper landing fees, and there are some cargo flights and cheap charter passenger flights.

This version of Gander is based upon a forgotten-about video taken in October 2010. By then the two longer runways, 13-31 at 8,900 feet and 03-21 at 10,200 feet (though in FS9 this is still designated 04-22, as it had been in 2003) had been closed (one at a time) and totally resurfaced. The third runway 09-27 (3,500 feet in 2003) was closed and starting the process of being broken up, along with associated aprons. This was part of a long process of demolition of some of the older buidings, aprons, and taxiways as they became unused with the fall in the number of daily flights. I have not shown some of the older demolitions as it was difficult to make realistic textures for a demolished building or apron. I have made it clear which of the 2010 taxiways and aprons were still in use by showing them as asphalt, while those in the process of decaying disuse or removal are in the darker tarmac texture; this is somewhat realistic as when asphalt aprons are “ploughed” for removal the darker underside becomes visible. In the renovation process of taxiway repairs only the centre strip of the taxiways was repaired and this is marked by new and closer edge lines; you do not stray beyond those. One end of the closed runway was still being used in 2010 for access and parking. There is a warning note in the April 2010 edition of the NAV CANADA Flight Supplement that states “surface rut on Gander Flight Training’s private taxiway” (written with extremely shortened words). The Gander layout page is included here, showing that in the Spring of 2010 a much-shortened version (1,875 feet) of the 09-27 runway was still in use; my verson is late 2010 and after that runway was closed.

The older buildings (and some of them are now 70 years old or more) are built in concrete and flat roofed with bitumen water proofing; hence the almost black roofs. The terminal building is one of these, though it has been enlarged by the inclusion of a hangar that is now used as the main terminal space. Almost all of the buildings are correctely replicated here. The main GA parking area is to the east of 03-21 where there are two large hangar buildings. One of them is for maintenance and the other is for a large FBO called Gander Aviation. For those of you who are not aware, an FBO (Forward Base of Operations) caters for visiting planes and this ranges from just refuelling to cleaning the plane, restocking the fridge with beer, loading prepared meals for in-flight lunch, and providing a private lounge for your millionaire passengers with a 5 course meal and shower facilities etc while all of the above is going on with the plane. There are other FBO’s on the airport, closer to the terminal. These are Irving and Woodward, both to the west, and Allied to the south. There is a further FBO at the eastern end of the apron, name unknown. Shell, who only did refuelling, were next to Woodward in 2010 but left, I believe, in 2012. The large red building behind Woodward and Shell is for the maintenance of all airport equipment (from luggage trolleys, snow clearers, de-icing trucks etc to air conditioning, radar, and radios). Most of the remaining buildings are for the air force base, though there are some private companies (such as Universal Helicopters) and even a small private cottage.

The AI included here is for daily flights by Jazz, Provincial Airlines, and Evas Air, along with charter planes and GA. Evas run local flights on behalf of Air Canada, and are part of the company that also runs the training facility at Gander. A lot of the flights are to and from St John’s, along with other local airports. I suggest you arrange the weather so that 04 is the default active runway, as this results in a logical taxiway routing in an anti-clockwise direction that inludes using runway 13-31 for planes with long landing runs. Using 13, or 31, or 22 will also work but can result in traffic jams as FS9 traffic control is limited in it’s adaptability. The Provincial, Jazz, and Evas flights all use gates 34 and 36, as these are the closest gates to walk to. Large planes are usually directed to gate 24 as it is the easiest to taxi to and away from without assistance.

You will see once the scenery is installed that there are two folders in Gander CYQX called “Scenery summer” and “scenery winter”. These allow you to chose which scenery you want to use, based on the weather. Obviously in August you will want the summer scenery and you get this by editing the folder down from “scenery summer” to just “scenery” and FS9 loads the summer ground textures and buildings. In February you would edit down the “scenery winter” folder to just “scenery” and the unused and unswept taxiways, runway, and aprons will be invisible under the snow. If FS9 decides that there is snow on the ground then you need the winter textures, if not then the summer textures. The winter textures are not the full-snowdrift-middle-of-Winter-gale type and are more like early or late winter, with traces of snow on flat roof but not on pitched. One thing you must NOT DO is to edit both folders down at the same time.

By Roger Wensley

31.5 MB