STEIN VALLEY AIRSTRIPS, BRITISH COLUMBIA
Routing between the FS2004 airfields of Lytton and Lillooet, you can't help noticing the impresive topography of the Stein Valley Provincal Park - especially with Holger Sandmann's excellent mesh of this part of southwestern British Columbia installed. With its deep and narrow canyons, and high peaks up to nearly 3000m (9850ft), I thought this would be a great area to build some challenging bush airstrips.
1. Get yourself a copy of bcmesh9a.zip (5.4Mb) by Holger Sandmann and install it as per the author's instructions (but into FS2004). The scenery is essentially unusable without this mesh installed. Also, Gerrish Gray's Trees v.3 package is required: installation into FS2004 differs slightly from the enclosed instructions for FS2002; place trees_0.bgl in Flight Simulator 9\scenery\base\scenery (the new location of the 'main' FS scenery file, instead of the former FS2002\scenery), although the texture files still just go in Flight Simulator 9\texture.
2. Unzip & place the 'bc2' folder in c:\program files\microsoft games\flight simulator 9\addon scenery (or wherever you keep your extra sceneries: in my case, simply c:\addon scenery).
3. If you don't already have it, put the 'Nova_smoke_three.fx' file in c:\program files\microsoft games\flight simulator 9\effects
4. Open up the 'Scenery Library' from the 'Settings' option in the FS2004 Welcome Menu and add the new area, navigating to the bc2 folder (or edit the scenery.cfg file manually if desired).
5. Close, and then restart FS2004.
6. In the main 'Go To Airport' menu, select either High Valley Ranch (CHVR), Lower Stein Valley (CLSV), Upper Stein Valley (CUSV), or Cottonwood Meadow (CCWM).
Optimising the appearance of this scenery: In (Options>)Settings>Display>Hardware, set a MIP Mapping Quality of about 6. This will avoid the runway textures becoming blurred at any other than the closest viewing distances. May affect frame rates. If you have altered your fs9.cfg file, ensure that the parameter TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL is set to its default value of 19. Results with any other value are unknown. I also recommend increasing the density of the Autogen as much as frame rates permit. Users experiencing frame rate slowdowns at CHVR could try removing the file 'ranch2.bgl' from the scenery folder which will drop the Hunting Lodge from the scenery.
Aerodrome Reference Point: N50° 25.46' W122° 09.38'
Elevation: 5621ft
Runway 17/35: 3760ft x 65ft (1145m x 20m) grass
Slope: 1.5% (uphill on Rwy 17)
Lighting: Medium Intensity Runway Edge Lights (Night only)
NAVAIDS:
ILS Rwy 17: 110.30 MHz / I-HVR / Glideslope 6.0° / Front Course 178°M (offset 6° left of centreline)
NDB: 339.0 KHz / 'HVR'
A relatively easy strip located in a not-too-narrow valley with a generous length of nearly 4000ft, although its elevation is certainly high enough to merit careful density altitude considerations. Runway 17 is preferred for landing and runway 35 for departures, due to the rising terrain of the valley floor from North to South. I've equipped the airfield with an ILS - at 6°, it's twice as steep as normal so that a ridge about 5 miles out can be cleared. The localiser course also gets quite close to the valley walls, so you must be accurate with your tracking - the winds can change rapidly as you fly down this canyon. The minima for the procedure should be pretty high considering the possibility of a go-around, although you'll find the offset ILS course intercepts the extended centreline at about 5800ft AMSL (250ft above the touchdown elevation): roughly a non-obstacle limited CAT I decision altitude. I can only say that if you go-around in IMC from this altitude, then you're on your own!
Aerodrome Reference Point: N50° 31.96' W121° 50.21'
Elevation: 1730ft
Runway 16/34: 1675ft x 75ft (510m x 23m) gravel
Slope: 1.5% (uphill on Rwy 16)
Lighting/Navaids: NIL
The narrowness of this canyon has to be seen to be believed! Begin your approach from the wide Fraser Valley, and enter the narrow canyon containing the airstrip. You need to be in the landing configuration by the time you make the left turn onto final. Go-arounds are possible by continuing the course of the canyon to the right, although you'll need to be able to out-climb the rising terrain of the valley floor.
Aerodrome Reference Point: N50° 29.15' W122° 49.38'
Elevation: 8330ft
Runway 07/25: 2000ft x 82ft (610m x 25m) gravel
Slope: 0.5% (uphill on Rwy 07)
Lighting: Medium Intensity Runway Edge Lights (Night only)
NAVAIDS:
ILS Rwy 07: 111.10 MHz / I-USW / Glideslope 4.0° / Front Course 069°M
ILS Rwy 25: 110.10 MHz / I-USE / Glideslope 4.0° / Front Course 249°M
NDB: 332.0 KHz / 'USV'
An airstrip built along the summit ridge of one of the highest peaks in the region, at nearly 8500ft AMSL. The strip isn't very long, so density altitude considerations and mixture settings are critical - even a lightly loaded plane can fail to get airborne here. There isn't much overall gradient to the runway, although it is very undulating - especially in its western half. The airfield is equipped with an ILS on both ends and runway lights, allowing instrument/night operations.
Aerodrome Reference Point: N50° 16.43' W121° 59.85'
Elevation: 2111ft
Runway 02/20: 2700ft x 35ft (820m x 11m) grass
Slope: NIL
Lighting/Navaids: NIL
This old strip is the only one here that actually sits in the Stein Valley itself. The scenic flight up the valley westwards from Lytton is interesting as the valley climbs and gets progressively wider - at its mouth it's quite narrow and doesn't look very significant (the name 'Stein' literally means 'Hidden Place'). Be careful not to undershoot when landing on runway 20 as a gully has appeared just prior to the threshold - orange cones mark a displaced threshold which should be aimed for instead (but if you've got the autogen turned up, this probably won't be an issue). The grass runway is narrow and quite rough, but otherwise presents no major difficulties.
Another symptom of these unusual runways is that the Airport/Facility Directory entries do not reflect the true runway dimensions, if any is given at all. Until AFCAD is updated to provide an 'invisible' runway option, this can't be avoided.
Tatu Kantomaa of the Finnish Scenery Designers (http://fisd.fsnordic.net) for help with the runway lights.
Tom Fica, as always, for getting me started!
Scenery developed using Airport for Windows v3, Ground2k4, CellGrid2004a, MDLtoBGL v4a3, DXTBmp, FSFX v5, BGLComp SDK, AFCAD v2.21, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and Easy Object Designer v2.2.79.
I used macros developed by the following authors:
Gerrish Gray: trees
Tom Fica: wooden seat, crates, log, shed
Bror Inge Skipperstoen: hunting lodge
Jim Jackson: construction cone, tents
Jordan Moore : real deer
Bob Wening: Piper Super Cubs
'Captain Slug': Cessna 180
Matt "DryFly" Garry: Maule Comet MXT-7 180A Tri-Gear
Paul Clawson & Frank Betts: 1946 Cessna 140
Chris Lampard: Helio H-295 Super Courier
Original texture Bitmaps used in some of my own macros by Tom Fica, Don Moser, & Doc George; all used with kind permission. If, however, I have violated anybody else's copyrights please let me know and I will take immediate steps to resolve the problem.
This scenery is distributed as freeware, and this readme file must be included with it if used elsewhere. Use these files at your own risk: no responsibility is accepted for any damage they might cause to your computer.
James Belk/February 2004