AFCAD File For PHNL

Honolulu International Airport, Hawaii (HI) for use with the default scenery. By Paul Harrison / Alpha-India Group.

Honolulu International is the main airport in the State of Hawaii and is one of the United States busiest airports with passenger numbers exceeding 21.5 million in 2007 and rising. The airport handled in excess of 389,000 tons of cargo in the same year.

Honolulu International is the principal hub of Hawaiian Airlines, providing flights both within the Hawaiian islands, to the mainland United Sates and to other destinations in Asia and Australasia. Several smaller, inter-island airlines are also based at Honolulu International, including Island Air, go!, Mokulele Airlines, Pacific Wings and Aloha Air Cargo. Most of the major US airlines fly to Honolulu International along with several smaller airlines based on the west coast of the US. The airport is also served by several Asian (principally Japanese) and Australasian airlines.

The airport has significant general aviation and cargo facilities. FedEx and UPS provide regular cargo service to Honolulu International (including feeder flights from the other Hawaiian islands in the case of FedEx) along with several other international cargo carriers and small inter-island cargo carriers. General aviation at the airport is relatively light for such a large airport (primarily due to the extreme isolation of the Hawaiian islands, the mainland United States, Asia and Australasia being beyond the range of light aircraft) however a large number of business jets visit the airport from around the world.

In addition to civilian traffic, Honolulu International also includes Hickam Airforce Base and a detachment of the US Air National Guard. The base is home to the 15th Airlift Wing, 515th Air Mobility Operations Wing (which operates the base, at the time of writing) and the 15th Wing (providing the Air National Guard squadrons). In addition to the military aircraft based at Hickam, the base is frequently used by aircraft transiting the Pacific Ocean to and from the mainland United States, for aircraft participating in training exercises around the Hawaiian Islands and hosts aircraft visiting from many other nations (as far away as the United Kingdom).

Main Changes:

• Completely re-drew the aprons based on Google Earth images and Jeppesen charts.
• Added missing commercial airline parking spaces to those provided in the default airport. PHNL does not have specific airline gate assignments in reality, however airlines do tend to use the same gates regularly and this has been represented as best as possible.
• Added parking at the interisland and commuter terminal along with additional cargo parking.
• Added significant general aviation parking (about 75% of that present at the real world airport).
• Added parking for the Hickam Airforce Base ramp and Air National Guard. Parking in these areas is set up so that aircraft from MAIW packages that visit PHNL will park appropriately. Note that the drive-through parking on the Hickam ramp is for visual effect only, AI aircraft will still pushback as this cannot be disabled in FS.
• Corrected the approach lighting for all runways.
• Moved the tower viewpoint to the correct location.
• Created an extensive vehicle network to avoid delays to departing aircraft and to keep service vehicles off taxiways.
• Added missing buildings, fire stations, missing roads, large areas of car parking, parked cars, cargo vehicles, apron lighting and various other elements to add realism to the airport.
• Made all runways crosswind compatible (a non crosswind version is also provided, however traffic flow around the airport is much better with crosswind runways and so the non-crosswind version is not recommended).

Special Thanks:

To Matthew Brooks of AIG for his advice helping me get through my first AIG airport release and to Jim Vile for his help in understanding FSX approach code.

Credits:

ADE (Airport Design Editor) by Jon Masterson is an invaluable freeware utility for developing Afcads and the latest version - 1.45 - is designed for both FSX and FS9 use - introducing Jim Vile's graphical approach editor to FS9 use as well. My thanks to both Jim and Jon for all their help and support on this and all AIG projects.

FSX Lights by Jim Dhaenens are an excellent set of apron lights which really help give an airport a finished look. Thanks to Jim for allowing AIG to use his lights in our packages and for permission to include the library in our downloads.

Constraints:

PHNL is a very busy airport and in reality parallel runways are used for both takeoff and landing. FSX predominantly uses runway 8L for takeoffs and landings with a few aircraft using runway 8R for landing. This tends to lean to long queues of aircraft waiting at runway 8L at bust times and some aircraft will time out and disappear. Crosswind runways have been activated which does help to alleviate this problem considerably.

Many AI aircraft have unrealistic empty weight settings and therefore come to a stop very quickly and land on runways which in the real world would be too short. As a result heavy aircraft sometimes land on runway 4L (they land properly and taxi away successfully, but can look rather odd).

Some AI aircraft have incorrect wingspan values. FSX uses these values to determine which parking spots are used and so if an AI aircraft has its wingspan set too low, it may park in a spot which is too small. Where possible, space has been left around parking spots so that this does not cause problems, however in some areas (notably the general aviation parking) this was not possible. It is strongly recommended that you use a utility (such as AI Aircraft Editor, supplied with ADE) to correct the wing span values of AI aircraft to avoid this problem.

Installation:

• Remove any existing PHNL AFD/Afcad file in your FSX installation.
• Place the two files AIG_PHNL_CW_ADEX_PH_Default.bgl and AIG_PHNL_CW_ADEX_PH_Default_CVX.bgl (for the crosswind version) OR AIG_PHNL_ADEX_PH_Default.bgl and AIG_PHNL_ADEX_PH_Default_CVX.bgl (for the non crosswind version, again, this is not recommended) in your FSX Addon Scenery/scenery folder. AIG_PHNL_ADEX_PH_Default_CVX.bgl includes landclass and terrain modifications within the airport boundary.
• Place the file lightobj.bgl in your FSX Scenery/Global/Scenery folder. Place the files almwht.dds and lights1.dds in your FSX Scenery/Global/Texture folder.
• Re-start FSX.

Uninstall:

1. Rename or delete the two files AIG_PHNL_CW_ADEX_PH_Default.bgl and AIG_PHNL_CW_ADEX_PH_Default_CVX.bgl or AIG_PHNL_ADEX_PH_Default.bgl and AIG_PHNL_ADEX_PH_Default_CVX.bgl from your Addon Scenery/scenery folder.
2. Re-start FSX.