FSX Blackburne Airport Scenery

Blackburne Airport, Montserrat, Caribbean. Blackburne Airport, also known as W. H. Bramble Airport, was a small international airport near the southwest coast of the island of Montserrat, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. The airport was located near the now-abandoned capital of Plymouth and was destroyed on the 25th of june 1997 by an eruption of the nearby Soufriere Hills volcano. For several years afterwards, Montserrat had been only accessible by helicopters or boats until July 2005 when the new Gerald's Airport was completed on the north end of the island. The approach to Blackburne's runway 15 was rather spectacular and difficult. That's why it was very popular among flightsimmers. Ever since the airport was destroyed end of june 1997 it was left out of subsequent releases of Flight Simulator. This scenery gives you the opportunity to fly over there again. The scenery is provided with some special effects: the volcano Soufriere Hills shows an ash cloud and is erupting from time to time, including sounds, the capital Plymouth is burning at several places caused by debris from the volcano and fires are threatening the airport. By Jaap van Hees.

On the lovely green and friendly island of Montserrat, often referred to as the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean, the volcano Soufrière Hills rumbled to life in 1995 and began a series of eruptions that eventually destroyed the island’s capital Plymouth and buried it in 40 feet of mud. More then half of the population had to flee the island because their houses were destroyed. 19 people lost their lives during a severe eruption on the 25th of june 1997 which destroyed the airport Blackburne and the docking facilities and made the southern half of the island uninhabitable.

Blackburne Airport, also known as W.H. Bramble Airport, was a small international airport near the southwest coast of the island of Montserrat, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. The airport was located near the now-abandoned capital of Plymouth and was destroyed on the 25th of june 1997 by an eruption of the nearby Soufriere Hills volcano. For several years afterwards, Montserrat had been only accessible by helicopters or boats until July 2005 when the new Gerald's Airport was completed on the north end of the island.

The approach to Blackburne's runway 15 was rather spectacular and difficult. That's why it was very popular among flightsimmers. Ever since the airport was destroyed end of june 1997 it was left out of subsequent releases of Flight Simulator. This scenery gives you the opportunity to fly over there again.

Special effects
---------------
This scenery is provided with some special effects. You have to adjust the date and time in FSX to witness these special effects. The special effects are:
- Throughout the whole of the year 1997 the volcano Soufriere Hills shows an ash cloud and is erupting from time to time, including sounds.
- From the 21th of june until the 27th of june 1997 the capital Plymouth is burning at several places, caused by debris from the volcano.
- From the 24th of june until the 27th of june 1997 more fires are threatening the airport.
- From the 25th of june until the 30th of june 1997 you can overfly the airport of
Blackburne but you can't land there anymore: it's destroyed and still burning and smoking. If you fly over there on one of these dates please remove the file Traffic_Montserrat.bgl (see below) before doing so: it will remove the AI flying to and from the airport. There is no way to stop AI at a certain date.

AI traffic
----------
Additional AI traffic is supplied as wel. During installation (see below) it will be put in the folder [FSX Main folder]\Scenery\World\Scenery. Filename is Traffic_Montserrat.bgl.

Installation
------------
Unzip the contents of this zip file to your FSX Main folder. Please be sure to tick 'Use folder names' to 'ON'. After this, add the scenery to the FSX scenery library:
- Start FSX
- Click 'Settings'
- Click 'Scenery Library'
- Click 'Add area'
- Click on the scenery area folder: Addon Scenery -> Caribbean -> Montserrat
- Click 'OK'
- Click 'OK' again
- Click 'Free Flight'
- Go fly!
That's all.

How to remove all of this
-------------------------
- Start FSX
- Click 'Settings'
- Click 'Scenery Library'
- Click 'Delete area'
- Click on the scenery area folder: Addon Scenery -> Caribbean -> Montserrat
- Click 'Yes' when asked 'Are you sure?'
- Click 'OK'
- Click 'OK' again
- Stop FSX
- Use the Windows explorer to remove the following files:
- Caribbean -> Montserrat and all files from the folder Addon Scenery
- all files 'Cntrl_JvH_*.fx' and 'fx_JvH_*.fx' from folder [FSX Main folder]\Effects
- File 'Traffic_Montserrat.bgl' from folder [FSX Main folder]\Scenery\World\Scenery
- File 'JvH_SoufriereHills.wav' from folder [FSX Main folder]\Sound
That's all.

If you would like to fly a scenic adventure with a voice controlled copilot who can fly the aircraft for you please have a look at, then click 'It's Your Plane Introduces TOURS... an Exciting New IYP Enhancement'.
If you do, then please deinstall this scenery as mentioned at 'How to remove all of this' before downloading (one of) the tour stages.

Known issues
------------
- In Flight Simulator some special effects such as smoke and haze will be rendered behind clouds regardless of their actual relative location. This is a known issue.
- The location of the capital Plymouth is a little too far south. Maybe this will be corrected in a subsequent release.
- The special effects don't show up until you come within about 5 miles of them. This is a FSX issue which I don't know how to solve.
- The TRPM scenery is partly fantasy. The real TRPM did not have a taxiway for instance, this scenery does.

Credits
-------
Robert Cezar and Lars Peter Hammer for their testing and suggestions.
Robert Cezar for developing his very nice package It's Your Plane.

More DC3's
----------
If you like to fly DC3's in other configurations like a cargo version or equipped with ski's then I can recommend downloading 'The Awesome 4Some Douglas DC-3' package by James Eden and Jon Murchison. Just search for '4some'.

Finally
--------
Thescenery is published as Freeware and may be freely changed and/or distributed.
In that case I would appreciate it if I get a little credit.

Have fun.

Jaap van Hees

Leave a comment