FSX Longyear Airport Scenery

Scenery Longyear Airport, Svalbard (ENSB), Norway. Scenery of the airfield and surrounding area for this high-arctic Norwegian airport. Includes original models, effects and boat traffic. By Will Kotheimer.

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-Ålesund 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 Tromsø, 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-Ålesund. 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.

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.

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