Kenai PAEN, Kenai PAEX, Johnson 3AK4, Doyle Estates 30AK, and Basquo 52AK, all in Alaska


Made using SceneryGenX by Roger Wensley for FS9


SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING LIGHTS AND SMOKE EFFECTS AND TEXTURES

I should have mentioned long ago that to see the apron lighting (where I have installed it, as here) you need to have Sidney Schwartz's lights installed as library objects. You will also need his revised textures as he had a problem with one that was faulty; if you have a scenery or ground textures that go blurry then that could be the problem.

Plus, I have recently started using smoke effects (houses, oil refineries, etc, but not here) and this requires you to have installed the "EZEFFCTS.ZIP" by Ron Jeffers; again, it is a simple and one-time installation.



WHERE AND WHAT

The town of Kenai is on the east coast of Cook Inlet, 60 miles southwest of Anchorage, and has a population of around 7,000. The growth of the town was spurred first by fishing and then in the 1960's by oil discoveries.

The airport is in the northern part of the town. There is a main runway aligned 1-19, 7,550 feet long and 150 feet wide (with an ILS on 19). The second runway is a much shorter gravel runway of 2,000 feet that has no winter maintenance and is used by ski planes in the winter. There is also a water runway, and all three are aligned the same and called "1 left-19 right" (the main runway) "1 right-19 left" (gravel) and "1 water-19 water". The taxiways are extensive and designed for a far larger traffic than the airport has today, though even now the airport is fairly busy.

In FS9 a water runway for AI cannot work with an ATC control tower if there are also other land runways, given that the tower will direct which runway a plane will use no matter if it has wheels, skis, or floats. The water part of PAEN has therefore been separated into another call sign PAEX which has ONLY the water runway; the tower will therefore direct the plane that makes contact to use the water runway. There are some complications such as finding the hold short to enable contact with the tower etc and it doesn't always work too well so I could make it "unicom" instead of "tower"; however, when it does work it is fine. The hold shorts, by the way, are between the red buoys. Let me know by email and I can add a modification post later.

The PAEN airport runway has taxiway connections at each end and also two intermediates; at the northern end there are in fact two so a total of 5; B, C, D, E, and F. There is a parallel taxiway the length of the runway, taxiway A. There is also another parallel taxiway along one side of the lenthy apron, taxiway J, plus others up to taxiway GG (there is an airport diagram included). GA traffic goes to one of two parking aprons, both at the southern end, and at the far southern end there is the hangar for the Civil Air Patrol. The AI includes aircraft from my previous Alaska posts, as Kenai is where I sent them when they departed from, for instance, Palmer. Airlines and cargo companies that operate from and to Kenai are included in the AI: ERA (which has recently changed it's name), Grant Aviation, Air North, Wings of Alaska, North Star Air, and a small local company Air Supply Alaska, along with Fedex, UPS, Everts, and Northern Air Cargo.

There are other nearby smaller airfields that I have included, one of them is included only because it was close to another and was dramatically incorrectly aligned in FS9 (Basquo 52AK).


GREMLIN

During the making of PAEN I discovered an FS9 gremlin. AI aircraft above a certain size did not succesfully pass a hold short after leaving the runway and go on to park at a gate or another parking spot, they just disappeared at the hold short. I checked everything and there was nothing to correct, so I had to resort to a subterfuge. The tower directs planes to whichever end of the runway is dictated by the wind, so the end taxiways are the only ones used for departure, and work ok with hold shorts. The intermediate taxiways are used by AI planes upon arrival (unless they are very large planes and require the full runway length) and so I just omitted those hold shorts; AI planes of all sizes happily exit at the first or the second intermediate taxiway and then taxi to their parking spots. This works for an AI Cessna 172 at the first exit, and equally so for an AI DC6 or a 737 at the second exit. 

When YOU fly to Kenai, you can exit at the first or second intermediate taxiway or at the runway far end, and stop either before or just after the hold short (on the intermediates the marking is there, but only visually, not actively). You contact ATC Ground, have the usual GA conversation, then taxi off to the southeast or southwest GA parking according to your choice, or if you asked for a gate, to the gate selected by ATC. There are four gates in front of the terminal building.

I have no idea how a hold short can have a "size" or why this gremlin emerged.


NEEDED

What do you need? Well apart from FS9, ULTIMATE TERRAIN Alaska/Canada would be a definite plus to get the coast and river in the right shape and place.

There are some planes to be downloaded and installed for AI use, and they are isted in the AI folder. I previously provided some aircraft textures and config mods with the earlier sceneries (Palmer was one, perhaps there were more? I do not remember now) for some planes that also land here.

I have also modified the config file for some of my default FS9 Cessna etc planes so that I can direct them to particular parking areas, by adding a code for their parking spot; I started this with my Edmonton scenery, and it does not affect them at other airports. In this case it is to split them between the two GA parking areas, southeast and southwest, so that both are used. There are modified config files in the AI folder for the default FS9 planes and also for downloaded planes that needed modification. A modification that is also sometimes necessary is to add "gate" as a possible parking spot to the "ramp" that is already there; this mod can be seen in the King Air flown by Grant, for instance. If a downloaded plane does not have an attached new config file it is because it did not need it; UPS and Fedex planes, for instance.



INSTALLATION

To install unzip to a temporary folder, then move the Kenai PAEN folder with its scenery and texture folders to wherever you keep your additional scenery. After that activate in the FS Library in the normal way. Note that it is only for FS9. It should be above (smaller number than) UT, as should all your other airfields.

The other folders, Kenai PAEX, Kenai 1 LAND, Kenai 2 GRASS, and Kenai 3 ROAD, should be installed in the same way. The FS Library priority of the activated folders (if these were the only scenery folders you had) should be as below:

1  Kenai PAEX
2  Kenai PAEN
3  Kenai 1 LAND
4  Kenai 2 GRASS
5  Kenai 3 ROAD
6  UT Alaska Canada

It will not work as intended if you throw all the bgl's into the same folder; the installation described above works.


AI MODIFICATIONS and ATC

I am going to presume you know how to find and install new planes and textures, but one tip is to search for the texture first, then download the plane that it was made for. This is often easier than the other way around. There are notes above about config files.

The AI bgl goes into FS9/scenery/world/scenery.


LEGAL STUFF

Note that this is free at no expense spared and not to be sold. You can use it within FS9 for your own fun, but if you want to do something else you ask me first, which includes loading it on a site other than the one I post it on. Above all, don't make money from it, and this remains my copyright, I am just loaning it out for FS9 use.

rogwen@rogers.com

Criticism and praise equally welcome, and particularly if you point out a missing texture or something similar! I just wish that the downloader who points out an error will one day be downloader number 1, instead of the more usual number 181; why does nobody think that they should be the one to tell me I messed up? It nevers bothers Sid.

Posted on Flightsim 21 December 2015