Canada_BC_CYCG 1.0.1

 

The West Kootenay Regional Airport, (Castlegar Airport) (IATA: YCG, ICAO: CYCG) is a small regional airport located 2 nautical miles (3.7 km; 2.3 mi)[1] south southeast of Castlegar, British Columbia, Canada. It serves the West Kootenay region, including Castlegar, Nelson and Trail. It is owned and operated by the City of Castlegar, and has a 15,317 sq ft (1,423 m2) passenger terminal. Due to the mountainous terrain impinging on both runway approaches, there is no possibility of a straight-in approach. The airport is therefore certified for day operations only, and the glideslope on approach is set to a steep 5.0° rather than the standard 3.0°. The instrument approaches to Castlegar are considered among the most challenging of any in use at a commercial airport in North America. As of 2017, the Dash-8s serving the airport required minimums of 2874 foot cloud ceilings and three miles visibility (Air Canada Jazz adds 100 feet to these minimums).

 

Airlines and destinations

Air Canada Express Calgary, Vancouver

 

Castlegar is the second largest community in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada.
Castlegar is located within the Selkirk Mountains at the confluence of the Kootenay and Columbia Rivers. Castlegar is a regional trade and transportation centre, with a local economy fueled by forestry, mining and tourism.
Castlegar was recently cited as one of the Top 8 Places in British Columbia for most promising growth.[1] It is home to Selkirk College, a regional airport, a pulp mill, and several sawmills. The population of 7,259 people includes a large number of Doukhobors, who were largely responsible for much of Castlegar's early development and growth.

 

Reference:
Wikipedia 2017

 

Personal comments

 

As far South as you can possibly get and still remain in British Columbia, Grande Forks, CZGF , Trail, CAD4  and Castlegar, CYCG are close enough to one another for VFR pilots to practice some challenging approaches and remain within a radius of 60 km. If you're practicing takeoffs and landings only between CAD4 and CYCG, the distance is just 26 km but there are mountains in the way. Don't try this at night or in poor visibility unless you want an added adrenaline rush. The runway at CYCG is 5299 ft while that at CAD4 is 4000 ft, easily handled by GA aircraft. I suggest a nice afternoon flight between these three airports, finishing off at the same town you started at. Avoid using XP's default ATC because you'll end up on the side of a mountain if you follow their insane altitude instructions.

 

Installation:

 

Put unzipped folder, Canada_BC_CYCG in X-Plane, Custom Scenery folder. Restart X-Plane. If scenery does not show up, make sure that it is above Global airports in the scenery_packs.ini file. Remember to disable other sceneries of the same airport. I use the excellent freewareware xOrganizer for this. If the scenery does not look like the pictures, then you must have picked up another scenery in your Custom Scenery folder.

 

Do not be misled by the tiny size (Less than 50 kB) of the file. This is a LEGO-BRICK scenery and uses the megabytes of art assets  already included in your installation of X-Plane. It will compare favourably, at times better, to other (much larger sized) sceneries of this area and will probably exceed your expectations. I believe that in order to enjoy a flight simulator you shouldn’t need to fill up your computer with gigabytes of data or  rely on many third party libraries unless of course you fly exclusively in one small area.

 

Important Note:

 

Even though there is no tower at this airport and all traffic is CTAF (Common traffic advisory frequency), I did put in a tower in order to animate AI aircraft. Without it there would be no traffic. In all other details and placement of buildings etc. I have tried to keep this as realistic as possible, artistic license notwithstanding.

I am trying to create  smaller, often neglected Canadian airports that do not get much TLC in X-Plane (or in any other flight Simulations). I like to be as realistic as possible with the limited library I work with. I do not have the tools to recreate the details that make an airport look as it looks in  "real life", for example, the discarded fast food container stuck in the fence; the puddle of oil; the crack in a hut window; the bald patches of grass and a myriad other details that you would see in real life. The photos I download and the satellite maps I use as reference are not always up to date and even if I wanted to painstakingly recreate every actual structure, this is impossible to do with the library I use and still keeping it a LEGO_BRICK airport which I want to do so that it is included in future releases of X-Plane. Therefore, in order to keep my airports as appealing and interesting as possible, I do include trees, where no trees may be at the moment; the odd store and gas station or fuel supply.
Of course, it takes away a little from  reality but (strangely enough), this actually adds to the realism in a scenery.

 

Equally Important

 

Please take the time to rate and leave a short comment or constructive criticism so that I'd know I am on the right track with these sceneries.
Also please report any bugs or problems you come across while using this particular scenery.

Thank You and  Enjoy the scenery!

 

MSF ( Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières )

 

Like yourself, this organization flies all over the world and they do tremendously good work. If you like this scenery, please consider giving a small donation to MSF.