About This File
EBCI (Charleroi / Brussels South), or Aéroport de Charleroi Bruxelles Sud (IATA: CRL) is an international airport, located in Gosselies, a part of the city of Charleroi in the Province of Hainaut in Wallonia, Belgium. The airport is 4 nautical miles (7.4 km; 4.6 mi) north of Charleroi and 46 km (29 mi) south of central Brussels. In terms of passengers and aircraft movements, it is the second busiest airport in Belgium having served 8,226,572 passengers in 2019 (and 2,559,372 in 2020). It is also a busy general aviation airfield, being home to 3 flying schools (among which NewCAG, where I am a student pilot).
Please read the included Manual (PDF). THE SCENERY WILL NOT WORK PROPERLY WITHOUT THE INCLUDED MESH PATCH, but starting with Version 1.7 a much more simple installation method is offered using MUXP (besides the original Ortho4XP method).
Making this scenery took a lot of time. If you like it, please consider buying me a coffee or two below. Thanks!
X-Plane 12 version is published here:
Required libraries (please make sure they are up to date):
Airport Environment HD
MisterX_Library
OpenSceneryX
RA_Library
HungaryVFR-Library
BS2001 Object Library
CDB-Library
ruscenery
The_Handy_Objects_Library
R2_Library
SAM_Library
FlyAgi_Vegetation
ALES_DEV_LIB
Recommended (but will work fine without):
X-Plane 11 HD Mesh Scenery v4
Features:
- Terminal buildings, hangars, etc. recreated with the combination of existing library objects and custom objects, but always matching the actual buildings’ scales, window and door positions, colours, styles as close as possible (without actually creating custom models for everything. The iconic facade featuring endless tilted windows of the first floor of Terminal 1 is custom modelled in detail, along with its roof floor and the small tower above the first floor. Large warehouses (plus supermarkets, petrol stations) are also added outside of the airport boundary, especially under the glideslopes. Large parkings, fences, etc. A 3D logo for the airport’s name is included on the main terminal, and a custom sign for the Executive terminal on the Southern side too, plus some custom lights, stand signs, and railings here and there.
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Runway, taxiways, aprons, and stands recreated matching the actual situation of the airport at the end of 2021 (many features are not even visible in the latest satellite images), being up-to-date with AIRAC cycle 2110. Apron markings (taxiways, lines, stand markings, no smoking signs, ground vehicle speed limits and drive directions, etc.) 99% matching the real life situation where satellite imagery is available, or the AIRAC data and my own observations where no imagery is available (runway extension and new taxiways). Runway markers (touchdown zone, edge, centerline, arrows, skidmarks) are also hand placed for maximum accuracy.
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All real life taxiway signs are modelled, without exception, and expected new signs are placed and will be refined as data becomes available around the new taxiways and extended runway. (Illuminated signs cast light at night.)
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Runway and taxiway lighting is recreated as close to real life as possible, including custom retroreflective markers along taxiway N (active taxiway edge lighting is generally only present at curves along taxiways at EBCI), and each and every runway light (edge, center, approach, touchdown zone) hand placed exactly at the real life position - not using the default X-Plane runway lighting at all.
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25 cm resolution ground textures in and around the airport (in an approximately 4-5 km radius circle, masked to merge nicely with any other ortho texture by placing imagery edges always under roads or along river banks).
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SAM marshallers are available on stands 51-72.
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Stands 1-4, 17-18, and 19-27 are available with both East and West facing positions (like in real life).
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Detailed custom mesh patch for Ortho4XP, including an exact recreation of the runway topography, a very good recreating of the taxiway and apron topographies (to within 1-2 meters of accuracy), and recreation of the topographical features inside and around the airport (including ground walls north of P10-P12, south of P5, custom terrain under the glidescope to RWY 24, some of the parkings and rams around the airport, and recreating the different ground levels north and south of the main terminal, etc.)
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Radio frequencies matching real life (with ATIS info available on both a COM and NAV frequency, etc.).
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Native ground handling objects following the real life routes across the aprons, available both North and South of the runway.
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Compatible with the native “draw parked aircraft” feature (when checked realistic sized aircraft will appear randomly on some stands, when not then there are no static aircraft).
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Detailed apron, road, and parking lighting in and around the airport.
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VFR points, including a few water towers, a church, all wind turbines inside and near the CTR of Charleroi, cooling towers, etc.
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Vegetation including some forests, hand-placed trees in and closely around the airport, 3D grass (colour - and area - matched to the included orthos), etc.
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Flows and ATC Taxi flows are defined, addons like Global Traffic should create proper AI traffic, and the runway selection (communicated in the ATIS info) will take into account the exact real life preferential runway system’s rules (including tail and crosswind limits).
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Tens of optional X-Camera airport camera positions and custom livery for the catering trucks and stairs which can be used with the optional Simple Ground Service plugin.
For the same Ortho4XP tile, check out these two smaller airports too:
Edited by Papickx
Link to X-Plane 12 version added.
What's New in Version 1.7 See changelog
Released
Version 1.7 is an update that is not necessary for people who have successfully installed 1.6.4, as beyond minor fixes, the main new feature is only the offered alternative, much more simple installation using MUXP. This makes it possible to install the EBCI scenery without creating a full Ortho4XP tile, simply by injecting my custom mesh-patch into the default scenery (or any mesh you prefer, e.g., the recommended X-Plane 11 HD Mesh Scenery v4 or even an existing Ortho4XP tile). If you already have a previous version of EBCI installed but you would rather have no Ortho4XP tile (only the orthos in and just around the airport), then remove your current installation (delete the EBCI_HDmesh4 folder, and the corresponding Ortho4XP tile and the overlays), and then follow the installation manual in this release to install 1.7.
1.7:
- Added a much simpler mesh installation option using MUXP!
- Added custom livery for the catering trucks and stairs which can be used with the optional Simple Ground Service plugin (selectable livery named EBCI).
- Minor fixes.
1.6.4:
- Placement of taxiway edge lights along M7 and N7 is now updated to match the real life situation (based on video footage)
- Fixed the colour of runway edge lights towards the beginning of both runways (again, based on recent videos, while the AIP is incorrect...)
- Minor fixes.
1.6.3:
- Added terrace structure (with a lot of detail) on to the top floor of Terminal one.
- Included tens of custom airport camera locations for X-Camera (optional, if you own X-Camera, then move the EBCI.csv file to your X-Plane 11\Resources\plugins\X-Camera\MyAirportCameras folder, and enjoy tens of custom airport cameras).
- Replaced objects from the NAPS library (most importantly by adding a custom blast fence) so this difficult-to-get library is not needed anymore!
1.6.2:
- Corrected visibility setting of objects added in the last updates (below object density setting High none of the objects were visible).
- Added some missing taxiway edge lines at the curves along taxiway Sierra.
- Added the red and white metal structures (that hold surveillance cameras in real life) in the red dashed areas on the South Apron.
- Added animated Surface Movement Radar North of taxiway November.
1.6.1:
- Thanks to a photograph taken on the 10th of October from overhead the airport, I could refine the placement of taxiway edge markers, the position of new taxiway signs, the new asphalt colours, and some other minor details. Added missing temporary taxiway paint that guides aircraft backtracking from N7 to N5 (when RWY 06 is in use and the aircraft are coming from M7), and a missing dashed entry marker on M7.
1.6:
- The runway extension works on the East side of the Airport are coming to an end, in mid October 2021 the extended runway and taxiways M7 and N7 became operational. All changes are included in this version! Just like in real life, N6, and N between N6 and N7 are not yet operational, and not even connected to the junction at M6 - this gap can also be seen in the scenery, along with some workers being busy in that area. These new areas are recreated as precisely as possible based on the charts in the new AIP, orthophotos from early 2021 (showing most of the runway and taxiway outlines already very precisely), and on my own observations (as soon as new satellite or ortho data becomes available I will refine them if necessary). As part of this update runway center and edge lights were changed and added, taxi lines and lights were added, taxi routes were updated, taxi marks have been added (at expected positions and with expected contents based on other markings around the airport, as there is no footage or documentation on the actual new signalisation yet). The slope of the extended runway also matches the real life approximately (again, no public data on it yet, based on my own observations, and photographs), and included in the new Ortho4XP patch. To remove the groundworks from the ortho background, I used a custom grass texture over the affected areas - as soon as new ortho becomes available, this will of course be updated, but for now this is much more realistic than leaving the old ground works around the now completed areas.
- Custom models were added for the two prominent water towers North of the airport around VFR point NA (and the models were reused for the water tower at VFR point S and for another water tower at the Southern edge of the CTR), and for the blue spherical metal tank at VFR point N (along with a few default warehouses to make this point also better recogniseable).
- Tire marks have been added along the most used taxi routes on the North side of the Airport.
- Red marker lights have been added around the red dashed areas on the Southern apron to match the real life situation.
