Like Gander, the airport is still shrinking, with taxiways and aprons not maintained (particularly in the winter) or even formally closed, and flight numbers falling. Until the early 1990’s Stephenville was serving most of western Newfoundland and Air Canada, for instance, was one of the airlines that flew there. Deer Lake took over this task for western Newfoundland when the Provincial Government so decided. Stephenville remains as a port of entry, and planes with a total of 30 or less passengers can still be serviced there. My version is a mixture that cannot be precisely dated. For instance, I know there was a large hangar there until 2013 but as I do not have any photos to make it I have shown only the concrete square where it formerly stood. So 2008 or 2013, or somewhere in between? I have the airport being served by Provincial Airlines and also by Porter, though in fact Porter only flew there during the Summer months; I say “flew” as right now all flights are of course almost totally non-existant.
As with Gander, I have made it clear which of the taxiways and aprons are still in regular use by showing them as asphalt, while those in the process of decaying disuse or removal are in the darker gravel or tarmac textures; this is somewhat realistic as when asphalt aprons are “ploughed” for removal the darker underside becomes visible. I have also shown the areas that now form part of the Industrial Park as cement, as this better matches the Ultimate Terrain road texture. It may seem odd that the new Canadian Coastguard hangar is not properly served by an asphalt taxiway instead of sitting on an apron that is not cleared in the winter, but it caters (mainly?) for helicopters. The original coastguard hangar is the large and decrepit one in the northeastern corner of the airport. Almost all of the buildings within the original perimeter of the airport are fairly accurately replicated here, whether still in use (Road Maintenance Department, Garbage Disposal, Armour Trucking Company, etc) or vacant (including the very strange atom-bomb-proof buried shelter) or still part of the airport (the east side of the main apron with Shell to the north, then the terminal, the Marine Institute, etc).
The AI included here (a revised Gander AI) is for daily flights by Provincial Airlines, Porter, and some charter planes and GA. You will see, once the scenery is installed, that like Gander there two scenery folders called “Scenery summer” and “Scenery winter”. Obviously in August you will want the summer scenery and you get this by editing the folder name down from “scenery summer” to just “scenery” and FS9 loads the summer ground textures. If FS9 decides that there is snow on the ground then you need the winter textures which do not show the aprons or taxiways that do not receive winter maintenance. One thing you must NOT DO is to edit both folders down at the same time.
By Roger Wensley
47.5 MB
