Airport Visual Environment

Description
Configurable Airfield

The controls in this GroupBox configure the settings for the generic airfield visual. The airport to be configured has already been set in the Reposition page. No visible changes will be seen until after the scene has been compiled.
Runway Length

Use the Runway Length ComboBox to select a runway length from 3,000 to 13,000 feet.
Runway Width

Use the Runway Width ComboBox to select a runway length of 150 or 200 feet.
Community Lights

Use the Community Lights ComboBox to select the intensity of city lights near the airfield. Selections are:
  • LOW
  • MEDIUM
  • HIGH
Terminal Location

Use the Terminal Location ComboBox to select whether the airport terminal building is on the left or right side of the runway.
VASI Type

Use the VASI Type ComboBox to select the VASI type. Selections are:
  • NONE
  • 3-Bar Left
  • 3-Bar Both
  • PAPI Left
  • PAPI Both
  • 2-Bar Left
  • 2-Bar Both
  • T-Bar Left
  • T-Bar Both
Approach Lights Type

Use the Approach Lights Type ComboBox to select the approach lights type. Selections are:
  • NONE
  • CAT II PALS
  • CALV
  • MALSR
  • MALSF
  • RAIL
  • SSALR
  • ODALS
  • PALS
  • SALS
  • ALSF I
  • ALSF II
Runway Markings

Use the Runway Markings ComboBox to select the runway markings. Selections are:
  • FAA Precision
  • FAA Non-Precision
  • ICAO Precision
  • JCAB
Terrain Type

Use the Terrain Type ComboBox to select the terrain type. Selections are:
  • Flat terrain
  • Flat with water approach
  • Flat with mountains near runway
  • Rolling terrain with 8000ft. long, 150ft. wide, 1% sloping runway.
  • Rolling terrain with 1000ft. long, 200ft. wide, sloping runway with dip in middle.
  • Rolling terrain with 1200ft. long, 200ft. wide, sloping runway with hump in middle.
  • Rolling terrain with 8000ft. long, 150ft. wide, 2% sloping runway with dip in middle
Rotating Beacon

Use the Rotating Beacon CheckBox to enable or disable the rotating beacon.
REIL

Use the REIL CheckBox to enable or disable the Runway End Identifier Lights.
Autosize Runway

Use the Autosize Runway CheckBox to enable or disable the autosizing of the runway.
Enable Configurable Airports

Use the Enable Configurable Airports CheckBox to enable or disable the configurable airports.
Compile Scene

Use the Compile Scene PushButton to cause the visual system to compile the scene. This may take several minutes.
Airport Lighting

The controls in the Airport Lighting GroupBox control the light levels of all airports, not just configurable airfields. All the settings range from "0" to "5" in intensity.
Engineers' Notes on Configurable Airfield

When a reposition is done to a configurable airport for the FIRST time with
a given set of parameters, the VISUAL computer will build a scene
accordingly and store that on the VISUAL VCC computer, not the HOST
computer. A change in any of the parameters will cause the visual computer
to build a new scene. These parameters are: glideslope angle, magnetic
heading, approach path lighting, glideslope lighting, runway markings,
terrain type, runway length, runway width, terminal building location, REIL
lighting enable. Because of the magnetic heading, the visual will build a
separate scene for each runway at the airport, requiring a reposition to
that runway.

Now that the scene is built on the visual computer, the visual computer will
only load that scene if the visual software on the HOST specifically tells
it to. The visual software on the host will only tell the visual computer
to load that configurable scene if that airport is the active airport AND
the configurable airport enable box is checked on the airport control page.

An airport becomes the active airport in one of two ways.
1. The aircraft is flown into the vicinity of the airport in a sortie file.
2. The airport is select on the reposition page AND a reposition is done.

Simply entering the desired airport and runway and NOT doing a reposition
cannot make that the active airport. That entry is essentially ignored
until a reposition is done. This is because the visual code on the host,
and I believe the flight code also, use this to set field elevations for
cloud and fog altitudes and some flight parameters. Therefore, these
entries are not used to predict your destination airport.

There is, however, a third way to cause a configurable airport to appear
automatically. There are two files on the host computer. The first file is
simply a list of all of the custom airports on the visual computer. This
file is used to automatically load custom scenes as they are over flown. A
configurable airport can also be added to this file, so that as it is over
flown, a configurable airport scene will be loaded. The second file
contains a list of configurable airports and runways and the parameters
(mentioned above) that are desired for that airport. This causes the same
scene to be loaded each time someone flies to that airport. These two files
together will allow you to automatically load a configurable airport as it
is over flown.

The drawback to these files is that they are not real-time files. By this I
mean that they must be edited off line and build into a load. This is fine
if you are using the same configurable airports for each training session.
But, if you are using different airports each time, this does not help.
 
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