Category: Flight Simulator 2004 - Scenery
Nome PAOM on the northwestern coast of Alaska

Images related to this file:

• nome_ak-1.jpg
• nome_ak-2.jpg
• nome_ak-3.jpg
• nome_ak-4.jpg
• nome_ak-5.jpg

File Description:
There are four main northwestern Alaska towns which have good airports and are serviced by Alaska Airlines. From these airports local flights connect to nearby villages, "nearby" in Alaska meaning up to 200 miles away. The northernmost is Barrow. Southwest of Barrow is Kotzebue, then Nome, and the furthest south is Bethel. The town of Nome is south of the Bering Strait on the southern coast of the Seward Peninsula, around 185 miles south of Kotzebue, with a population of about 3,800. It is the town that led to the creation of the most famous dogsledge race in the world, the Iditarod, which is based on the delivery to Nome of diphtheria serum during the blizzard conditions of the winter of 1925. The Nome airport (it currently has no other name) was originally built as the last of the refuelling airfields for planes being ferried to Russia during WW2. It has two runways, aligned 09-27 and 02-20 in FS9 (the wandering magnetic north has recently renamed the magnetic headings) and both of them around 6,000 feet with an ILS on 27. There is a modern airport layout diagram included showing taxiway names etc. Alaska Airlines, ERA, and Bering Air (which is headquartered in Nome), along with the shared cargo terminal for Northern Air Cargo and Everts Air, are all on the southern apron. The northern apron is mainly for GA, along with maintenance facilities, a garage building that also houses a weather bureau, and at the far northern end of runway 02-20 an apron and hanger for the Alaska Air National Guard. All AI aircraft in FS9 much prefer to use a runway that has an ILS and so will continue to use 09-27 even if the wind is from the north or south, right up until it reaches 30+ knots, so for AI realism in FS9 a permanent wind from the west would be the most realistic on a daily basis. There is also a small gravel strip just north of the town and this is included (94Z), as are some old line-of-sight radio communication reflectors on the hills above the town. There is a note about making adjustments to Ultimate Terrain Alaska-Canada regarding both realistic road lighting and also auto-generation.