Category: Flight Simulator 2004 - Scenery
PABR - Barrow - Alaska, USA

Images related to this file:

• PABR__Barrow__Alaska_USA_1.jpg
• PABR__Barrow__Alaska_USA_2.jpg
• PABR__Barrow__Alaska_USA_3.jpg
• PABR__Barrow__Alaska_USA_4.jpg
• PABR__Barrow__Alaska_USA_5.jpg

File Description:
The town of Barrow is in the far north of Alaska, and is best known in flying circles as the place where Wiley Post crashed his floatplane on takeoff and killed himself and Will Rogers. The crash was some 15 miles south of Barrow and was "assisted" by the mismatched fuselage, wings, and floats that had been assembled to create the floatplane. The Barrow population is largely Inupiat and totals some 4,400. The downtown area of Barrow is immediately north of the airport. The second and largest part of Barrow is further north past a string of lagoons and is locally called Browerville. To the northeast along the coast is the smallest part around what used to be the Naval Arctic Research Lab, and is now a college. To the east of this are the DEW buildings, plus two large navy hangars and the gravel runway that was used to serve the DEW station. The PABR runway is aligned 06-24 in FS9 and is 7,100 feet long and 150 feet wide, built on top of a gravel base and surround that copes with the underlying permafrost. There is PAPI at both ends and an ILS and approach lights on 06; 06 circuits are to the right. The airport notes include a warning that the apron is not a standard width and that large planes that are enroute to the far end of the runway will not be able to taxi past a plane parked at the gate and should use the runway as a taxiway, then turn and takeoff. FS9 AI cannot cope with that, so the apron here is wider. There are, in real life and the AI, daily flights by Air Alaska (three at least) and Era (several, and which is now called Ravn, hence the new hangar door motif) and air cargo flights by Northern Air Cargo and Everts, plus GA. The buildings have been made with photographic textures or textures made from reference photos. I decided that while 500+ scenery objects was probably ok for most people the required 900+ to "make" the town of Barrow would likely not be. The auto-generated FS9 town objects could not be left as Barrow with trees would not look at all like reality; I have "faded" the density of the town buildings into the distance from the airport.

Filename:	PABR__Barrow__Alaska_USA.zip
License:	Freeware, limited distribution
Added:	17th May 2016, 09:32:36
Downloads:	973
Author:	Roger Wensley
Size:	15.12 MB

Category: Flight Simulator X - Aircraft Repaints, Textures and Modifications
Consolidated PBY-5A VB-126 #20

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File Description: A repaint for the Aerosoft PBY-5a Catalina in the colors of PBY-5a #20 (BuNo 7277) of VB-126 as it looked during a rescue operation on the Greenland ice cap in 1943. On 5 november 1942, a C-53 en route from Iceland to Greenland was reported missing off Greenland's east coast. Four days later, a B-17F, en route for England was aked to to keep a lookout for the missing plane, but it crashed on the ice cap. The crew of suffered only minor injuries, and they soon received food and other supplies that were dropped on the ice. Unfortunately, they had landed in a heavily crevassed part of the icecap, making an evacuation difficult. On 28 november, a USCG Grumman Duck, flown by Lt Pritchard, managed to make a wheels-up landing on the ice and brought out two of the crew. The next day, a ground rescue team arrived on the dite as well, and things looked good.... One crew member and a rescuer died when their sled disappeared in a crevasse, and later the same day, Lt. Pritchard's Duck disappeared as well, with a crew of three. On 6 december, an attempt was made to evacuate the B-17's navigator, Lt. O'Hara, who suffered from gangrene in his feet. One member is the rescue party fell into an crevasse, and the motorsled they were using broke down, so the men had to dig in and wait for help. The days continued until over christmas, but morale was kept high with airdrops whenever the weather permitted. A rescue by sled became impossible however due to bad conditions and heavy snows. Lt.Col Balchen, who had used a PBY the previous summer to rescue the members of the B-17 'My Gal Sal' (currently under restoration in Ohio) of the ice, and was now in charge of the rescue operation, proposed to try the same here. The last summer, the PBY landed on a melt water lake on the icecap however, this time he wanted to belly land the PBY, and nobody knew if the hull could withstand such a battering. In the meantime, a ski-equipped T8P1 aircraft tried the same, but dispappeared over the east coast. The crew members were found five days later in a rubber dinghy. The Navy finally gave permission to try an attempt with the PBY. and two PBY-5a"s were send to airfield BW-8, to wait for the right weather. On 5 febuary 1943, Lt Bernard Dunlop succesfully bellylanded BuNo 7277 / 20 (the above paintjob) at the motorsled camp, and the three survivors were taken on board. It has frozen solid in the ice, but after two hours of hard labor, the crew managed to free the PBY and it took off. Now only the three crew members still at the original site needed to be rescued. A ground rescue party was sent to the wreck to transport the survivors to a spot where the PBY could land, but bad weather prevented any flying until 17 march. On that day, Lt. Dunlop landed on the ice, dropping off Lt.Col Balchen and the rescue party, who reached the wreck the following day. The weather closed in again until finally, on april 5th, Lt Dunlop landed his PBY for the third time on the ice cap. All hands were taken on board, but after five attempts to take off, the starboard engine caught fire. The blaze was extinguished, but repairs were necessary. The next day, they managed to take off, but without the rescue party, to lighten the load. 149 days after their crash, the B-17 crew was finally clear of the ice. It wasn't until 18 may that the last member of the rescue party was finally evacuated, making this a six and a half month rescue operation... Repaint by Jan Kees Blom, based on the paintkit by Aerosoft

Filename:	Consolidated_PBY5A_VB126_20.zip
License:	Freeware
Added:	13th July 2018, 20:33:17
Downloads:	139
Author:	Jan Kees Blom
Size:	10.19 MB