Welcome to Flinders Island, a somewhat forgotten gem in the jewel box that is Tasmania! Located in Bass Strait (the waterway that separates Tasmania from Mainland Australia), the island straddles the 40ºS parallel. Sitting at the northern end of the “Roaring 40s”, you can expect it to blow a half-gale and stronger out of the south-west for weeks at a time. The longer of the two runways is oriented 14/32, so you might want to brush up on your crosswind landing skills before visiting. Other challenges include high terrain to the north and east of the airport. The following is an extract from the current ERSA:
FLIGHT PROCEDURE
1. Right hand circuits RQ when OPR on RWY 05 and 14.
2. Night landings not permitted RWY 23. Night takeoffs not permitted RWY 05.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Bird and wallaby hazard exists.
To the latter I might add: “wombat hazard exists” (applies to the entire island, not just the airfield)
Having been fortunate enough to spend a couple of weeks on the island recently, I felt the need to re-visit the place in the sim world. Of course, the default rendition of the airport is as basic as it gets. The Bing imagery for the region is also quite old, and Google Earth isn’t that much better, so my mod is based on the former. In real life the tarmac has been extended and an RFDS “terminal” was added. Windsocks were relocated and the airport operations facility was enlarged, but that’s for the future, if and when better imagery becomes available.
So anyway, here’s what you get:
- Runway placement and slopes as close to real life as I can ascertain
- Fully functional AI taxi network (but I won’t be held liable for the MSFS AI antics!)
- Perimeter fence (so we can all sleep better at night)
- Corrected vegetation and water masks in the vicinity
- Individually placed runway and taxiway lights and close to real life apron lighting
- Added the most obvious man-made obstructions (e.g. comms towers on Mt Tanner, Walker’s and the hills north of the field)
- Removed street lights (there are none in real life … nights are DARK on Flinders Island)
Bonus 1. Flinders Island never was, and never will be, a plane spotter’s haven, but included in the download you’ll find a separate “sltcreations_traffic_FLI” folder, that, if added to your community folder, will bring a bit of aerial life to the island. If you set your AI Traffic setting to 1% or above, there should be a dozen GA movements across the island each day.
Bonus 2. Having developed the AI traffic for YFLI, I was wondering why the programmed flight to YKCK kept circling that airport. I quickly realised that the default YKCK has not AI taxi paths. So, for no extra cost, I’ve also included a spiffed-up YKCK Killiecrankie, complete with proper runway slope and AI taxi network.
And by the way, there are several little bush strips on Flinders and nearby islands. If you're into that sort of things then you may want to consider my Tasmania Missing Airfields package.
Installation
The download contains 4 separate folders. Copy them to your Community folder as desired:
sltcreations-airport-yfli-flinders-island YFLI Flinders Island airport
sltcreations-airport-ykck-killiecrankie YKCK Killiecrankie airport
sltcreations-traffic-FLI Flinders Island AI Traffic
sltcreations-AU-Flags Library of Australian Flags*
* Created using the Windy Things library with thanks to trfsto. This is my first scenery using this library. I may in future include it with other sceneries. Please ensure that you have only one copy in your Community folder.
Known issues
- The threshold of RWY 05 is a little further out that in real life. Otherwise, the runway markings would interfere with the ones of the crossing runway (i.e., ugliness). Custom runway markings are for now outside my skill set.
- My 3D modelling skills are also close to zero, so the terminal building is borrowed from YLRE. It has a similar feel though to the real one, and matches the footprint.
- The LOD changes of the fences are quite apparent as you taxi down the runway. Unfortunately, the nature of chain-linked fence in the otherwise super object library developed by colinj. But having painstakingly placed 150+ fence segments, I’m going to leave them for now.
- I’ve programmed the AI (Artificial Idiots) to the best of my ability, but that doesn’t stop MSFS from displaying some truly bizarre behaviour, like 172s skimming the ocean surface and buzzing the airfield before flying 10-mile-wide approach loops through mountains, only to then inexplicably go around and head-off into the blue yonder, never to return. And, of course, the mandatory push-backs for heavies, like 172s!
- Obstructions outside the airport vicinity are unlit. Unfortunately, a limitation of the sim at this stage.
- The runway light “mesh” I used, even though omnidirectional, obstructs the light at certain angles, so as you head down a runway some lights occasionally blink off for short periods.
- There’s no “fuel” parking spot. MSFS force-adds bowsers to these, and their location can’t be controlled. But the refuelling area is in an obvious place. You’ll just have to open the Fuel UI manually.
Dependencies
As always, my gratitude goes to the scenery object library creators, without whom I wouldn’t be creating scenery add-ons. You will need to have the latest version of these installed in your Community folder to properly experience my sceneries:
- MSFS 2020 object library with 200+ models by colinj
https://flightsim.to/file/16007/msfs-object-library-with-150-models-ranging-from-towers-hangers-terminals-to-cones - totof library object V5 by Totof33120
https://flightsim.to/file/17179/totof-library-object-v1-1 - totof- aircraft library v4 by Totof33120
https://flightsim.to/file/17182/totof-aircraft-library-v1-1 - Mikea.at - Airport Markings by Mikea.at
https://flightsim.to/file/4208/mikea-at-airport-markings - We Love VFR – Region 1 by PuffinFlight
https://flightsim.to/file/2605/we-love-vfr-region-1
Also, if you have the UK2000Scenery Common Library installed (free in the Marketplace) you may see a few additional light aircraft parked around the field.
4 months ago
flsm1
8 months ago
coxo2436
Excellent work, this is good payware quality. Pain in the ass to install all these libraries though. 😊
2 years ago
Marionettework
YNER - my strip at North East River on Flinders Island and my first attempt at making scenery. Happy if you want to share it?
2 years ago
TopGunPete
Always loved flying into YFLI and now even more so! Great content, thanks very much.
2 years ago
Hawker
Longreach airport terminal on flinders island ?
2 years ago
Read my description (Kown Issues). If you're able to provide me with a 3D model of the Flinders Island terminal I will happily incorporate it.
2 years ago
gunther
eternalflyer
Fantastic work! Very much appreciated. I have flown a cessna 172 there a few times in real life and you did an excellent job. Thanks so much!
2 years ago
sandy237
Excellent scenery, only one drawback. One of the booths appears pink, maybe in the next version you can correct it? Thanks for your effort
2 years ago
Thank you for your feedback. By "booth" you mean parking positions? The underlying photo layer has some blemishes (parked aircraft etc.) that I had to cover with texture polygons. I tried my best to make them blend in, but if you know where they are, one can still see them. But there's nothing pink that I can see. Are you using any add-ons that modify the default ground textures? Something like REX or one of the season modifiers might cause blending issues. Also, can you please pinpoint the location. If you zoom in with the World Map, it will tell you the number of the parking positions.
2 years ago
gunther
Arkaboer
Brilliant work, and thanks for keeping file size Small.
2 years ago
Greazer
Thank you. Excellent work
2 years ago
FreddoFrog
Flinders Island is amazing. Great job!
2 years ago
sarahymac