An ecclectic mix of airports, applications, utilities and other freeware "stuff" for MS Flight Simulator

Welcome to stuff4fs.com

I have recently received some personal health news that will severely impact my ability to continue to support my airports and applications at the level to which some of you have become accustomed. However, please continue to use and enjoy the respective latest general releases.

This website offers a collection of freeware airports, aircraft re-paints, applications and utilities for Microsoft® Flight Simulator ("MSFS") and Lockheed Martin's Prepar 3D ("P3D").

Six Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland British Columbia (Canada) airports are available.

CYBL
CYBL - Campbell River
CYCD
CYCD - Nanaimo
CYQQ
CYQQ - CFB Comox
CYYJ
CYXX - Abbotsford
CYYJ
CYYJ - Victoria
CZBB
CZBB - Boundary Bay

All my airports are compatible with:

  • Microsoft Flight Simulator FS9, FSX, FSX:SE and all versions of Prepar3D up to and including PV5
  • Ultimate Terrain Canada/Alaska and UTX Canada
  • Orbx FTX PNW. But, if PNW is active on your system, you may experience an issue. Please see Common Issues and Troubleshooting
As well, where an airport is in an area covered by Jon Patch's and Holger Sandmann's Vancouver+ or Victoria+, compatibility for those addons is also included. For FS9 fans, several of the airports are also compatible with Joel Gill's BC Roads and, where applicable, also Harvey Janszen's Eastern Vancouver Island Shorelines.

All my airports are based on high-resolution aerial photos and satellite images that allow me to:

  • accurately place all runways and taxiways
  • add realistic taxiway and apron markings
and feature:
  • all buildings modeled with Gmax and "painted" with efficient, hand-painted textures derived from numerous photos of the buildings and facilities
  • night illumination on major aprons and elsewhere
  • drive-through parking for all AI (except at the CYYJ jetways where push-back in the norm)
  • accurate taxiway and apron signage
  • optional custom airfield lighting that places just about every approach, runway, taxiway and apron light in its actual location and mounts the approach lights on towers as in the real world
  • optional low-FPS-impact, multi-LOD, ground-hugging perimeter fencing
  • a selection of static aircraft and operating AI. (Scheduled airline AI traffic requires the BCRegionalAI package.)

All the airports include an installer which allows for configuration of optional features, compatibility files and the Scenery Library with only a few mouse clicks. They also include an update checker and a copy of MipMap Manager.

The major user applications:

  • AI Flight Planner - a fully featured AI flight planning tool compatible with both FS9 and FSX and adopted by Alpha-India Group as their standard flight plan installer,
  • Static Aircraft .mdl Maker - a "nifty" little tool that converts flyable and AI aircraft intended for use with FS8 or FS9 into FS9 scenery models
  • Airfield Lights Toolbox - a utility for creating custom airfield lights and lighting arrays for use in place of stock lighting
  • ADE Ground Polys - an adjunct to Jon Masterson's Airport Design Editor ("ADE") that allows you to create FS8-style ground polys to portray ground cover and markings directly from the ADE display.
  • Terrain Sculptor - a graphical utility that grossly simplifies the creation of sloping terrain "flattens" and the blending of those flattens with the surrounding mesh, and
  • FenceBuilder Pro - a graphical, multi-purpose object placement tool, designed primarily for creating ground-hugging fences, walls, hedges and the like for use as add-on scenery, and
are fully documented.

General releases of the airports and user applications are posted to major library sites, including Avsim, Flightsim and Simviation. However, the latest releases are always available here, as are any patches and documentation.

A host of developer utilities are also available from this site - most only from this site. (Early versions of several of them were posted to the Downloads section of fsDeveloper.com - most of which are now obsolete.) I wrote each to fill a need I had while developing my airports or to automate various repetitive tasks that consumed an inordinate amount of time that could be better spent. While their documentation is a bit skimpy (especially where I thought their use should be intuitive), serious developers should still find them useful. But, please bear in mind, they were developed to meet my needs. That being said, where the required effort was reasonable, I have extended their user interface to be generally useful.

I have written two tutorials related to airport design for MSFS. Both have been around for a while. But, one of the most frequent comments I've received about them is "I wish I'd known that before I started". In general, they clarify a number of specialized aspects of airport design that are less-than-adequately-covered in Microsoft's documentation.

Finally, the Repaints & AI category. This is primarily a collection of repaints with a "local flavour" I created for use at my own airports but that may also be of use at other airports - particularly those in British Columbia, Canada. I have also included in this category my BC Regional AI - a set of AI flight plans, aircraft and textures that portrays all the regional airlines serving BC destinations in late 2008. (I plan to update this package in the not-too-distant future.)

Viscount
ACA/TCA Viscount
PCO Short
PCO Shorts
Purolator B727
Purolator B727-200 (White)
VIH AS-350
VIH AS-350
VIH Bell 205
VIH Bell 205 (Huey)
Helifor Chinook
Boeing CH-47 Chinook
Convair CV-580
Convair CV-580
Rockwell TC 680FL
Rockwell TC 680FL
Lockheed L-188 Electra
Lockheed L-188 Electra
Corilair Beaver
deHavilland DH-2 Beaver

Take what you want; leave the rest. The use of each item is governed by an End User License Agreement (EULA). Please observe its terms. In particular, the EULAs prohibit commercial use or application of my work. You are, however, welcome to use the aircraft repaints in, and the utilities in the development of, scenery you make available to others as "freeware"; a credit in your documentation would be appreciated.

While I'm not averse to commercial application, if you are going to make money from (or reduce costs by using) my work, I want a share of it. It's that simple! If you intend to use any of these items commercially, to reduce costs (e.g., in-house training) or to develop or enhance commercial offerings, please contact me. Commercial licenses are available for a modest fee (in comparison to my development effort).

Enjoy! And, if you are so inclined, please feel free to make a donation to help defray my costs of maintaining this site and of the tools I use in my development activities.

Don Grovestine
Victoria, BC, Canada
E-mail: don@stuff4fs.com

*  *  *    setting the standard for freeware quality and support    *  *  *


We welcome your questions, comments and suggestions regarding this website and the "stuff" available from it. Please feel free to contact us. In particular, please report any problems you experience with the add-ons, applications and utilities.