LOWW Wien Schwechat

Verfasst von oe3gsu am Sa, 2014-12-20 11:12

1.The original

The Vienna International Airport (IATA: VIE, ICAO: LOWW), English called Vienna International Airport is the largest and most famous Austrian airport. It is home to the hub for Lufthansa subsidiary Austrian Airlines and Air Berlin subsidiary NIKI. It is located in the area south-east of Vienna adjacent the city of Schwechat. In 1938 it was build as a military airfield. After the Second World War, it took over the role of the airport in Vienna from Aspern airport. The airport is a hub for flights mainly to Eastern Europe and the Middle East and the largest employer in the eastern region of Austria. 71 airlines connecting to 177 destinations in 69 countries worldwide. It is operated by the 'Flughafen Wien AG'.

History

Founded as a military airfield

By the end of World War II the Vienna Airport was the former airfield Aspern.

The airport was built 1938 starting from 14th of May on the "Heidfeld" between Fischamend and Schwechat. Then it was the air base for the German Luftwaffe. Five halls, an aircraft maintenance facility, several team buildings and a large garage were built. The 'Jagdfliegerschule 5' was housed here. But also active flying units, such as the II. / JG 27 (Group II. JG 27), II. / JG 52, as well as parts of III. / KG 51 were here.

In 1942, parts of the area were given to the Heinkel works company (Rostock) which produced aircrafts here (Heinkel He 219 and He 162 "Volksjäger"). For this purpose a "Kompensierplatz" and a "Einschussanlage" were built in addition in form of additional hangars. The entire Heinkel planning office was moved here. Parts of the airport served from 7 December 1944 as a concentration camp (KZ-Schwechat II "Santa"), in which prisoners were held. Two administrative buildings from 1945 (Buildings 610 and 620) have been preserved to this day.

In the fall of 1945, the plant was taken over by the British occupation forces, although it was in the Soviet-occupied zone of Austria. The British used the airport as the Royal Air Force base Schwechat (RAF Schwechat), 1946 British European Airways flew to Vienna in regular service. The French occupation forces used the airfield as well. The Soviets used the historic Vienna Aspern airport and the Americans the military airfield Langenlebarn, which is in use by the Austrian Air Force until today. In 1953 the airport was handed over to the Austrian handling unit, from which the Vienna airport operating company emerged.

Civil expansion from 1954

On 11 December 1953, the Vienna airport operating company was founded and took over handling and administration on January 1, 1954. The Vienna airport was the first privately managed airport in Austria. In the same year the first terminal was built for this purpose. The striking building with tower (Object 240) is preserved and until 2009 the fire station was there.

Until 1992 the first partners of today's Flughafen Wien AG were the Republic of Austria (50%) and the provinces of Vienna and Lower Austria (25% each). On March 27 1956, the Department of Transportation issued approval for the establishment and management of a general traffic airport. The then only runway (direction: 11/29, which is at an angle of 110 and 290 degrees to the north) was extended 1954/1955 to 2000m, 1959 to 3000m and in 1997 to 3500m length. 1956-1960 a new terminal building, the current Terminal 2, was built and opened on 17 June 1960. At this time, approximately 409,000 passengers were recorded.

1962 the planning for a second runway (3600 m, direction: 16/34) started, which was established in 1972 approved by the Ministry of Transport and opened by Federal President Rudolf Kirchschläger on October 6, 1977. Because of the narrow airspace the flight operations at Aspern airfield were finally stopped on April 30, 1977. Also 1977, a General Aviation Center (GAC), and two years later, in 1979, a VIP and business center were opened. The most important local transport to the airport at that time were buses of ÖBB, drove off every 20 minutes at the City Air Terminal mentioned departure point in the Hilton Hotel next to the present station Wien Mitte. Further investments in the 1970s were the first shipyard building for Austrian Airlines, a freight import hall and the underground airport station.

In 1982, the airport linked to the Highway A4. In 1986 an advanced arrival area was opened. It was in operation until June 5, 2012. In the period before the fall of the Iron Curtain, the airport passengers from the Eastern bloc liked to use the airport due to the neutrality of Austria. In 1986 the construction of the east pier started, which became operational in 1988. In 1992, the Terminal 1 and the adjacent "Shopping Arcade", a shopping mall, were built. In 1988 the further expansion (West Pier and the middle section with a semicircular ‘Gelenkbau’) was planned. At that time the airport was used by about 4.6 million passengers annually. 1989, more than 5 million passengers were recorded for the first time. Since the growth estimates and the strategic objectives for 2000 were significantly higher than originally anticipated, planned enhancements have been resized from 9,000 sqm to 25,000 sqm of floor space.

The first part of this expansion, the transit area of the B, C and D gates and the "Plaza", were opened in 1993. In 1996, the West Pier was completed. All these buildings were designed by the Lower Austrian architect Franz Fehring.

In order to minimize the occupation time of Runway 16/34, in 1999 5 new high speed exit taxi routes were built. Three for runway 16 and two for runway 34. As part of this, a second parallel taxiway was built.

Operation in the 21st century

To the right the 109 meter high new tower; the old building in the foreground was demolished in 2005.

Since the 2004 enlargement not only the number of passengers, but also freight volumes have risen sharply since the airport logistics center of many companies has been serving the entire space of the former Eastern Bloc from here. The airport has also rapidly becoming a hub for Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and for long-haul flights. Thus, Korean Air operated since September 15, 2007 Seoul three times a week with a direct flight. In 2013 37 direct flight destinations were operated to Eastern Europe (for comparison: In Frankfurt, there were only 31). Furthermore the presence of many low cost airlines has increased. Since 2007, for example, the British airline easyJet is flying to Vienna.

1999 11 million passengers were counted. This number doubled by 2011! In order to align the airport infrastructure to this high capacity of which adjustments had to be made.

2000-2006 for example the parking areas: The old car parks 1 and 2 were demolished, car park 3 was increased by three bullets, car park 4 doubled in capacity and the park houses 7 and 8 rebuilt completely. In 2003 the expansion of the airport train station began to operate more trains. In the years 2004-2007 the office park was built and put into operation in several stages.

2002 to 2005 there was an extension of the AUA base and also a new apron area in the northeastern parts of the airport (apron west) were made. In 2005, the check-in capabilities had been enhanced at Terminal 1A. In the same year the Handling Center West and the new air traffic control tower was opened. With it being a 109 meters at it highest point, which is the highest control tower in Europe and the fourth highest in the world - to Bangkok (132.2 m), Kuala Lumpur (132 m) and Atlanta (121 m).

2006 the expanded air cargo center went in operation. Also the newly built VIP and General Aviation Center was built on the AUA base with a pilot training center for Lufthansa Flight Training. For the pilots of Austrian, which had to complete their training abroad, this center was also available now. Today it is part of the Vienna Aviation Campus.

However, the best known project of this comprehensive infrastructure upgrades is the terminal extension "Skylink" whose foundation stone was laid in 2006.

2012 more than 22 million passengers, including 7 million transfer passengers, made a new passenger record. In June of the same year the new Terminal 3 was (then named as ‘check-in 3’) operational including the north pier - after six years of construction time. The new Chek-In 3 doubled the terminal area and also replaced the old arrival area. The scandal connected to the construction of the terminal attracted wide media and political presence.

[Status of the scenery]

2014

In 2014 the VIP GAC, a new maintenance area (hangar 7), the so called Vienna Aircraft Handling, was built. The new hangar 7 has an area of 4,300 m².

Until the end of 2014, two additional parking positions for cargo aircraft will be built at the Air Cargo Center on 16,000 m² apron area. Two code F (65- <80 meters wingspan) and four code C (24- <36 meters wingspan) airplanes can be placed on it. This required two smaller round hangars from 1977 as well as three large maintenance hangars (Buildings 210, 220 and 230 from the time before 1945) are taken away.

2019

The newly built hangar of the "Jet Aviation" next to the VIP terminal has been added to the scenery. Also some changes in the airport layout were adapted to the current reality.

(Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flughafen_Wien-Schwechat)

2.The Scenery

The scenery is based on publicly available information and pictures that were taken in the summer of 2013 with the support of the "Airport Security". All objects have been recreated. The scenery includes night textures and realistic lighting (Only X-Plane 10, 11).

A modification of the "Winter representation" is also available.

charts

available at

http://www.vacc-austria.org/index.php?page=content/chartlist&icao=LOWW

3.Functions (summary)

photorealistic Scenery
compatibel to OSM+autogen V6.0 from PilotBalu (simheaven)
realistice groundtexture at the airport
parkpositions, taxiways, runways, and so on conform to the charts
realistic markings at the runways, apron and the taxiways
all buildings at the airport
vehicles at the apron
removeable aircrafts at the apron (http://www.x-plane.at/drupal/node/241)
night-textures
VFR-objects in the surrounding
realistic lighting
ATC-Taxilines for AI-Traffic
Winter-textures for the Airport-Ground and the buildings
X-Plane Ground Services NEW

Changes to version 3.0:

· New Orthophotos

· Add New B Cargo Stands (B5x + B6x)

· B Stands changed Taxi in line

· D26 / D27 rebuild

· G16 / 26/36 adds

· displaced TL40 blue, TL40 orange, TL40 to the North

· Closed intersection B5

· adds SAM Jetways, DGS and Marshaller

· Add Jet Aviation Hanger (General Aviation West)

Changes to version 3.5:

· SAM-Season integrated NEW

4.Installation

Just copy the folder "LOWW Wien Schwechat 3.5" in the compressed file after unpacking in the "Custom Scenery" - folder.

directory structure:

<X-Plane-Folder>/

Custom Scenery /

LOWW Wien Schwechat 3.5 /

Earth nav data and others)

and restart X-Plane.

5.Recommended settings

To visualize all light effects, HDR should be activated. The higher the settings for "texture resolution" and "airport detail" the better the quality of the scenery but the more affect on the FPS ratio.