Africa Hub - what's your thoughts?

[Peter Schindler]

To all pilots:

We thought it's about time to open one more hub - and probably the last for a while. There is still an entire continent not covered by an Air-Child hub, which is Africa. We admit that this is even a bit embarassing for a virtual airline supporting UNICEF ...

However, the reason why a hub in Africa was not on top of our list is obvious if you look at the available scenery for this continent. As far as we could see, there's a pretty good coverage for South Africa with both freeware and payware, so it would be easy to start a poll between Cape Town and Johannesburg. But we'd like to have your opinion.
Are there any ideas, wishes, suggestions for other countries apart from South Africa? Does anyone know of other good free- and/or payware sceneries (possibly for FS9, FSX and X-Plane)?

Post everything you know or would like to see. We have a small constraint, though: Northern Africa (i.e. nice sceneries like Casablanca, Sharm El Sheik etc.) would only be second or third choice, being too close to Europe.

Thanks already for your replies.
Norbert & Peter

[Tomasz Wydrzynski]

Houari Boumediene Airport - Algeria ?
Scenery, flightsim com: algiers7.zip with photo terrain scenery: algicity.zip


sorry for the size

[Gerard Busschers]

Johannesburg or Cape town in South Africa...Aeroworx have a large selection of scenery pakages hosted on Avsim as well as there Web site.(Sorry local bias )

[Andreas Heusner]

DGAA / ACC, Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana.
Charts for the airports in cetral africa: Charts
Sceneries are available for x-plane and MFS: Sceneries
ATC for the region: Website Africa Central (VATSIM)

[Mario Hirschmugl]

DGAA seems to be a good choice.
Especially towards the location - perfect for connections to/from Europe to/from South Africa, South America, The Carribean ...

[Pierre Chassang]

Hi Gents,
Reading this post, I thought to DAKAR Senegal which was a step in the Concorde route to Rio de Janeiro.

Sceneries: http://www.sunudiv.com/telechargement.htm
Charts: http://www.ais-asecna.org/fr/atlas/senegal/dakar.htm

It could be a good place to dispatch flights across Africa and South America.

What do you think about?

Cheers
Pierre

[Tobias Niederhauser]

Just for info. The Dakar scenery I know of is quite low quality. DGAA and DAAG are probably the best sceneries around Central Africa. There is a superb scenery for Antananarivo (FMMI) with marginal hub location benefits

http://www.avsimrus.com/f/fs2004-scener ... 14605.html

cheers,
tobi

[Torben Andersen]

Instead of discussing the quality of scenery, I think it would be better to look for a strategic placement of the hub. Algeria and South Africa are both at one end of the continent. Dakar would be marginally better placed but still far away in the west. Kampala in Uganda or Nairobi in Kenya are better placed in central Africa. Perhaps 2 hubs would be best:

Dakar (serving the western Sahel area and a nice stop for traffic for South America) and Kampala (serving Eastern and Central Africa - both with turbulent areas in DRC and Ethiopia/Somalia).

just my 0.02€ worth

Torben

[Szymon Kurzacz]

I've looked into topic, then took a map. Nothing connected to any flight simulator, just looking for nice place, witch is quite close to everything in central africa...

Noticed one place that suits, and during reading - it suits even better, but didn't checked if there is any scenery available...

Look at Kinshasa in Congo. According to wiki, Kinshasa is 3rd biggest city in africa (tied with Johannesburg). Quite easy to locate in VFR - because it's near Congo river...

About airport - N'djili Airport (IATA: FIH, ICAO: FZAA), also known as N'Djili International Airport and Kinshasa International Airport. One of 4 biggest airports in africa AND its alternate landing site for US Space Shuttle. Single runway over 15000ft (almost 5km) long.




Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinshasa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N'djili_Airport

[Mario Hirschmugl]

@ Szymon Kurzacz:

Here we go
Charts: http://www.simmiles.com/VRC/ifr.php
Scenery: http://flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=107343 (scenery)
http://flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=120094 (AFCAD update)

[Tobias Niederhauser]

FZAA features only basic scenery at the moment. And I do think, that it is a factor for opening a hub at someplace. But that is just my opinion, I personally like to fly to, where good scenery exists. It's just more realistic if you have the correct taxiways and gates if you're flying according to real charts and procedures. Have a look at http://www.fsnabisso.com/ for a good overview, what Africa sceneries exist.

cheers,
tobi

[Rafal Bardel]

Africa is the major destination as fas as the AIRCHILD VA activity is concerned. My suggestion is, therefore, to have two (2) hubs there, one closer to Europe, to make it more accessible for shorter hauls, and another, further down the map. I belive the purpose of Airchild VA justifies for two hubs in Africa.

But that's just a suggestion.

[Peter Schindler]

Thanks for the many opinions! This is already more than we were hoping for.

Let me just randomly quote and comment some posts (personally, not officially):

Instead of discussing the quality of scenery, I think it would be better to look for a strategic placement

The ideal location would feature both, good situation + good scenery. Hard to find, of course

DGAA / ACC, Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana.

DGAA seems to be a good choice

I agree. more and more so.

Look at Kinshasa in Congo. According to wiki, Kinshasa is 3rd biggest city in africa

Would be a good place, strategically! I remember the scenery from one of the fsp world tours, and it wasn't very spectacular, to say the least, though ....

And I do think, that it is a factor for opening a hub at someplace

Agree. A hub is something you visit quite often. Without a decent scenery, there's not much fun

I belive the purpose of Airchild VA justifies for two hubs in Africa

I believe too! Personally, I'm attracted by DGAA and FACT

I will meet with Norbert on Thursday and think we will work out a final poll for next weekend. Keep on posting until then

[Tobias Niederhauser]

I believe too! Personally, I'm attracted by DGAA and FACT

DGAA or DAAG are quite good. But instead of FACT I would propose FAJS with decent scenery.

cheers,
tobi

[Peter Schindler]

Here's a link to my (pretty old) photo diary of World Tour leg FACT-FAJS.
http://www.vademo.com:8080/world-tour/leg89.php
Both sceneries are freeware, and FACT (including harbour and table mountain) isn't that bad, I think. There's also good payware scenery for both of them.