EBBZ (Buzet)
- Introduction
- Latest changes at the EBBZ (Buzet) airfield
- Background Information
- Airfield Information
- Usage
- Know aircraft's at EBBZ (Buzet)
- Recommended exercises flights
- Screenshots and video's
- Resources
The EBBZ (Buzet) is a very little airfield, the oldest and first official ULM airfield of Belgium (1982). Where you can practice different types of light sport aviation activities.
This airfield is next to the EBBY (Baisy Thy) airfield and close the EBCI (Brussels South Charleroi) airport. The heliport EBSW (Sint-Pieters-Leeuw) and the capital of Belgium, Brussels are also very close too.
It's actually very tight to fly in the EBBZ airspace due the proximity of all other airfields and airports surrounding EBBZ. The EBBZ circuit is very challenging and very interesting exercise for pilots.
According to this source and this source, the EBBZ (Buzet) airfield, the company SCRL Confluence has been sold and has a new owner since 2016. Since then, many changes have been applied to the EBBZ airfield these last few years. There seems to be some other projects plans going on so we can expect some changes in a near future. To resume the new changes so far:
- A new (prefab container style) control tower.
- 2 new concrete helipads. Whereas one is used to expose a static Fouga CM170 Magister N° 532, code 313-DH aircraft since 17/07/2017 and the second one for helicopters like the Robinson R44 and the Guimbal Cabri which are now used to tour in Belgium.
- The airfield has more vegetation now.
- The runway has also doubled of its lengths and changed it's position by a degree. It was 16/34 and now it is 15/33 and is 448x40m long according to this source. It is also a slightly more further away of the airfield buildings. Giving a little more room to add in a proper taxi way and to park.
For FlightGear, this is very bad news. Of course because the airport layout needs to be redone and the Terrain needs to be regenerated. Which isn't in my hands. I can do it on my own side and provide these new Terrain information in this repository like i did in the past. But that is Terrain data that the TerraSync server doesn't accept and we are stuck to wait to the next scenery world regeneration. Working with 2 different Terrains data sets is to hard to maintain as the elevation data change slightly each time we generate terrains. But the biggest bad news in my opinion is that this little airfield lost it's very challenging aspect with that tiny runway it had.
The EBBZ (Buzet) airfield 3D objects has been updated to match the current real life status. Except that the runway hasn't been updated yet. The new runway changes will be (hopefully) there with the next scenery world rebuild. For the moment, 2 markers have been set to indicate the start and end of the future 15/33 runway change. Also the static aircraft at EBBZ should be replaced by a Fouga (but we don't have one in FlightGear yet). The new airfield layout is already available, only for X-Plane for the moment.
I'm proud to tell that i already did a few real life flights there with a Rans S-6S. Even more if i tell you that my flights was with one of the previous big boss of the airfield :) The employees on this airfields are very kind full, a true family business with an attractive spirit. The fact i flew with the (previous) big boss, is that i'm to heavy. The instructor with who i was supposed to do my flights is also heavy.
Back in time, i started to develop the Rans S-6S aircraft for FlgithGear. This is some little ULM i really like and recently i decided to continue the development of this awesome ULM. You can download and follow the development of the Rans S-6S aircraft here on the GitHub project page: https://github.com/dvanmosselbeen/Rans-S-6S
The Rans S-6S aircraft is a light ULM that i really love. Even if i have almost lost my life several times with close to in-air collisions, but still, i love this aircraft very much.
- Runway: 16/34 250 meter. Should be 15/33 and 450m long since 2017.
- Radio Frequency: None
Like with any airfield, you can start up at this airfield on it's runway. EBBZ (Buzet) is one direction and you should start up and land from runway 16. Actually there's no (official) radio frequency reserved for EBBZ.
You can choice to start up from your hangar or parking spot if you prefer so.
Actually the parking positions and the helipad position isn't know by FlightGear and if you want to start from other locations that the runway, you need to specifically tell FlightGear to do so.
If you make use of the Rans S-6S at EBBZ, then i strongly recommend this nice parking spot:
--lat=50.543762 --lon=4.380664 --altitude=527.23 --heading=160
It's my favorite spot, but if i'm not busy on it, feel free to use it :-)
The fresh new helipad at EBBZ (Buzet) is very small and only meant to be used by small helicopters. So keep in mind to take a small helicopter like the R44 or the Guimbal Cabri. Starting from a helipad, close to the hangar and in between other props, makes it a whole other experience than starting straight from the runway. You will see that it's way more challenging to take off from or land on that helipad.
With FlightGear you can start up from any location if you have the longitude and latitude. Then it's a matter to tell FG about that.
For most of the helicopters the following would work:
--heading=255 --lat=50.54364201 --lon=4.38051901
For the Robinson R44 you should use the following as it's center point isn't the same:
--heading=255 --lat=50.54364352 --lon=4.38056045
If the center point of your helicopter isn't in the center and the above suggestions does not help. Then you should figure out the latitude and longitude yourself.
You can refuel your aircraft on the fuel pump. Use CTRL+C to toggle on the clickable regions. Go close to the fuel pump and then lick on the fuel pump to start refueling.
If you use the Rans S-6S ULM as aircraft, by default the tank is filled up at 75%. So don't forget to refuel if you plan some longer trip.
- Rans S-6S
- Robinson R44
- Guimbal Cabri
- EBBZ: Touch and go's. See the plan in the screenshot section.
- EBBZ - EBBY (Baisy Thy): With an ULM as well as with a helicopter, as you can officially land at EBTY with your helicopter too.
- EBBZ - EBSW: With a helicopter.
- EBBZ - EBEU: With a helicopter.
Feel free to share you artwork if you made some :)
This is a little demonstration video of the Rans S-6S at EBBZ:
A flight with a Robinson R44 helicopter at EBBZ (Buzet)
Quick ufo flight to show EBBZ, EBTY, EBAV, EBBL
The Rans S-6S at EBBZ:
All the hangars and buildings of this little ULM airfield:
The hangars:
The old control tower with the bar and it's terrasse:
An overview of the airfield:
It's very tricky to fly at EBBZ. A map tells more than words (sorry for the flashy colors, but it's way more clear this way):
To get a bigger map, right click on the image and open the image in a new window.