Norway's Fjords Revisited

Norway’s Fjords Revisited
For Saturday, August 5, 2023

We shall take advantage of the summer weather and revisit the fjords of Western Norway. We begin at Stord and fly over the rugged terrain that is streaked with stunningly beautiful fjords some of which invite up-close viewing. We end our day off the coast at historic Ålesund.


Descending into the Nærøyfjord, among the world’s premier natural heritage sites

We depart from Stord Sorstokken [ENSO]. Most of Norway’s airports were built in the 1970s-1980s as the government wanted to create a modern transportation infrastructure in a country of  mountains and coastal islands. For many towns, this meant finding slivers of land on which they built small regional airports. It took longer to upgrade the road network – that often required new tunnels and bridges. After takeoff, we head south to “inspect” the newish twenty-year-old Stord Bridge [STORB] which is part of the Triangle Link connecting these islands to the mainland via bridges and tunnels. We cross over the mouth of the Hardangerfjord (Norway’s second largest) to visit two narrow fjords, Åkrafjorden and Sørfjorden, which skirt the Folgefonna glacier and Folgefonna National Park. We then turn into the Hardangerfjord and take a look at the Hardanger Bridge, Norway's longest suspension bridge. Just completed in 2013, the bridge is unusual in that it connects at either end two tunnels that allow the east-west highway connection from Oslo to Bergen to pass through this rugged countryside.

We turn north to Voss and land at Voss Bømoen [ENBM]. This is of special interest to the AVSIM Racing Team as Voss is the home of Jan Tillung (Gazer75) who was a central member of the team in its early years. Late one night (perhaps while the baton was crossing the vast Pacific), he described the beautiful view from the top of the aerial tramway that stood over his city. Mamu’s “ski lifts” addon does a good job representing the new Voss Gondol on Mt Hangur [HNGUR] just west of the town. (Optional diversion.)

This is an attractive rural area with mountains and river valleys. We fly cross-country to ease down into the spectacular Nærøyfjord [NEROY] with its narrow passage between high walls that help focus the pilot’s concentration. (One can appreciate the scene that the National Geographic Society rated, along with the Geirangerfjord, as the world’s number one natural heritage site.) We turn out into the Aurlandsfjord and then the Sognefjord, Norway’s longest and deepest fjord. We land at Sogndal Haukåsen Airport [ENSG], perched on a ledge high above the waters below. This is a regional airport. In the 1960s, the national government adopted Widerøe’s proposal for a network of STOL airports connected to a few jet-capable primary airports. These would be cheaper to build and operate but would require substantial subsidies over time because the traffic would not pay the costs. (Currently, these subsidies are on the order of $50 - $100 per passenger.) In the end, this scheme proved beneficial to the rural populations on the coasts and allowed them to thrive. In Western Norway, five regional airports Sogndal, Førde, Florø, Sandane and Hovden were built in the early 1970s. They were originally served by DHC-6 Twin Otters, then DHC-7s, and now Dash 8-100 aircraft. Typically, these flights connect to Oslo, Bergen and Ålesund.

We climb and fly over high terrain to Førde Bringeland [ENBL], some 10 miles south of the important commercial, industrial and administrative town. (The original regional airport was built in the town itself, but the site proved unsuitable and another airport had to be constructed in the 1980s.) The new airport has relatively good weather and operates a full-scale instrument landing system so critical in Norway’s climate. We proceed out to the coast to land at Florø [ENFL]. The large town has traditional strengths in fishing and in shipbuilding. In addition, since the discovery of North Sea oil, the town has been a supply base for the industry. The Florø airport is by far the busiest of the country’s regional airports. It serves a number of helicopter operations out to the North Sea oil platforms as well as an RNoAF helicopter search and rescue squadron. And it provides the petroleum industry good connections with the larger centers at Bergen and Oslo.

We turn east over the high Ålfotbreen Glacier [AFBNG] to Sandane Anda [ENSD], some six miles north of Sandane town, a small commercial and administrative center. The airport straddles the Anda peninsula between the Nordfjorden and Gloppefjorden, with both runways close to steep hillsides which dive into the fjords. Just west of Runway 08 is a 1000 ft high mountain ridge which necessitates a sharp turn on final approach. To a greater degree than other regional airports, the Anda location has been plagued by severe winds and turbulence and thus has experienced frequent closures due to weather. The lengthened runway and full-time ILS system have mitigated the problem. (That said, the national government is considering a closure here for both economic and safety reasons.)

Next we fly west along the Nordfjorden and turn north over the ridges and smaller fjords to reach Hovden Ørsta–Volda Airport [ENOV], midway between the towns of Ørsta and Volda. Prior to construction, people had to travel by road and ferry two-to-three hours to Ålesund in order to fly to Bergen or Oslo. The improvement almost proved short-lived as the passenger traffic from Østa and Volda proved inadequate. However, with the new twenty-first century construction of nearby road tunnels, the catchment area of the airport almost doubled. Nowadays, it is fairly busy and successful regional airport.   

We leave to the east, through the Sunnmøre Alps, to follow the Hjorundfjord (perhaps the most beautiful of the not-packed-with-tourists fjords) out to the North Sea. We fly low over historic Ålesund [ALSND] that not long ago was dominated by Norway’s primary fishing port. The fishing fleet remains but over the last half-century the port has come to service the North Sea oil industry and the old shipyards are now refocused on maintaining the industry’s supply-shipping fleet. In addition, the city has become a cultural and tourist center: the Hurtigruten cruise ships arrive twice a day. While scattered over several islands, this is a good-sized population center of about 67,000. Our final destination is Ålesund Vigro [ENAL], a busy international airport with jet service to cities in Norway and elsewhere in Europe.

Documentation
The flightplan can be found here.

Aircraft
We want to fly fairly low to appreciate the scale of the fjords. We need to cover about 300nm so require something that will cruise at about 150kts. Most of our favorite "quick" General Aviation aircraft will be just fine. I'll fly the A2A Piper Comanche in the N7510P livery by Tim Scharnhop.

Additional Scenery
Stord Sorstokken [ENSO]. Foxbat20
Trekantsambandet Bridges. Aleksander911
Voss Bomoen [ENBM]. AugustinWinther
Sogndal Haukasan [ENSG]. AugustinWinther
Floro [ENFL]. Jantorre
Sandane Anda [ENSD]. AugustinWinther
Hovden Orsta-Volda [ENOV]. frkristi
Alesund Vigra [ENAL]. Artogsta

Voss Bomoen is required (it is not in the default database). The rest are both recommended and optional.

You can download a scenery package here. (This package includes Førde ENBL.)

In addition, Orbx has good payware renditions of Alesund Vigra, Sogndal and Sadane. (If you use these, take care to avoid duplications.)

Finally, you might like the excellent new photogrammetry addon for Alesund City by KenMo. (This is 2.6 GB and so is not for everyone.)

Time and Weather
For takeoff on Saturday, set the simulator at 3:00 pm local for August 5, 2023.
We prefer real weather.

Multiplayer Particulars
Date and time: Saturday, August 5, 2023. 1800 UTC
AVSIM Discord Server: https://discord.gg/K5Vy6UxWNm  - AVSIM GROUP EVENTS-SAT. COM3
Microsoft Flight Simulator Multiplayer: United States East server.

If you want to help others enjoy the multiplayer experience, don't forget to enter your aircraft details on the multiplayer spreadsheet (linked here). Please be kind enough to enter the title exactly as it stands in the title=”xxx” line of the aircraft.cfg file. Your courtesy will save others a lot of time and effort. Thanks!