FSX WW2 Scenery and whatever else I put here!
… is, apparently, great for productivity. Even if I can’t give out any of the results just yet.
Last post, I showed images of a way-over-poly-budget Bedford QL and a slightly mysterious airfield which, if you zoomed in enough, you might have seen was RAF Hunsdon, from where Operation Jericho was launched. Things have moved on since then.
Continue reading “Getting me angry…”So, after a lot of poking, prodding, cajoling and peeking, it appears that ALL the internal WordPress links are already relative, rather than full, links. As a result, it appears that there’s nothing I can do to actually fix this problem. I’m passing it on to local Tech Support (also known as “Mrs. P”) to contact the domain host and ask them to remove the bleeping redirect. I don’t need this site to be SSL and their implementation of the certificate has caused hours of problems for absolutely no benefit whatsoever.
Net result: FAIL.
So I did this.
And this.
Yes, I’m aware that the field boundaries and roads don’t quite line up… I had a choice between making the airfield remains match the historical photograph or making the surrounding area match the historical photograph, so I went for the airfield option. If you take off the old photo, the airfield sits perfectly on the modern day imagery beneath it. Lens effect maybe? Not sure. Whatever. I now need to try and find a Aerodrome Reference Plan or something to place all the buildings, because while they are clearly visible on the old photo, they’re far from identifiable on it, unfortunately.
Or I could just guess!
Right. Dragging my head out of The Dark Corner and trying to actually achieve something again – other than tidying the dumping ground that was dining room table, which I achieved at about one o’clock this morning!
HMS Tern was a RN Fleet Air Arm Fleet Requirements station in the Orkney islands. The airfield itself was actually named after an adjacent village, but if I use the proper name the major search engines will decide that I’m an adult content site, so HMS Tern it is! If you want to know where I’m talking about, the other adjaent village is Isbister, which would have been a much better name, but someone at the Admiralty clearly had a sense of humour!
Anyway, this isn’t a discussion about the name, it’s a question… I need to set up some AI to test the layout and would be interested to know if there are any WW2 Fleet Air Arm models that people would like to see included? No guarantees can be given that anything will be included – I have a handful of commercial ones installed and can use freeware ones, obviously, but finances (or a complete lack thereof) say very clearly that I won’t be buying any more payware to do this.
Oh, one other thing, this version of the airfield won’t include the unique tower which is still present on the airfield site. I’d love to model it, but it’s a long way down the list at present.
Let me know via the comments box or contact page (or by e-mail if you have actually read one of my readme files!) if you have any suggestions. Ta!
It’s been a while since I posted anything again, so here’s a quick update; mainly about WW2 Halfpenny Green and trucks… Because I never mention them, right?
Halfpenny Green first. I’ve been working on the domestic side of the road again, this time adding the still-extant Gym/Church (Dwg 16428/40+15424/41) to the layout.
As you might expect from me, this led on to other things, including a Cinema 8891/42 and the whole set of a
16428/40+15434/41+8891/42. These are now in the IJP_WW2_RAF_Domestic library, in both brick and rendered versions, along with the also still extant Squash Court 16589/40.
I still need to do the WAAF Ablution block (16339/41?) and Standby Set House (unknown drawing number) which are on the farm site, plus the Petrol Pumphouse, Batmens Quarters and Officers’ Mess, all of which are also still extant on site but on local drawing numbers which no-one seems to have, unfortunately. At some point, I need to go and beg the campsite owner to let me hunt for traces of the timber construction Sick Quarters, but the rest of the extant buildings are on the farm site. I also need to approach airfield management for permission to get to the outside of the cinema (which is a VERY unstable ruin) to see what I can photograph and work out of that, as it bears no dimensional comparison to any of the cinema drawings I’m aware of. It’s too fat and too long!
The other thing I set out to do was that I found a nice photo of a USAAF runway control vehicle based on a Morris GS8 4×2 15cwt truck chassis, which I thought would make a nice change from the generic towed caravan that I put everywhere using SODE. I haven’t made the RWC vehicle yet, because I got a bit sidetracked… By General Service Open, Covered and cab roof versions, along with all three models including Explosive Ordnance Disposal red mud guards.
Excuse all the extra white space, please – the system currently has two screens attached and it seems to be confusing my graphics packages.
Anyway. These are currently only in “Mickey Mouse Ears” camo (c1 in my model nomenclature) apart from one test EOD vehicle in Royal Navy blue for HMS Tern/RNAS Voldemort (“The Airfield That Shall Not Be Named!”). These have their own “IJP_WW2_RAF_MorrisVehicles” library, as there are more Morris models to come and RAFVehicles is getting really rather overloaded! Should I break that up into smaller libraries, bundle them all together, or leave it as it is? You tell me! 🙂
I’ve finally got around to uploading RAF Elvington version 2.0 for FSX to the server. It’s been done for a couple of weeks, but I have a number of issues going on with my health at the moment, so it’s taken me way too long to get around to actually packaging and uploading it. It’s now available here, supported by a new release of my scenery objects, which can be found either via the link on the Elvington page, or the top menu bar. I’ll try and get the All in One files updated as soon as possible, to include the new files.
Facebook (specifically) is a pain in the neck at present. Apart from constantly hounding me to pay to promote a post begging for money, which is kind of counter-productive, it’s also popping up six, seven, eight messages a day telling me that I haven’t posted anything “for a while”, whatever that means.
So here’s a quick update. I’m trying to convert all my models to P3Dv4 format and… Well, ModelConverterX said they were converted, but LibraryCreatorXML announced that they weren’t valid .MDL files, so apparently I have “an issue” to resolve there before I can get the objects into the Lockheed-Martin sim in a native format. Could be worse; they need almost entirely rebuilding for X-Plane 11.
I haven’t been idle on other things, either. Callendar-Hamilton and B.1 hangars have been modelled, plus I’ve done 20′ Temporary Brick Maintenance Office & Stores plus Crew Locker Rooms for Halfpenny Green. For anyone who knows the airfield, they’re the ones still in front of the hangars, being used by a couple of flying schools and the airfield operations team, in that order. Airside Halfpenny Green is getting pretty much done now. The domestic site across the road…? Best not mentioned right now, unless you know what any of the thirty or so completely undocumented buildings looked like!
Let me know if you’d rather I posted this sort of “dev blog” type of thing when there’s nothing else to talk about, or whether you only want me to post when there’s something actually been released, please?
WW2 Halfpenny Green as it stands, with lots of gaps to be filled. To get to the present day, just delete 90% of it!
B1 hangar. The “B” could easily stand for “Basic”.
Callendar-Hamilton hangar. At least this one has windows.
Crew Locker Rooms. These days, this is the airfield ops office and has been changed externally a bit.
A slight “spot the difference competition leads us to the Maintenance Office and Stores, also still extant and these days housing flying schools.
Not content with releasing one scenery today, I’ve also uploaded Little Walden in Essex, which was used by both the 8th and 9th Air Forces, both as a bomber and fighter station. This high usage was in spite of the fact that it was one of the last airfields constructed during the war. It can be found here.
RAF King’s Cliffe – home to the Lightnings and Mustangs of the 20th Fighter Group’s “Loco Busters” – has been uploaded and released, following a few last minute tweaks and kicks.
Developed from period information, the airfield uses only my own and FSX default objects, although for the vehicles to be visible, you will also need Larry Green’s Hobbs AAF installed. The scenery can be found here.
The airfield that I was due to release before the whole mess with the Contact Form kicked off, RAF Raydon v2 is described as “Raydon Redone” for the simple reason that it has been. Completely, from the ground up, over a scan of a period Aerodrome Reference Plan.
Following a brief period under the auspices of the 9th Air Force, Raydon (Station 157) was passed to the 8th Air Force and the 353rd Fighter Group, who remained there until the end of hostilities in Europe. It’s now available under Flight Simulator / Historical / USAAF on the top bar of the site and includes SODE controlled objects, as well as a simple AI flight plan using the A2A WoP3 P-51D Mustang.
It’s been a while coming, but I have finally uploaded Version 1.0 of my RAF Banff scenery, which can be found for download here or via the top menu bar under Flight Simulator / Historical / RAF Airfields.
Banff was home to a Mosquito Strike Wing of Coastal Command, operating against shipping and shoreline (primarily) targets across the North Sea and Norway. Situated a very short distance inland from the Moray Firth, this scenery includes many new custom objects, as well as SODE integration and a mesh blend file, to avoid cliffs around the aerodrome. Therefore, there are a couple of new library downloads to go with this.
