Hamble "North" Airfield, circa WW2 - Suffolk, UK.
For Microsoft Flight Simulator X
Version 1.1.
========================================================================
Ian Pearson, 19th July 2017.

The first airfield built at Hamble-le-Rice in Hampshire wasn't built for the RAF or Royal Navy, nor by a wealthy private owner as was the case with many pre-war airfields. In fact, it was opened during World War I by A. V. Roe, whose factory started producing aircraft in 1917, flying them out from a steeply sloped site leading down to Southampton Water, which became known as "Hamble South" airfield. Most of the production at Hamble South was of Avro 504 type aircraft and a scenery created by Stephen "stiz" Barstow can be downloaded here - http - intended for use with his A2A "Aircraft Factory" Avro 504K.

When the factory ceased production in 1919, with the majority of work being moved to Manchester, the Hamble South site became a testing ground for new designs, for which the steep "South" airfield was completely unsuitable, so more land was purchased in 1926 and aircraft towed over the railway line to a new, much larger and flatter, "North" landing ground. This was also used by Fairey, Simmonds, Vickers/Supermarine and training first started with the creation of the resident Hampshire Aero Club.

In 1931, Air Service Training Ltd - formerly the Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Reserve School - moved in, building a new hangar which became known at the outbreak of World War 2 as "B" hangar. In 1932 Hampshire Aero Club moved out (to Eastleigh, now Southampton Airport) and with the first rublings of war, during 1937, AST were joined by No.3 Elementary and Reserve Flying Traing School and in 1939, No.11 Air Observers Navigation School and No.1 Supplementary Flying School. All training was moved out of Hamble, when it was bombed in 1940, leaving only the repair facilities and a small Royal Naval aviation detachment.

Hamble was never, technically, an active military Station during WW2, yet it saw huge amounts of military aircraft operating to and from from its grass landing area every day. The reason for this was that alongside several training, repair and conversion facilities, Hamble was also home to a large part of the Air Transport Auxiliary, who ferried aircraft between factories, repair facilities, maintenance depots and active Squadrons. Specificallly, in the case of Hamble as opposed to White Waltham where the ATA was headquarted and more associated with, the ATA presence was dominated by the Women's Section, the ladies of which broke through numerous taboos and long held biases on an almost daily basis to prove that "if the chaps could do it, so could we".

Although the female section of the ATA are often referred to as the "Spitfire Girls", in reality, they flew everything from Moth trainers to Halifax, Stirling and Lancaster heavy bombers - often handing them over to disbelieving recipients, who asked where the pilot was!

After World War 2, the ATA left and the airfield was used to store Spitfires for the scrap man, although flying restarted in 1936 and the aerodrome remained in continuous use, first under AST and when they left in 1960, th College of Air Training, until 1984 when the Receiver was called in and the site was sold to a housing developer. The last aircraft to fly from Hamble, however, didn't leave until 1986 and today, astonishingly for a flat site owned by a housing company, the majority of Hamble North Airfield is still open grassland, with many of the airfield buildings still standing!

Version 1.1 of this scenery adds parking spots, taxiways and this text file to the original "temporary" release... Seven years ago. Oops.


Installation:
=============

This version of Hamble North has been built using primarily default assets, to make it as accessable as possible to users. Therefore it has a very simple installation procedure:

1) Extract the enclosed directories "IJP_EGHM" into your [FSX folder]\Addon Scenery directory.

2) Launch FS, and through the Scenery Library editor, add the directory "Addon Scenery\IJP_EGHM" to your sim.

In order to see the structures to the South side of the airfield, you will also need to install the Ted Andrews scenery libraries, which can be found on my website at http://www.ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk under "Flight Simulator", "Scenery Object Libraries", or as part of the "All-in-One" library download.


Uninstallation:
===============

Remove the entry from your scenery library, then delete the "IJP_EGHM" folder. If you installed them and do not need them for anything else, you can also remove the Ted Andrews library objects.



Finding Hamble North:
=====================

Hamble-le-Rice and obviously its airfields can be found at the South end of a peninsular formed by Southampton Water to the South and West, plus the River Hamble to the East. Much of the coast is, these days, occupied by a large petrochemical facility, including the former Hamble South site. Therefore, if you don't have stiz's scenery installed, you can fly to the chimneys and storage tanks, then turn briefly North. If you do have stiz's Hamble South installed, the two airfields together take up much of the peninsular and should be fairly easy to spot. The site lies between the large urban areas of Portsmouth to the SE and Southampton to the NW, which form either end of Southampton Water, so there are plenty of visual references to find your way by.

If you prefer using radio navigation aids, Hamble North can be found approximately 5NM from Southampton VOR (SAM 113.35MHz) on the 170 radial.

There are 22 parking spots on the airfield


Known Issues:
=============

Being badgered by persons who shall remain nameless (or, you know, that "stiz" Barstow chap...), I have created a fake photoreal scenery background for Hamble North. I'm not particularly happy with it, not least because it remains bright green all year round. Unfortunately, I've never really had the opportunity to fix this. It is technically possible, but whether or not it's worth the effort now is open to debate.


Development Tools:
==================

The objects used in this base are from the default libraries of FSX Deluxe and the Ted Andrews library mentioned below. It has not been tested with FSX Standard, sorry, and will not work in FS9.

Other tools used during the development of this scenery were:
Airport Design Editor by Scruffyduck Software.
SBuilderX by Luis S.
Ted Andrews scenery libraries for FSX.
Adobe Photoshop

Information used to build this scenery has come from Google Earth, Virtual Earth, numerous websites and photographs found online, plus Ken Delve's "The Military Airfields of Britain", specifically the Southern England book for Hamble. Ken Delve's books are available from Amazon and other sources and are highly recommended for those interested in WW2 airfields around the UK.



Legal Bits and bobs...:
=======================

This file is provided "as is" and with no form of warranty whatsoever. In the somewhat unlikely event that it harms your computer, sets fire to your fishbowl or causes you to not do the washing up and get yelled at, I cannot be held responsible in any way. If you don't like this, please don't install it and no I will NOT do your washing up, I have enough to do myself already, thanks!

Should you have any questions or comments regarding this scenery, please feel free to contact me via the form at my website: http://www.ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk


Have fun!

Ian Pearson
ian@ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk
http://www.ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk