RAF Fowlmere (Station 378), circa WW2 - Cambridgeshire, UK.
For Microsoft Flight Simulator X
Version 1.4.
========================================================================
Ian Pearson, 11th October 2016.


RAF Fowlmere as represented here is one of the many WW2 airfields allocated to the USAAF in the East Midlands and East Anglia. That, however, is only part of the story of flying at this location.

The first incarnation of Fowlmere was also a US air station, but during the First World War, with US squadrons operating alongside the RFC, then leaving the field to their hosts in 1918, followed shortly afterwards by the base closing in 1920. Twenty years later, though, the base was re-opened by the RFC's successor, the Royal Air Force, as a satellite landing field for the (very) close by RAF Duxford. 

Although the RAF used the aerodrome - at the time just a grass field - significantly, with several marks of Spitfires, Hurricanes, Boulton Paul Defiants and Army Co-operation Austers all being stationed at Fowlmere, it wasn't until the last squadron - 2 Squadron, flying Mustangs for Army Co-operation - left that the base came into its busiest phase. The sound of the Mustangs' Merlin engines wasn't away for long as, following a refit with steel matting runways and a massive increase of dispersals (most also built from steel mats), the USAAF's 339th Fighter Group moved in during the Summer of 1944, initially with P-51Bs and later upgrading to P-51Ds.

The 339th remained at the station for the remainder of the war, flying many missions over the European continent and becoming one of the most recognised ground-attack squadrons in theatre.

Following the end of the war in Europe, Fowlmere was returned to agriculture, although flying did not end at the site. The current incarnation of Fowlmere, which is allocated the ICAO code EGMA as used by this wartime scenery, occupies part of the wartime field, although the runway does not follow the track of either of the wartime ones and very few buildings remain, let alone in use. The sole enclosed hangar, a T.2 type on the North side of the airfield, is still standing and is used by the current aerodrome.

This scenery represents Fowlmere as Station 378, home of the red and white checked noses of the 339th Fighter Group, and is as close as I can get to realistic with the sources available to me.

Version 1.1 of this scenery added a number of improvements off-airfield at the church plus adding a pub, corrects some errors on the airfield and adds more objects both in the form of MCDesigns vehicles and AI traffic using the A2A WW2 Fighters P-51D Mustang (with FSX update) and Warbirdsim P-51B Mustang. See later in this document regarding the AI traffic files.

Version 1.3 includes the 1.2 update for the altitude fix (see installation below) and also replaces the FS9 vehicles from Mike Carr with those by Larry "Tako Kichi" Green (included with this release). It is also checked and fixed to work with Orbx's "FTX England" scenery.

Version 1.4 adds an ID square and is primarily an update to merge together all the changes, prior to update to the new site.


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

To get the more accurate buildings, there's a slightly more complex setup than my earliest sceneries. Once you have done this process once, however, it will work for all my RAF airbase sceneries, and you won't have to do it again. Note that if you already have Bill Womack's WW2 buildings, Ted Andrews RAF libraries and my own object libraries installed, you can just follow the steps to install and activate IJP_EGMA.

1) Download and install the Bill Womack, Ted Andrews and IanP libraries from the "Flight Simulator", "Object Libraries" pages of my website (http://www.ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk)

2) Extract the enclosed directory "IJP_EGMA" into your [FSX folder]\Addon Scenery directory.

3) Extract the enclosed file "EGMA_ADEX_IJP_ALT.BGL" to your [FSX folder\scenery\world\scenery] directory.

4) Launch FS, and through the Scenery Library editor, add the directories "Addon Scenery\Ted Andrews", "Addon Scenery\IJP_EGMA", "USAAF_Vehicles" and "Addon Scenery\RAF WWII Airfield bldgs" to your sim.



AI Traffic:
===========

As this package was released to work with repaints being done by Jan Kees Blom and Dave Quincey of the A2A "World War 2 Fighters" P-51D (http://www.a2asimulations.com) and the Warbirdsim P-51B (http://www.warbirdsim.com) - both payware packages - I have created AI files to work with both, or only the A2A aircraft.

The reason I have done it this way and not included the files in the main scenery folder is that there are limitations to the WBS P-51B package and not everyone will want to use it. Or either, for that matter.

To see the AI traffic, simply move the file you want from the "/AITraffic" folder to the "/scenery" folder and next time you start FSX, AI traffic should be visible. I made most of it touch-and-go to keep it visible, but three times a day the 505th FS ("6N") coded aircraft will depart for a patrol over the North Sea. I decided to keep it politically correct and "TFT1" has been retired for a while. Sorry to those who want to plan intercepts in FW190s or Bf109s... You still can, if you can find them, but it'll be over open water.

AI Traffic File information:

"Traffic_EGMA_WOP2P51D.bgl" provides only P-51D traffic and requires the following repaints installed:

by Dave Q:
"339th.zip"

by jankees:
"JK_P-51D_6N-D_Lucky_Boy.zip"
"JK_P-51D_6N-E_Imogene.zip"
"JK_P-51D_6N-H_Chute.zip"

"Traffic_EGMA_P51B+D.bgl" provides both P-51B and P-51D traffic, requiring the repaints as above, plus:

by jankees:
"JK_P-51B_5Q-G_BonnyBea.zip"
"JK_P-51B_5Q-O_Punkie.zip"
"JK_P-51B_6N-P_Constance.zip"
"JK_P-51B_6N-Z_Lil_Sack.zip"

Repaints by jankees are generally available in the FSX Repaints section of the library at http://www.sim-outhouse.com

The repaint pack by DaveQ is available at major FS download sites in addition to Sim Outhouse.

If you don't have the model and repaints, you won't see the aircraft, so if the place still looks utterly deserted after copying an AI traffic bgl file into /scenery, that's probably why!
 


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

Remove the entry from your scenery library, then delete the "IJP_EGMA" folder. If you don't need them for anything else you can also remove "RAF WWII Airfield bldgs", "Ted Andrews" and "USAAF_Vehicles".



Finding RAF Fowlmere:
=======================

Although an active airfield in the modern world, there are no navaids at Fowlmere. It is, however, almost slap bang on top of the Imperial War Museum site at Duxford, so if you can find Duxford, you'll be able to see Fowlmere clearly. If you do wish to make life easier, the airbase is fully visible to the FSX map and GPS. The ICAO code of EGMA is correct for the current aerodrome.

All of the dispersals (74 of the blighters) have MIL_COMBAT parking spots allocated, set up to take a single engined fighter. They have been tested with a whole host of aircraft from a variety of developers. Provided what you want to fly is smaller than, say, a P-47D Thunderbolt, you should have no problems.



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

The objects used in this base are from the default libraries of FSX Deluxe and the libraries 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.
FenceBuilderPro by Don Grovestine.
RAF WWII buildings by Bill Womack.
Ted Andrews scenery libraries for FSX.
Larry "Tako Kichi" Green's USAAF vehicle library for FSX.
Discreet (now Autodesk) Gmax.
Corel Paint Shop Pro X2.

Information used to build this scenery has come from Google Earth, Virtual Earth and Ken Delve's "The Military Airfields of Britain" series of books, specifically the East Midlands book for RAF Fowlmere. These books are available from Amazon and other sources and are highly recommended for those interested in WW2 airfields around the UK.

I'll also add in here, this time, special thanks to Snuffy - he who now has a church named after him in Virtual Fowlmere - for a clear diagram of Fowlmere's layout, resolving most of the issues I had with regards to placing dispersal points.

The diagram can be found in Roger A. Freeman's "The Mighty Eighth War Manual", which I don't currently have, but am now working on getting a copy of.



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!

One final serious bit. The objects included with this scenery from RAF_WWII_buildings.BGL are the copyright of, used and included with permission from, Bill Womack (billw@spottedantelope.com). Likewise, the contents of USAAF_Vehicles.bgl and the associated textures are copyright of, used and included with permission from Larry "Tako Kichi" Green. Neither library may be further distributed or used without permission of the copyright owner.

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