Old Ohio Airfields for FS2004

[Barbara Ellen]

Hiya Gang,

I have been slowly working on developing different aspects of my Old Ohio Airfields project for FS2004/FS9. I made this new OOA Logo, but I gave John the credit for creating the project. I think he deserves the credit. I am also creating a website in conjunction with John's 3D Workshop site (under reconstruction), as a place to have update information, and download capabilities for the Old Ohio Airports project.

So far, the only airports that actually fit the description of the Aeronautical Bulletin of 1936 are Taylorcraft Field/Alliance Airport in Aliance, OH, and Ashland Airport in Ashland, OH. There is some discrepencies involved in the placement, and number of runways at several airports, and I am trying to resolve these issues. The great grandson of the owner of McKinley Airport seems very reluctant to give out information regarding the airport blueprints. So, instead of haggling about accuracy, I am going to stick to the Aeronautical Bulletin of 1936 that Bookman has so graciously provided on his website, The Old Beacon. I will try to use as much accuracy as I can, but when it comes to exact location, and runway placement, I am going to use what is described in the Bulletin, unless there is some substantial information to make changes. I would also like to make the area as close to the old feel as possible, and so, I may end up moving some default files for the area to remove some of the newer fields, and the AI traffic, that weren't around during the 30s.

John and I had some great fun with this old project back in FS2002, and he has agreed to lend a hand with this new project. I just hope someday he decides to re-enter these forums, and add his comments on this project.

I hope to have some screenshots soon. I am working on the airfields first, and then the airways beacons. I should have a substantial download by the end of May. These airports are rather hard to find without the airways beacons, so I am going to add NDBs to help with locating them. Some have no runway markings at all(entire field available), but I will try to make some sense of that soon.

I will keep things updated here, and at John's 3D Workshop. For now, just bear with me.

[Admin]

Sounds good Barb-
Please keep us posted.

[AirCoaster]

Hi Barb,

Nice logo, you always were good at those things. Barb made the logo for Old Ohio Airports for Fs2002. She is one easy woman to work with, I must tell you. And I can't let her not take any credit for her contributions to the old OOA project. Barb built many of the hangers in Gmax, and FSDS. She did a lot of research, and learning in those days, but I think she is more than qualified to handle this project. She bugged me for many months to reproduce the whole project in FS2004, but I had already had my eye on other 3D entities.

I just want you to know Barb, I will do whatever I can to make this project a success. And as far as rivet counters go, see ya in the next life....... : P

Take care all

AirCoaster

[Barbara Ellen]

Ok, screenshots, these two are of McKinley Airport, and Wooster Airport. Both are shown just after initializing the AFCAD files, and the Sbuilder files. Any objects shown on the fields are default objects.

McKinley Airport looking northwest.


Wooster Airport looking northwest.


I guess I just wanted to show some progress as to the project.

[lifejogger]

Wow, looks great.

[cudhee]

Hey Barbara Ellen. Keep heart, this project is so worthwhile. It reminds me of Tom's Maine package a few years back.

Having been born in Springfield and raised in Urbana, my favorite flight, the one I always return to, is climbing out from Phenick at dusk and watching the sun set on my way to Port Columbus, all without so much as a single drop in frame rate. The Lyons brought genius to scenery development in their seamless blending of atmosphere and computer performance.

If I could wish for anything in your effort, it would be to keep it simple. While some developers offer me a virtual beer waiting in a virtual pilot's lounge, which is fun once or twice, the wonder of making a smooth, stutter free approach to touch down is what challenges me most in flight sim and keeps me coming back to the joystick!

Take care, have fun.

[robert4368]

Great work Barbara, looking forward to these airfields.

[Barbara Ellen]

Thanks lifejogger, cudhee, and robert4368.

cudhee, thanks for the input, and just to let you know, I am one who believes in good quality approaches, and general all round framerate quality. No, no, no beer, no dripping fuel nozzles, and no trees that aren't already in the autogen. If I can't get 10, or above on the area of concern, then it gets scalped until it does meet those specs. I am not going to argue FPS vs machine/aircraft issues, I use a Cessna 182 in virtual cockpit mode to judge my scenery. Your input is very welcome. It allows me to make decisions on what I need to add to the scenery that people really want before I have gotten too involved it the project to spend the time changing things. I mean eyecandy isn't everything. Besides, anything I build myself will be low poly count, it's the textures that count.

After removing much of the modern airport scenery from my install of GW3, I find it challenging to find new fields by dead reckoning. I haven't yet added any NDBs to the fields I have, and believe me, it is quite difficult to find some of these airports. Actually, quite fun.

My idea for the Old Ohio Airfields project is to have it as a separate entity, so it can be used on it's own, especially for those who don't have the other sceneries in place. I am sure my interpretations of the Aeronautical Bulletins, and another designers interpretation are going to be different. This holds true of scenery objects, too. This may not appeal to everyone, but it is the only way to be sure the scenery is available to everyone interested, and to avoid scenery overlap. I just want this scenery to be as enjoyable as possible, even for those who have lesser computing capabilities.

[AirCoaster]

Hey Barb, sorry I haven't gotten back to you these past few days. I will get hold of you this weekend.

The areas around the major cities in Ohio were hot spots for new airfields back in the 30s, so you are going to find many overlapping fields in the Aeronautical Bulletins, especially around Camp Perry, Dayton, and Columbus. The only fields I would like you not to leave out are Clickenger Airport, and Phenick Flying Service. I am sure you will include the fields from our local area. The other thing I wanted to mention is that not all the descriptions in the AB of 1936 aren't accurate in regards to world coordinates. Take the first airport in the listings, Aberdeen, the corrdinates that are found in the AB of 1936 are slightly southwest of the actual location of the field. This can be seen from looking at the old geographical maps I gave to you. Aberdeen was actually located east of the newer highway in the current maps, and northeast of the cemetery located nearby. The current highway occupies the old main road through the town, can't remember the route number. Also, there is a point of interest just east of the old airfield, an old Indian burial mound.

But from what I have seen from some of the fields you have sent me, you are doing a good job of locating the fields as they might have been in the 30s.

Take care,TTYL

[Admin]

Those pictures look great. These will be a great addition to GW3 Thanks Barb and thanks AirCoaster. I still have the old versions in FS2002.

[AirCoaster]

Tom, or anyone who has the FS2002 OOA scenery, I was wondering in regards to the old project, did you remove the BGL files that were mentioned in the ReadMe, and if you did, did you enjoy flying the area with the modern airport data, and objects removed? I am curious for a reason, I have been trying to let Barb see the change it creates in the local flying atmosphere, and how it would enhance the FS2004 project also. I can be very prejudice at times, and it would be nice for her to hear how this change could help the atmosphere of the overall project.

[Admin]

I did with my original install back when, but did not with the new install of FS2002 last Fall. I'll take a fresh look when I return home in May. Perhaps I'll make another FS2002 install and see about regressing a la GW. I have Bill's Classic Wings textures for FS2002 somewhere. I'm lucky that hard drive space is not an issue

Just a side note, I used AFCAD2 to "regress" all the fields in Maine for GW3 and that worked well. I was able to remove navaids selectively and remove modern landing lights etc. I also changed most fields to grass or gravel. removed the markings and shortened a lot of runways to their length circa 1936. I was going more for the mood than an accurate rendition. Only KBGR and KPWM got accurate placement of similar objects.

[Barbara Ellen]

Thanks Tom, and AirCoaster for the insight, but I have already removed the bgls for airport info, buildings, and navaids, not to mention AI traffic. I will add the AI traffic later to fit the GW, and OOA AI flights. Total so far of AFCAD airfields I have placed, and elevated properly is 12. I am not the fastest person when it comes to this stuff, but the fields will look good.

Just a note for anyone using AFCAD, and Sbuilder, or other terrain tools, and is new at it. Let's say you have a runway in AFCAD at 1100 ft ASL, which is approximately 335.37 meters. You will find when you place your flatten, and ground texture polys at that same level they will tend to wash, or blend into the runway, especially when in Spot View. The idea here is to place the polys a bit lower than the runway, let's say 1099.7 ft, or 335.30 meters, so as to have the runways above the polys just slightly. I think the old rule from FS9 days was .3 ft below the runway surface for polys, but in FS2004 I just adjust the height of the polys til the wash effect is removed. I hope that helps anyone that may have had this problem.

I also find EZ Scenery, or Instant scenery a bit hard to use, but I think that is because I am not use to it. They are much easier than LOM, or hand coding using BGLC.

I wanted to let MoCat know I have figured out how to use the different libraries in the FS file tree, and I must say, you have some wonderful objects in your files, MoCat. Thank you dear for your help.

Oh, and I have been relearning "The Curve" with Gmax, and 3Ds Max, been a long time for me. Darn texture editor anyway, I guess I have been in Second Life way too long. Time to get down to some real 3D objects again. AirCoaster has allowed me to rework his Quonset hut hangars with moving doors, but I may need some help with CAT on that. The whole CAT process is a bit complicated, but I know it works, cause I did some really neat hangars a few years ago when it first came out. Arno is a really smart fellow. I need to go back to scruffyducks website again to get somemore help to refresh my skills, thank you scruffyduck for allowing us to be able to get to all that wonderful information you have at your website, how do you do it?

Oh, another note, AirCoaster and I are working on a virtual airline, one we had for several years which started back in FS98, Lake Erie Air Ferry. It is a local commuter style VA that is set in the 30s, and 40s, and flys to many of the OOA airports. We want it to be just a fun VA experience, nothing serious. I am not sure how many of you have ever flown a VA with it's own ATC multiplayer sessions, and taking about two hours of your time for each session, but it is cool to have several aircraft flying their schedules all at the same time within the sessions. We did it a few years back, but had lost a few people that were wondeful, God bless their souls. Anyway, just an idea.

Toodles

[Admin]

On the subject of VAs, if you all want a forum, we can set one up in a few seconds. VAs aren't my cuppa but I know we have had several members who were interested.

[Barbara Ellen]

Thanks Tom for the generous offer, but we may have to take a raincheck on the offer. Creating a working, and enjoyable VA takes a bit of time, and with only two of us working on it, I think in this case, that is what we will need, time.

Thanks again Tom, you are certainly a generous person, and a dear....... or is that deer ..... or Ummm....Ummm... I mean buck.... oh pooh....... nm, thank you. ;D