Post by mick on Jul 6, 2007 22:23:15 GMT -5
I'm back at The Old Hangar after a long period of no time for flight sim stuff. I still have no time, really, but I'm trying to hold up my end of a project that's been dragging on for some time now.
David Wooster and I are working on a scenery for Golden Wings (or FS9) to depict Springfield (Mass.) Airport, home of the Granville Brothers and the famous GeeBee racers.
I grew up within walking distance of Springfield Airport and had my first airplane ride there as a toddler shortly before it closed. Ever since I discovered Flight Sim I've wished for a nice Springfield Airport and wondered why nobody ever modeled the home of the famous GeeBees.
Now I know why - lack of reference material!
The GeeBees were among the most photographed airplanes of their time, and it seems that almost none of those photos were taken at Springfield Airport!
I have the Mendenhall book about the GeeBee racers, and it has almost nothing about the airport. I have June Granville's book, "Farmers Take Flight" about the Granville Brothers and their company and products, which has a little bit about the airport, but not much. I went to the Springfield Science Museum, which has a very sparse Granville Brothers display. We scoured the web and came up with a couple maps and aerial photos. It's not much to work with.
We have the location and layout of the airport pretty much nailed, along with the locations, sizes and shapes of the buildings. We even have a few colors worked out, but most of the coloration will be based on educated guesswork.
We've got detail shots of a couple sides of a couple of the buildings, poor quality shots of some other sides of some of the buildings, and nothing at all for some sides of some buildings.
We know there was a rotating beacon somewhere on the airport because it was donated to the Springfield Science Museum, but none of the photos we've found shows where it was located on the field.
Based on what we've got so far, our Springfield Airport will be a fair approximation of the real thing, but we'd like to do better. If you have our Coast Guard Air Station Salem, you know we can crank out pretty decent scenery if we can figure out what we need to do.
If anyone has any kind of reference material on the old Springfield Airport that might help us make our scenery more authentic, we'd sure appreciate a look at it.
And yes, we are thinking of making a couple GeeBee airplanes to fly there!
David Wooster and I are working on a scenery for Golden Wings (or FS9) to depict Springfield (Mass.) Airport, home of the Granville Brothers and the famous GeeBee racers.
I grew up within walking distance of Springfield Airport and had my first airplane ride there as a toddler shortly before it closed. Ever since I discovered Flight Sim I've wished for a nice Springfield Airport and wondered why nobody ever modeled the home of the famous GeeBees.
Now I know why - lack of reference material!
The GeeBees were among the most photographed airplanes of their time, and it seems that almost none of those photos were taken at Springfield Airport!
I have the Mendenhall book about the GeeBee racers, and it has almost nothing about the airport. I have June Granville's book, "Farmers Take Flight" about the Granville Brothers and their company and products, which has a little bit about the airport, but not much. I went to the Springfield Science Museum, which has a very sparse Granville Brothers display. We scoured the web and came up with a couple maps and aerial photos. It's not much to work with.
We have the location and layout of the airport pretty much nailed, along with the locations, sizes and shapes of the buildings. We even have a few colors worked out, but most of the coloration will be based on educated guesswork.
We've got detail shots of a couple sides of a couple of the buildings, poor quality shots of some other sides of some of the buildings, and nothing at all for some sides of some buildings.
We know there was a rotating beacon somewhere on the airport because it was donated to the Springfield Science Museum, but none of the photos we've found shows where it was located on the field.
Based on what we've got so far, our Springfield Airport will be a fair approximation of the real thing, but we'd like to do better. If you have our Coast Guard Air Station Salem, you know we can crank out pretty decent scenery if we can figure out what we need to do.
If anyone has any kind of reference material on the old Springfield Airport that might help us make our scenery more authentic, we'd sure appreciate a look at it.
And yes, we are thinking of making a couple GeeBee airplanes to fly there!