Oak Harbor Seaplane Base WIP

[jdhaenens]

Not too much longer. A few more buildings.

This is on Whidby Is. a few miles south of the NAS.

 

[pbearsailor]

Oh yes, a nearly local Cat base for me!!! Mount Baker right there over us.

Thanks, Jim, really looking forward to it. :ernae:

cheers,
steve

 

[emorris]

Want want want! Looking good.

 

[warchild]

Suhhweeet!!.. definately looking forward to this..

 

[Roger]

Great stuff Jim!

 

[Navy Chief]

Great job, Jim! I thought y'all would appreciate seeing the place as it was in operation, and present day.

NC

http://www.airfields-freeman.com/WA/Airfields_WA_NW.htm#oakharbor

 

[Mithrin]

Ah looking forward to this one!

 

[txnetcop]

That is just plain outstanding...as usual you do some awesome work! Thank you
Ted

 

[pbearsailor]

Great job, Jim! I thought y'all would appreciate seeing the place as it was in operation, and present day.

NC

http://www.airfields-freeman.com/WA/Airfields_WA_NW.htm#oakharbor

Thanks for that, Chief, and note the sad sad story of the closure of my local strip on the same page.

 

[stovall]

Jim, finally found a picture of number 028 SN:34028 that flew from Oak Harbor, Whidbey Island till the mid forties. Last flight December 1945 for this aircraft. Hope this is what you had in mind. Finding pics of these retired aircraft is tough. Any other pictures would be appreciated.

 

[Navy Chief]

Thanks for that, Chief, and note the sad sad story of the closure of my local strip on the same page.

Had I not been married to a wench from south Georgia at the time of my retirement in '96, I never would have left Whidbey Island. It was the most beautiful place I had ever lived.

NC

 

[pbearsailor]

Had I not been married to a wench from south Georgia at the time of my retirement in '96, I never would have left Whidbey Island. It was the most beautiful place I had ever lived.

NC

Bring her out here and tempt her. :naturesm:

cheers,
steve

 

[jdhaenens]

Thanks, everyone. I've been using the Freeman photos as well as some from the PBY association, and ... heck, just guessing at some stuff. A lot of the buildings are still standing and can be seen on Virtual Earth's Birds Eye View.

Thanks, Tom. 048 is in the Freeman pics. I've scoured the VP Navy site for who was there when.

Most of the Cats it seems were deployed to Alaska from Whidby, and I've even got a picture of a Goose pulled up next to a floating hanger in Ketchikan. There was also NAS Sitka and Kodiak, and NAAF's at Annette Island, Atka, Amchitka, and 10 others that I know of.

NAS Kodiak, like NAS Whidby Island and NAS Pensacola, had both a conventional airfield and a seaplane area remotely located.

Probably give me something to do when Tongass Fijords comes out.

UPDATE: The old NAS at Sitka is now a Coast Guard Air Station, but when it was an NAS, it had a 1500 ft runway marked in the parking area between the hangers and the water for carrier aircraft. A working arrestor cable stretched across the runway, such as it was...scary. Google Earth shows the seaplane ramps still exist.

Cheers!

 

[GaryGB]

Glad to see someone is doing Whidbey and the seaplane base... I always wanted to do this but never got around to it!


A couple of interesting additional links about Oak Harbor and Whidbey for consideration:


http://www.mybaseguide.com/navy/whidbey-island/

"PBY CATALINA
Squadrons of PBY Catalinas flew from the Seaplane Base to Dutch Harbor, Cold Bay, Umnak, Nazan Bay, Adak, Amchitka, Shemya and Attu."



http://www.airfields-freeman.com/WA/Airfields_WA_NW.htm

"A 1945 photo of a captured Japanese Kawanishi H8K2 Emily at Oak Harbor, with Navy PBMs behind it. The Emily was one of the highest performance flying boats of WW2."


BTW: Could you insert the captured Japanese Kawanishi H8K2 Emily amphibian as a WW-II period static scenery object ?

< FYI: There is reportedly a way to inter-convert FSDS aircraft to/from scenery objects... with permission of course! >


FS2000 Pro Kawanishi H8K2 Flying Boat

http://www.flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=54913


Or:

http://www.combatfs.com/index.php?loc=downloads&page=info&FileUploadName=buddha13&FileID=4623

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/soh_ftp/cfs2-aircraft/H8Emily_2.zip


Thanks!

GaryGB

 

[jdhaenens]

Hi Gary.

Not really planning on doing the NAS. John Stinstrom did a bang-up one for FS9 and all it requires for FSX is a set of autogen exclusions. If you always wanted to do it, now's your chance.

I've got the Emily 2 file and have attempted to contact the author, but his email has changed...left no forwarding address...

I do have a PBM file that I'm working on.

Best,

Jim

 

[stovall]

Jim, this is 028 on the ramp at Oak Harbor. This is the only picture I could find. Anyway this is what I came up with for FSX. Looking forward to another great seaplane scenery.

 

[Navy Chief]

Bring her out here and tempt her. :naturesm:

cheers,
steve

It will never happen. Leastwise, not while I am still married. But if that situation changes, then......

NC

 

[GaryGB]

Hi Gary.

Not really planning on doing the NAS. John Stinstrom did a bang-up one for FS9 and all it requires for FSX is a set of autogen exclusions. If you always wanted to do it, now's your chance.

I've got the Emily 2 file and have attempted to contact the author, but his email has changed...left no forwarding address...

I do have a PBM file that I'm working on.

Best,

Jim

Hi Jim:

Glad to hear you'll have the PBMs; hope you might still be able to do a port of the Emily somehow.

The "next version of FS" might be on the market by the time I finish all my other pending projects and get a chance to even consider the NAS; so I do hope you and/or others will carry on further and update/expand the NAS for FSX as well.

Best wishes with your project!

GaryGB

 

[jdhaenens]

Looks great, Tom! Thanks!

Jim

 

[stovall]

Jim, with the help of Dag's new paint kit for the PBY 5A with radome I have changed the model to the correct one. She is now a 5A which give the proper tail and some other features. Should be up for download this weekend.