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Need to flatten some airports

O

OBIO

Retired SOH Admin
I am using the freeware FSGenesis US mesh....and many of my usual haunts (airports) are either elevated above the surrounding scenery or sunk below the surrounding scenery. What program (freeware please) do I need to create flatten files to get the airports to be at the same level as the land around them?

I tried AFCAD2.2 and did not see a flatten creation tool.

OBIO
 
I use FSTflatten, it works quite well and is easy to use. Here is the readme from the program.
 
I'm a bit fuzzy because I haven't had to do this in a long time, but I think you can do it in AFCAD so you don't need a flatten file.

Open the airport in AFCAD and adjust the altitude in the box that open when you click on the little pink-purple sputnik-like thingie that sits at the center of the airport.

I think that's all you have to do. You can also raise or lower the ground level by altering the altitude of taxiways, but I don't think you have to do that to adjust the whole airport.
 
Airport Design Editor? I'm a dope at this but had success leveling out an airport near Mt. St. Helens (Mt St Helena South field-ficticious but really fun). I wanted to get rid of trees and fix the terrain that somewhere got bent to a mesh file or something. I think I used this which worked great to smooth out the area but I still have the trees. It works by slewing your way around to define the area to flatten then a BGL is created. I just today got the new puter back and am still getting things set up so I'll see if that was what I used. I planned to fix several "mesas" created by Rhumbys mesh on the gulf coast with it too.
 
Is it possible to use a flatten to "fix" a non-stock airport? When I fly out of Alphasim's Groom Lake, the LOOOOONNNNNG runway is on its very own plateau that is just a bit wider than the runway...and the entire airport is about 100 feet or so above the surrounding desert. Makes it hard to land the fast jets when you are coming in on approach then suddenly find that the runway is 100 feet closer to your wheels than you were aware of.

OBIO
 
Have you thought about AFX or Airport Facilitator X by Flight1? It's payware but that is one of its primary features is airport flattening.
 
OBIO said:
Is it possible to use a flatten to "fix" a non-stock airport? When I fly out of Alphasim's Groom Lake, the LOOOOONNNNNG runway is on its very own plateau that is just a bit wider than the runway...and the entire airport is about 100 feet or so above the surrounding desert. Makes it hard to land the fast jets when you are coming in on approach then suddenly find that the runway is 100 feet closer to your wheels than you were aware of.

OBIO
Click to expand...

If there is no default airport you can simply lower the airport and runways to match the surrounding terrain. If there is a default it can be lowered too but it is a PITA. I normally use FSTflatten to raise or lower the surrounding terrain to match the airport. You can make this adjusted area any size and shape that you choose. The only problem is none of these flatten programs create slopes to merge the airport land to the surrounding area. So your stuck with vertical cliffs, but if you watch the terrain elevations carefully you can keep the cliffs small or none at all where the elevations match.
 
OBIO, those plateaued runways are there for a reason. They're there for those of us who decide to fly B-36's, An-225's, and over-gross Curtiss Commando's out of places like Quito, Ecuador. You might eventually run out of runway but just keep goin' and eventually you'll catch air! Bazinga!!! :))
 
I was under the impression that ADE could hande flattens. It's (sort of) the son of Afcad, what Afcad would have become in time; I've now ditched AFX in favour of ADE, still getting to grips with it, but it has lot of very useful functions - and the price was perfect.
 
OBIO said:
I am using the freeware FSGenesis US mesh....and many of my usual haunts (airports) are either elevated above the surrounding scenery or sunk below the surrounding scenery. What program (freeware please) do I need to create flatten files to get the airports to be at the same level as the land around them?

I tried AFCAD2.2 and did not see a flatten creation tool.

OBIO
Click to expand...

An attractive alternative is SBuilder. It's freeware.
It's a very powerfull, extremely versatile and well thought out programme with many, many 'extras!'
It can handle all your flattening, and illustrates the use of flattens for small landscape alterations; sloped flattens for example.
There is a very well documented set of instructions by Scruffyduck too. Get it!

SBuilder is a slew programme for really nitty-gritty work and its convenience is that in the same file, you can build up layers. So you can start e.g. with a flatten, then build up over this with custom textures, land/waterclass, objects etc.

Flattening, excludes, Landclass/waterclass, photomesh, object placement...you name it, it does it!


edit:
quote_icon.png
Originally Posted by OBIO
Is it possible to use a flatten to "fix" a non-stock airport? When I fly out of Alphasim's Groom Lake, the LOOOOONNNNNG runway is on its very own plateau that is just a bit wider than the runway...and the entire airport is about 100 feet or so above the surrounding desert. Makes it hard to land the fast jets when you are coming in on approach then suddenly find that the runway is 100 feet closer to your wheels than you were aware of.

OBIO

Yes. You can use a flatten anywhere.

AFCAD won't flatten your airport altitude if that airport is stock. The last time I tried with ADE neither did that for fs9. And if my memory serves me, trying to do this by other means, can affect the height of a whole bunch of other airports in the same geographical area. So be warned!

When discussing this with the creator of ADE, his advice was make a flatten.

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22333
 
Sorry I misspoke. The utility I was trying to think of is by Steve Greenwood and has the file name fsutilities.zip, this is the one I was referring to. Just a tip that you should check what altitude units the bgl is being made in. I made one or two that were a tad too high because it was in meters and not feet.:icon_lol:
 
aeromed202 said:
Sorry I misspoke. The utility I was trying to think of is by Steve Greenwood and has the file name fsutilities.zip, this is the one I was referring to. Just a tip that you should check what altitude units the bgl is being made in. I made one or two that were a tad too high because it was in meters and not feet.:icon_lol:
Click to expand...

boy i've mad that mistake numerous times, put things at 3000m instead of 3000ft.... i use both SBuilder and AFCAD, if a taxiway goes close to a hill in FS when designing with afcad the hill gets removed/flattened, SBuilder it can be set with more fidelity, especially with a background image.... :salute:
 
I'll make some time to try SBuilder because I would really like to be able to add/remove trees and stuff where needed. With the other one I mentioned I just took care of a funky water table at KMSP (UT caused I think) and the first of many monolithic plateaus near Corpus Christie so if a ninny like me can do it...
 
Same here; I think getting to grips with SBuilder is the key to adding RAF Ta' Qali into my retro Malta.
 
OBIO said:
I am using the freeware FSGenesis US mesh....and many of my usual haunts (airports) are either elevated above the surrounding scenery or sunk below the surrounding scenery.
Click to expand...
IMO, FSgenesis mesh sucks. I also used it for a long time and had many, many airports that were way up on plateaus or sunk in deep holes. I switched to the free rhumbaflapply mesh, and the difference was dramatic. The airport elevation problems practically disappeared. Also I use Ultimate Terrain, and with FSgenesis I frequently had roads and rivers climbing vertically up the sides of valleys. With the rhumbaflappy mesh this problem also pretty much disappeared because the more accurate terrain matches the more acccurate roads and rivers. It is obviously generated from more accurate data than whatever FSgenesis is using. Here's the download site...

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=f3950c5bbd2bcfa1&sa=173203563&id=F3950C5BBD2BCFA1!146

And yes, you do have to download each file seperately, but it took me less than an hour to download and install the DEM5 and DEM7 sets. Well worth the time.

As for changing the airport elevation in the afcad to match the terrain, the problem with this is that FS9 will continue to read the runway elevation from the default afcad. The runway will appear to be at the same elevation as the rest of the airport, but a plane on the runway will sit either above or below it, depending on whether the airport was raised or lowered. ADE9X is the exeption...if you use it to change the elevation of the airport it will generate a special file that will prevent FS9 from continuing to use the default elevation for the runway. Works like a charm.
 
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