Glenview NAS

[stoney]

Thanks Dave. I appreciate it. I thought I messed something up for sure.
Love the AI action at Glenview Mick, a big thanks, I never thought I'd see Glenview, let alone with AI.

 

[Mick]

Possible Solution ???

The problem of ground textures bleeding through airport ramps and runways was common in FS2002. Page C. Cline and Hans van Wyhe released a series of "apronfix" sets that fixed the problem at various airports. The solution required a bgl file that they made for each airport plus three texture files, two that we all have in FS9 and one that they provide in their downloads.

It's probably possible to reverse engineer one of their bgl files and make one for Glenview, but I can't open one. I've tried opening one with Notepad, AFCAD, Sbuilder and Resource Hacker, and none of them will open the file. although Notepad shows a heading that tells tha ththe bgl was created with Scasm.

I downloaded the latest version of Scasm only to find that it's installer is a DOS program, which I don't understand, so I can't even install it to open the file with it.

If someone here has Scasm and knows how to use it, I'll bet they could produce a fix file for Glenview.

Do we have a scenery guru here? I hope so! If not, I'll put a post like this in the general forum asking for help, but I thought I'd post in this thread first in the hope that someone who's interested in Glenview might step forward.

 

[Mick]

AI-Only (No Static Aircraft) AFCAD for Glenview

The AFCAD file I released with the FS9 conversion kit was made for my own installation, where most of the space in front of the terminal is taken up by static aircraft models, pushing the AI parking spaces off to the side of the ramp.

This file is made for AI only. It puts the AI parking spaces in front of the terminal, facing towards the building, which is more typical of real airports. It also allows the AI planes to automatically push back onto the ramp from their parking spots and park heading straight in. That makes it unnecessary to use roundabout taxi routes to keep all the planes facing the same way.

Those who don't use static models to populate their airports might prefer this AFCAD, attached to this post.

 

[Mick]

If anyone's interested enough in the history of Glenview to invest twenty-two bucks, Arcadia Publishing has an excellent history book about the base:

https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9780738541228

I have several of their books on air bases - Floyd Bennett Field, NAS Squantum & South Weymouth, NAS Quonset Point, NAS Lakehurst, Edwards AFB, Area 51 (Groom Lake), Cleveland National Air Races, plus several of their enormous selection of books about many of the cities and towns across the country, sports teams, etc.

The books are mainly photo collections with just enough text and extended captions to provide historical context. They are a wonderful historical resource for local history (wherever "local" might be for you) as well as aircraft modeling and painting, and scenery modeling.

I just sent for the Glenview book so I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure it will be on a par with the others that I have.

 

[stoney]

Thanks Mick, I'll be getting this one as well. I have several of their books and found them first rate! The one about the Wolverine and Sable in Lake Michigan was really good.

 

[TARPSBird]

If anyone's interested enough in the history of Glenview to invest twenty-two bucks, Arcadia Publishing has an excellent history book about the base:

https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9780738541228

I just sent for the Glenview book so I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure it will be on a par with the others that I have.

Mick, I'd like to hear your opinion of the Glenview book when you receive it. I bought it when it first came out and I thought it fell short in comparison to some of the other Naval Air Station histories published by Arcadia. With the author being the historian for the Glenview Hangar One Foundation I expected more photos of the aircraft that operated at the base. When I was a reservist at Glenview there was one wall at Air Ops that had numerous framed photos of Glenview planes dating back to the 1930's. I wonder where they went when the base closed, and the Photo Lab's files too. Even the museum at Pensacola has relatively few pics of Glenview birds in comparison to other NAS's.

 

[Mick]

Mick, I'd like to hear your opinion of the Glenview book when you receive it. I bought it when it first came out and I thought it fell short in comparison to some of the other Naval Air Station histories published by Arcadia. With the author being the historian for the Glenview Hangar One Foundation I expected more photos of the aircraft that operated at the base. When I was a reservist at Glenview there was one wall at Air Ops that had numerous framed photos of Glenview planes dating back to the 1930's. I wonder where they went when the base closed, and the Photo Lab's files too. Even the museum at Pensacola has relatively few pics of Glenview birds in comparison to other NAS's.

I don't have my copy yet, but it's distressing to hear that there isn't the usual concentration on the airplanes. I should see for myself in a few days.

I recall you saying you'd been at Glenview, but I didn't realize you served there for a while. I'll probably have some questions for you when I set up Glenview in my Jet Age sim.

I just set up my Classic Era Glenview. I made a bunch of repaints, almost all from photos on the web, but a couple were speculative. Maybe you could've told me for sure. We're the same age, so Know you weren't there during the Dark Sea Blue era, but you might've remembered something from those photos on the wall.

Soon I'll be setting up Glenview for my Jet Age sim, and that might touch on the time you were there, though maybe not. My Jet Age sim is set in the late fifties into the mid-sixties, and we were still school kids then. But there wasn't as much turnover of aircraft in the jet age, so I suspect that you might have seen things that might answer some of the questions I know I'll have.

It's a shame that there's not as much documentation of Glenview as other Reserve bases, because in the post-war era (I don't know for how long) Glenview hosted the national HQ of the Aviation Reserves. It probably had a richer history than most other bases.

I'll bet a lot of documentation, and those old photos, wound up in a landill. According to Wikipedia, despite the efforts of the NAS Glenview foundation and the Navy to preserve it, and the main hangar and tower being placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the developers destroyed more than 85% of it before anything could be salvaged. Sad.

Meanwhile, in the next day or two I should get my Classic Era Glenview sinks uploaded, and an AI pack.

The Reserve based were in their glory in the post-WW2 years. The Navy had a gazillion nearly new airplanes al bought and paid for, and plenty of pilots and aircrew who were happy to play with them on weekends for a part-time salary. Each base had squadrons of all kinds, fighter, attach, anti-sub, transport, utility, patrol - with multiple squadrons on the more prominent types like fighters and attack. Squantum, for example, had something like half a dozen Navy fighter squadrons and several Marines. They even had blimp squadrons, though they didn't have blimps based there full time; the reserve squadrons would use blimps that were home-ported at Lakehurst. The ones reserved for the Reserve had special Reserve titles on their envelopes.

I just uploaded some skins of Classic Era Glenview planes. AI package to follow, maybe tomorrow or the next day.

Here are a couple screenies:

 

[Mick]

Mick, I'd like to hear your opinion of the Glenview book when you receive it. I bought it when it first came out and I thought it fell short in comparison to some of the other Naval Air Station histories published by Arcadia. With the author being the historian for the Glenview Hangar One Foundation I expected more photos of the aircraft that operated at the base. When I was a reservist at Glenview there was one wall at Air Ops that had numerous framed photos of Glenview planes dating back to the 1930's. I wonder where they went when the base closed, and the Photo Lab's files too. Even the museum at Pensacola has relatively few pics of Glenview birds in comparison to other NAS's.

I got my copy today and I agree, it's not up to par compared to some of their other books, like Squantum, Floyd Bennett, South Weymouth, and the others I have, at least not for a reader like me who's mostly interested in the planes. There are more pictures of people and buildings than I really needed to see, and not enough of airplanes. Not nearly enough, really.

I also found it mildly annoying that the author doesn't really understand Naval Aviation terminology very well. For example, I think the historian of a Naval Air Station should know that a Carrier Air Group is a group of squadrons based on a carrier, not a group of carriers.

I got a few ideas for skins out of it, but only a few. I saw that there were still Hellcats there when they restored the fuselage insignia to Reserve planes and added tail codes, so that will be a colorful plane. There were Dark Sea Blue Cougars that I hadn't known about, and a blimp with some really wordy recruiting billboard lettering on the envelope. There's a C-118 I could paint that doesn't look much different from the R5D I already painted, and that's about it. Not much from a 127 page photographic history.

I also learned that our Golden Age Glenview is completely wrong. I'd figured, and wrote in an rearlier post, that I suspected that the runways might have been added during the war, and that before the war there were probably just the big landing circles. I even observed how the landing circles must have preceded the runways, as they wouldn't have put in both at the same time. Wrong! They did put them in at the same time, and that time was during the war; the pre-war Glenview just had a big grass field, except for a small paved parking ramp near the main hanger.

Still, I'm going to keep the WW2 scenery in Golden Wings, along with my pre-war static and AI planes. Heck, it's a computer sim, not a history treatise. Though I must admit, sometimes I seem to forget that...

 

[TARPSBird]

When Glenview was still Curtiss-Reynolds Airport before WWII there wasn't much to the field's physical plant except the excellent hangar (which became Hangar One) and the two paved runways. Glenview and Northbrook were nowhere near as populated as they were by the 1950's and 60's so it was an ideal location for the Navy to expand into a large NAS. If a "nugget" aviator put a plane into the ground chances were good it wouldn't kill anybody, assuming the young lad wasn't still in the plane. There were other NAS's (North Island in San Diego for one) that had landing circles before runways but I'm 99% certain Glenview's circles were built at the same time as the runways. BTW my Mom attended the 1930 National Air Races at Curtiss-Reynolds and got to meet Jimmy Doolittle, Jimmy Wedell, and Roscoe Turner. We were talking about Glenview one day when I was a teenager and she just casually mentioned that. I never knew Mom was an aviation nut when she was age 20.

 

[Mick]

Yes, the book makes it clear that the landing circles and the paved runways were put in at the same time, after the war started. Before that the runways were grass and only one parking apron was paved. And the field was a lot smaller - they bought more land for expansion after the war started. But I'm still keeping it in GW, since it's all set up.

That's a great story about your mom! Just to see those guys fly was something to remember - but to actually meet them...!!!

 

[SSI01]

Speaking of Windy City stories - one day in metro Chicago I was out on lead work, going door to door asking questions, when I hit the jackpot and found two elderly guys who had aviation experience. After getting the required info from them talk devolved into flying. One of them had started working maintenance in the days when DC-2s and DC-3s were still new, he still had a lot of the paraphernalia he used when he was doing that and I was privileged to see it. He related a story about working at a Chicago-area airport one day as a young man, he was picking up some extra bucks working for the airport manager, when a guy with a big handlebar mustache, high boots and a tan uniform walked in and wanted gasoline for his airplane; he wanted it put on his "tab." My host told this guy he couldn't do that, the manager said no credit, cash or get lost. The guy in the uniform said he knew the manager and this arrangement would be all right; he also asked my host if he (host) knew who he was. My host responded that it didn't matter to him if this guy with the bush and the boots was (Divine Entity) himself, he wasn't going to get gasoline on credit at that airport. According to him this set-to had escalated in decibel level until it had attracted a small crowd. Some time shortly after this exchange the manager came quickly into the room and explained to my friend this "guy" was Roscoe Turner and did indeed know the manager. Surprisingly, he kept that part-time job after that. Turner was always well turned-out when the cameras were around but apparently he wasn't quite so spiffy when this happened - and "Gilmore" the lion cub wasn't with him, either.

 

[semo]

Good stories, gentleman. Mick, I spent yesterday afternoon installing your Glenview paints. Thank you for the effort.I'm looking forward to the jet-age offers. Half to start adding the 7 to the victor.
though I was regular navy, I spent time at NAS Los Alamitos and Glenview, Two reserve bases. Enjoyed both.

 

[srgalahad]

It's interesting how NASG keeps popping up as a subject or part of a thread. I just did a search on SOH and there are results going back to 2009. Some may not understand why it's such a popular location so here's a video to give part of an explanation (warning - grab a coffee - it's 31 minutes):

In addition to the Hangar One Foundation there's "Bring it Home Glenview" that's still fighting to get some sort of permanent museum built.
http://www.bringithomeglenview.org/

Also, there was an interesting brochure printed for the Closing Ceremony in 1995 which is available on the Glenview town website:
http://www.glenview.il.us/about/Documents/gnasfinalsalute.pdf

 

[stoney]

Great video srgalahad ! Thanks for the post.

 

[jackryan172]

Thats very interesting. I served in the P-3 community at Pt Mugu, Ca in the 80's and remember flying into Glenview several times. Great place.

Sean

 

[TARPSBird]

Glenview was a popular destination or stopover for cross-country flights from just about everywhere in the NavAir world. A few aircraft from fleet squadrons and other reserve bases were almost always parked on the transient flight line.

 

[Mick]

Jet Age

NAS Glenview has entered the Jet Age. I just uploaded eight skin sets and an Ai scheme for Glenview around 1960.

Planes include the A-4 Skyhawk, TV-2 Shooting Star, S2F & US-2B Tracker, F9F Cougar, P2V Neptune and HUP Retriever.

That's about as far into time as I care to go. Someone might make up skins and AI for Glenview in the 1970s through 1990s, but that's beyond my eras of interest, so I'm not really interested.

Next I think I might go back in time and start fiddling about in the WW2 period. After installing Glenview in Golden Wings, putting in a bunch of static planes and AI for the pre-war period, we learned that Glenview didn't look even remotely like the Maskrider scenery until well into the war years. I want to keep the scenery in GW, but the anachronicity of the planes has been gnawing at me, so I think I'll replace all those pre-war planes with wartime aircraft. That shouldn't be too difficult; we have plenty of WW2 planes and skins for them.

 

[semo]

Very nice skins Mick. My time at Glenview coincided with last of the A-4's, 1973. The town just couldn't take the noise I guess. Later the P-2V's and C-119's were replaced by P-3's and C-130's. I left in 1977 before the C-9 replaced the C-118's.