How to turn on Runway Lights?

Kodiak

Kodiak

Charter Member
I fly FS9 with Golden Wings 3 installed which has no runway lights anywhere that I can find.

From time to time I would like to turn them on globally, or at a single airport (this would be best as Cleveland Municipal introduced runway lights in 1930, but either would be fine).

Does anyone have any ideas on how Bill Lyons turned them off globally? I checked on this method below (see link) and he's not using this (diminishing their size to the point you can't see them):

http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?68103-Turn-Off-Runway-Lights

I don't think Bill would have done it at the airport level, as he would have had to modify every airport that has them (although this is possible). I'm guessing he has somehow eliminated runway lights globally.

Any ideas on how I can turn them on from time to time?

Even if you don't know what Bill did for sure, any information about how runway lighting works will help me track down Bill's modification to turn them off. He has all airport ground lights off (ie: runway, taxiway, everything) but airport buildings and all other environmental lights in the world are still on at nighttime.

Any help would be appreciated!

Bill

P.S. I recently bought Ultimate Terrain Alaska/Canada which greatly enhances ground lights including airports (among many things). But when I applied the enhanced lighting option in UT nothing happened. So whatever UT tried to do it was stopped by the Golden Wings 3 mod to turn off airport ground lights.
 
Last edited:
From what I remember he said at the time, Bill modified the bitmap files for the lights to where they just won't show up anywhere. The only way to turn them back on anywhere would be to replace the file and that would do it globally.
 
I think Willy's right, Bill shut off the lights to more correctly depict the Golden Age.

Before you try to change it, keep in mind that during the era depicted by Golden Wings, flying at night was almost unheard of except for the air mail, and few if any airports had any kind of lights at all. Airliners landed at dusk and sent their passengers to hotels, or put them on trains. Airports closed at dusk and the attendants locked up and went home. The main exception would have been fields when they flew the mail at night, and even there they didn't have anything even remotely like modern runway lighting. They might have something like pots of oil burning in a few key spots along the runways, or even just a few auto headlights.

If you want to fly at night in the golden age, you might set up some oil pots at the ends of the runway at your favorite airport. (You could work this out with some creative location of some effects files, if you could find an effect file that looks like a small fire. I'm sure there must be something like that available, maybe even in the stock FS9 effects folder. In a pinch you could use any red light effect. Just don't put more than a few on any airport to keep it looking at least semi-realistic.

Or do what you would've done if you were really a pilot in those days - do your night flying when the moon is bright, and make sure you can spot your airfield in the dark!

BTW, if you feel compelled to do some real Golden age night flying, there is a nice Golden Wings add-on for the 1929 Airmail Route across the country, with (I think) beacons that you follow to keep on the route. (Not sure of the details because flying the night mail is one of the many things I've never gotten around to doing in GW.) I believe you can find it where the main Golden Wings files are hosted. (I don't remember where that is, but I could find out. But since you have GW3, I suppose you must already know where you got it.) If you can't find it, send me a PM with your e-addy and I'll send you a copy.
 
Hi,
I don't know if this'll help at all, but DC3Airways have a program called Night Mail Flights which adds beacons to the airmail routes in the USA..
Here is a bit from the description of the program...

"
......What is our quest? It is our attempt to give you the opportunity to fly the DC-3 under the same conditions experienced by those pioneer pilots of the 1920s. We obviously cannot reproduce exactly the conditions under which the pilots flew but I am sure that you will acknowledge that we have come as close as it is possible to get.

We offer this Transcontinental Route to introduce you to a whole new way of flying.

Full credit and thanks go to Al Gay and Johan van Wyk who toiled for months developing the light-beacon procedures and to create the lighted airways. They have laid a network of rotating light beacons over the original Transcontinental Air Mail route across the US ... A total of 32 legs if flown in both directions.

NDB beacons (maximum range - two miles!) are co-located at each light beacon so that you may identify which beacon you are nearing by it's Morse code identifier. They are numbered 0, 1, 2, 3, etc., as were the original beacons using flashing lights. Don't get lost, though, because the short-range NDBs will be of no help in finding your way back on course.

You will fly and navigate in the dead of night using nothing more than a flight description and the Mk 1 eyeball. You must fly the routes in VFR conditions and we hope that you will use Real Weather or equivalent to enhance the realism of the early flights.

These flights will demand your close attention. Boredom will not be a problem.

fs9_twr.jpg
We anticipate that this will be the beginning of a whole new way of flying the old way. You will need to pay attention to drift angles when flying these routes, so dust off your E6-B calculators, virtual, digital, or real. Those who have installed Mark Beaumont's fs9 kneeboard will have E6-B access with no interruption of their flights.

To the left is the fs9 Airway Rotating Beacon and Tower and the adjacent Equipment Shed.

The Night Mail download includes a detailed readme file by Sr. VP Norman Hancock. It contains full information on how to fly a light-beacon route. The words in this description were also excerpted from Norman's file. "



Andy.
 
Willy said:
From what I remember he said at the time, Bill modified the bitmap files for the lights to where they just won't show up anywhere. The only way to turn them back on anywhere would be to replace the file and that would do it globally.
Click to expand...

Hi Willy,

Thanks for this info. Do you know the name(s) of the bitmap file(s) for airport ground lights? I keep a virgin copy of FS9 installed, so if I know the name(s) of the file(s) I can use JSGME to pop them in and out of FSGW3 with one click. I was hoping to just turn on the runway lights only at a single airport but thought I would play with things a bit to see what I can and can't do. If I have to turn them on globally I will, but I was hoping to put in some rudimentary lights at individual airports like Cleveland.

Thanks!

Bill
 
Mick said:
I think Willy's right, Bill shut off the lights to more correctly depict the Golden Age.

Before you try to change it, keep in mind that during the era depicted by Golden Wings, flying at night was almost unheard of except for the air mail, and few if any airports had any kind of lights at all. Airliners landed at dusk and sent their passengers to hotels, or put them on trains. Airports closed at dusk and the attendants locked up and went home. The main exception would have been fields when they flew the mail at night, and even there they didn't have anything even remotely like modern runway lighting. They might have something like pots of oil burning in a few key spots along the runways, or even just a few auto headlights.

If you want to fly at night in the golden age, you might set up some oil pots at the ends of the runway at your favorite airport. (You could work this out with some creative location of some effects files, if you could find an effect file that looks like a small fire. I'm sure there must be something like that available, maybe even in the stock FS9 effects folder. In a pinch you could use any red light effect. Just don't put more than a few on any airport to keep it looking at least semi-realistic.

Or do what you would've done if you were really a pilot in those days - do your night flying when the moon is bright, and make sure you can spot your airfield in the dark!

BTW, if you feel compelled to do some real Golden age night flying, there is a nice Golden Wings add-on for the 1929 Airmail Route across the country, with (I think) beacons that you follow to keep on the route. (Not sure of the details because flying the night mail is one of the many things I've never gotten around to doing in GW.) I believe you can find it where the main Golden Wings files are hosted. (I don't remember where that is, but I could find out. But since you have GW3, I suppose you must already know where you got it.) If you can't find it, send me a PM with your e-addy and I'll send you a copy.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Mick!

I'll see if I can find the 1929 Airmail Route add-on. I got GW3 at The Old Hangar, so I'll look for it there and if I can't find it I'll send you a PM :encouragement:

This whole thing about runway lights is not critical. I just thought it would be fun to add something basic to a few airports like Cleveland who started experimenting with electric runway lights in 1930. So ideally I was hoping to find a way to turn on just the white runway lights at a single airport and leave everything else off. But it may not be doable :smile-new:

I've got Instant Scenery but haven't looked at doing it that way, but that may be the best idea. Was being lazy though and was hoping to find a way to flip a switch by replacing a file or two at any given airport. But if that means turning on all of the modern sophisticated ALS lighting I won't do it as that would ruin the ambience of GW3.

Bill
 
lemonadedrinker said:
Hi,
I don't know if this'll help at all, but DC3Airways have a program called Night Mail Flights which adds beacons to the airmail routes in the USA..
Here is a bit from the description of the program...

"
......What is our quest? It is our attempt to give you the opportunity to fly the DC-3 under the same conditions experienced by those pioneer pilots of the 1920s. We obviously cannot reproduce exactly the conditions under which the pilots flew but I am sure that you will acknowledge that we have come as close as it is possible to get.

We offer this Transcontinental Route to introduce you to a whole new way of flying.

Full credit and thanks go to Al Gay and Johan van Wyk who toiled for months developing the light-beacon procedures and to create the lighted airways. They have laid a network of rotating light beacons over the original Transcontinental Air Mail route across the US ... A total of 32 legs if flown in both directions.

NDB beacons (maximum range - two miles!) are co-located at each light beacon so that you may identify which beacon you are nearing by it's Morse code identifier. They are numbered 0, 1, 2, 3, etc., as were the original beacons using flashing lights. Don't get lost, though, because the short-range NDBs will be of no help in finding your way back on course.

You will fly and navigate in the dead of night using nothing more than a flight description and the Mk 1 eyeball. You must fly the routes in VFR conditions and we hope that you will use Real Weather or equivalent to enhance the realism of the early flights.

These flights will demand your close attention. Boredom will not be a problem.

fs9_twr.jpg
We anticipate that this will be the beginning of a whole new way of flying the old way. You will need to pay attention to drift angles when flying these routes, so dust off your E6-B calculators, virtual, digital, or real. Those who have installed Mark Beaumont's fs9 kneeboard will have E6-B access with no interruption of their flights.

To the left is the fs9 Airway Rotating Beacon and Tower and the adjacent Equipment Shed.

The Night Mail download includes a detailed readme file by Sr. VP Norman Hancock. It contains full information on how to fly a light-beacon route. The words in this description were also excerpted from Norman's file. "



Andy.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Andy :smile-new:

I'll take a look at this also. I have not flown at night much at all (like twice) and realized I was missing some of the sights! So I'm just poking around trying to find ways and reasons to fly at night once in a while, but remain mostly in the 1930's (my favorite era). One of these days I need to try flying a jet...nope, never done it, not even once...lol :biggrin-new:

I'll take a look at this DC-3 site. All great information from you guys! :encouragement:

Bill
 
Thanks Andy!

I just DL'd the Airmail Flights package, and it looks promising. My GW will have those beacons installed by the time you read this.

Gotta peruse that site further!
 
Hey Bill,

Here's something for ya' - some2things, in fact.

I was looking for this, from the late, great David "Opa" Marshall, that will enable you to add a rotating airfield beacon anywhere you want one. I thought you might like to put one at your favorite airport(s) so you can find it (or them) at night.

http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=58973

While searching for it I stumbled onto this, which is exactly what you're looking for - it enables you to add runway and/or taxiway lights to any individual airport:

http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=58973

I strongly suggest that you go to AvSim and search for David "Opa" Marshall. You'll find a veritable plethora of nifty stuff like this, plus his long series of FS9 tutorials that will teach you how to do all kinds of things in FS9 or GW3.
 
Hey guys,

I asked this same question at The Old Hangar and this is a reply I just got from BigBill:

"It all comes down to a file called halo.bmp, which controls all kinds of lights (runway-, taxiway-, landinglights, etc). In short: if you want them back, copy the halo.bmp file of your default FS9 installation into the GW3 installation. BUT keep in mind that it will bring back all the (modern) lights.


For more information check the following threads in the "Golden/Silver Wings Support" section:





Based on the info in the above threads, I can only advise you try to adapt the halo.bmp file to get those lights back you want. Since I have no experience with this, I suggest you use the trial-and-error method. And do not forget to back up the GW3 halo.bmp file!


BigBill"


I haven't read all the links above yet, but at least I'm on to the global change Bill (Lyon's) made...too many Bill's around here...lol

Thanks for the links above Mick. I've downloaded both. With all this information now maybe some learning will occur and I'll come up with something. At least I'll be able to do a global "airport ground lights on" by replacing the halo.bmp file using JSGME. But that will turn on all ground lights, so I'll poke around and see if I can just enable runway lights. I'll let you know what I end up doing.

Thanks everyone!

Bill
 
Hi,
I thought I read of a radio frequency you tuned to that would turn on lights at an untended airport as you approached, but maybe that was just an over excited imagination.

Andy
 
I don't know about FS, but it's that way in the real world. At least there was when I was an active pilot back in the 1970s and 80s. I haven't flown real airplanes in thirty years and I can't recall the frequency, but there is (or was) a standard frequency to turn on the automatic lights at unattended airports.

I think it is (or was) the Unicom frequency - the standard comm frequency for uncontrolled airports (which I no longer recall.) In the daytime it put you in contact with the folks in the FBO office or with other planes in the pattern, and at night it also turned on the lights. I think you had to double-click the radio's transmit button, or something like that.

(Of course there are airports that just don't have lights, and I suppose there must be some that do have lights but don't have the radio-activated feature.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top