Howdy, EZ Nimitz and EZ Scenery in FS2004.

[Sbob]

Hey all, I've been around for quite a while but have never posted here.

I'm having a headache trying to land on a carrier (CVN-73) I placed at N 30 E 135. It looks just swell but I don't have a hard deck from the FWD elevators to the stern.
I've tried about 14 hour's worth of tweaking this thing, placing the scenery in different order, adding a small flatten BGL, name it by this point, and I'm about out of ideas.

I'm using R. A. Baum's (Lightning) EZ Nimitz files (FS9 and FSX variants) and installing them into FS9 with a copy of Abby's EZ Scenery I found on EBay. My system is Win10, 64 bit but that shouldn't matter. The scenery places just fine but its as if something (the main hard deck and wires) is missing. I have other carriers installed with no issues.

BTW, if anyone needs Zone data for Arrcab 2.6, ask away. I've updated the trap zones for most of the available large carriers.

So, why add more CVNs? Well, why not?
I have a bit of a peeve about driving a CVN within 20 miles of a major airport or 5 miles from the beach.
I also want to replace the USS Kitty Hawk scenery that team CORAL did for FS2000. It works in FS9 and its a great location if you're flying out of Atsugi or Iwakuni but its very dated scenery and it has some quirks from the FS2000 days (make sure you never change the wind direction or your landing wire zone will become useless).

Anyway, the basic process I've done is to start EZ Scenery while in windowed mode, slew my way to N 30 E 135 at a heading of 045, place the hull first, then the deck, then the wake effect, then re-start FS so I can plunge through the aft deck.
I've tried making some very simple flatten BGLs in AFCAD2 and placing it in my Carriers Flatten folder, but haven't seen any effect. I should also note that I've added ALL the sub BGLs from Lightning's EZ Nimitz packages but I've never seen wires or winch heads appear on the main deck.

Anyway, I'm hoping one of you may have had experience adding this type of scenery. I know back in the old days there was a little hair pulling and drama when carrier scenery went from freeware to payware and then back to freeware, but that shouldn't be an issue?

BTW, I also upload (rarely) to Flightsim.com where I post as BobSeaman and I'm also around Subsim a lot as ET2SN (ET2SN was my official "chop" for signing submarine qual cards back in the day ( SS-580 and SSN-698)). Otherwise, anyone want to talk B-52s? I grew up near Loring AFB and really got hooked on those dinosaurs. I spent most of my logged time in FS2002 in a slightly converted Alphasim B-52 package and also uploaded some repaints for the G and H models. Before that, I was also part of the crew at Freeflight Design Shop if anyone can remember that far back.

Thanks Huub, for getting me hooked up.

Bob

 

[fsafranek]

Before that, I was also part of the crew at Freeflight Design Shop if anyone can remember that far back.

Bob

I remember FreeFlight Design Shop with very fond memories. Sadly I think our website is gone now.

 

[Sbob]

YES!

Since I do some of my best thinking at night while I'm asleep , I tried a quick experiment with placing another carrier near the good old USS Kitty Hawk off the coast from Tokyo.

Thinking quickly , I had wanted to play around again with what gets placed first -only this time I used the USS Nimitz instead of the Geo. Washington since its the first hull in the BGL.
I placed the deck first, then the hull, then the wake and restarted FS. Take off from Atsugi in one of Dean's F/A-18Cs, cheat a bit to get close to the new scenery, drop the gear and fly the pattern and...

NICE TIRE CRIRP AS THE GEAR HITS THE DECK!


As I kinda figured, the FSX version of the BGL doesn't even need a flatten file in FS9.
Now, all I need to do is crank out an ILS in AFCAD2 and map the trap zone for ARRCAB.
I need to play around some more, I still don't think the cables are showing up on the flight deck and, that reminds me- for you DCS folks- what is the proper glide slope for the ILS supposed to be? I've used 10 degrees in the past but I want to use the actual slope. I'm pretty sure the problem has to do with the hulls inside the main BGL and not what gets placed first, but at least the problem now has a solution.

Which begs the question- anyone want some landable aircraft carrier scenery? I want to polish-up and test the carriers off the coast of Japan and repackage them for an easier download. I could upload the package here or at Flightsim.com, or both. Its up to you guys.

 

[Sbob]

I remember FreeFlight Design Shop with very fond memories. Sadly I think our website is gone now.

Yeah, we've met before..

What's up, Frank?
Still trying to find things or are you going to do some more re-paints?

I finally got into FS9 several months ago but I still have my battered install of FS2002 going.
FS9 is kind of like a new girlfriend, better looking but a whole new bunch of quirks.

 

[fsafranek]

I need to play around some more, I still don't think the cables are showing up on the flight deck and, that reminds me- for you DCS folks- what is the proper glide slope for the ILS supposed to be? I've used 10 degrees in the past but I want to use the actual slope. I'm pretty sure the problem has to do with the hulls inside the main BGL and not what gets placed first, but at least the problem now has a solution.

Typically the glide slope angle on a carrier is 3.5. I've seen on the Nimitz class it set at 4.12.

10 degrees is a bit steep. Make sure you're fuel is down to about 30%.

 

[Sbob]

LOL, yeah. I don't know why I got 10 degrees stuck in my head.
I tried it in FS and it felt like riding an elevator.

Hey, I almost forgot. I did the real Special Kay nose art for the B-52G from RAF Marham ('81).
A guy named Oli did a really nice (and surprisingly accurate) repaint of an ARCLIGHT/LINEBACKER B-52G in the SAC SIOP1 paint scheme and I knew I had to borrow it to do Kay.

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?searchid=86012689

BTW, is there any chance one of you folks (you, Huub, or Mick?) would tackle a repaint of those bare metal Alphasim BUFFs?
I've tried it and I can't do bare metal to save my ###.

 

[Sbob]

Well, things are working out.

I have my replacement carrier for CORAL's (FS2000) USS Kitty Hawk on station, with a full hard deck and working catapults and wires.
I'm still having some issues placing the other carrier at N 30 E 135 but I "think" I have the install and placement bugs worked out.

A couple of things I need to remember-

-You can't really upload "placement scenery" BGLs. The scenery BGL you create is more like a shortcut which adds an offset to the BGLs in your libraries.
I've dealt with this in the past with FS2002 and the problem is that no one installs scenery and libraries the same way as you.

-Getting old "legacy" programs to run on a modern OS can be tricky. I still want to un-install and re-install EZ Scenery from the CD once I have both carriers in place and working.

-Take your time and double check your work when adding carrier catapult and trap zones (That means YOU, Sbob! ). I got bit a little on this AGAIN by transposing one digit on a LAT entry. Instead of typing something like LAT= 34.0805.... I typed LAT= 34.4805... . Normally, when you place new cat-and-trap zones you'll have issues with the REAL deck height.
You can figure this out the best by assuming that your height is measured from the aircraft's COG (reference point) which also plays with the lengths in your CONTACT POINTS data in the aircraft.cfg file. Just note your displayed altitude in FS when you're sitting on the deck and subtract the length of the nose gear from the CONTACT POINTS section from your displayed Alt in FS. BE SURE you've hit the B key to set the correct altimeter pressure before you start. Getting the rest of the trap and catapult co-ords can be a chore but I use a neat shortcut. I have a program called Nav3.0 (really old software again) installed for a bunch of tasks but it also shows your position in the correct DDD.DDDDDDDD format for carrier deck .dat files, so no converting from degrees-minutes-seconds or degrees-minutes-decimal-minutes-fractions stuff is involved ( I can show you how to convert these numbers if you want to know, its just one more tedious step). Nav will center on your position in its display (FSUSIP installed) and show the LAT/LON co-ords plus Heading. From there, just slew around to your Zone corners after you've really zoomed in on your Nav display, click the center of your position in the Nav display to make sure its really centered, and write down the numbers.
Easy peasy, mostly..

So, what else is left to do? I need to get that second carrier in place (I'm currently using the RWY12 carrier as a place holder and its also giving me fits with the hard deck). Once that's done I need to crank out some ILS/VOR/Airport menu BGLs (probably in AFCAD but I have other software to play with). After that, I'm thinking of calling the project DONE.

I've been debating if I should mention how I got the first carrier to work? Keep in mind I'M PROBABLY DOING THIS WRONG BUT IT WORKED:

I ran EZ Scenery and placed the FSX version of the ship (which looks great but tends to be buggy) plus the associated "sub-BGLs" for the first ship, USS Nimitz, CVN-68.
I then replaced the (FSX)EZ Nimitz BGL in the scenery library with its FS9 equivalent and restarted FS9. Less detail but a full hard deck.

 

[Sbob]

Well, this post is a kind of epilogue I wasn't planning for but its why I like to goof around with old software.

I wanted to take one last crack at the 30N 135E carrier using the "process" from the previous post. I was starting to wonder if 135E is just one of
those "trouble zones" that's too close to one of those FS "anomalies" on the globe?

Here's where things get weird.

I set up my "Shriner's handshake" process as detailed above, load up the sim with a trusty scenery-placing chopper at MCAS Iwakuni and do
my shortcut for getting to remote locations- typing in the new aircraft location in the map view making sure the speed stays set at 0 (making
sure the sim is either paused or set to Slew Mode) and also setting the Alt to 0.

Quick detour for a second- as many know, FS can be a pain in the neck when changing aircraft or tower views in Map Mode.
I got in the habit of leaving an extra digit in the minutes field when changing locations. Like, if I wanted to move from
W 125 45.6789 to E 125 0.0000 I would type in E 125 10.0000 first then delete the pesky 1 so the map wouldn't kick me out.
Keep that in mind.

I finish the "process" and restart FS. Load the chopper at Iwakuni and reset my position to N30 E135 (00 00) and check my
handiwork. Same result I was hoping I wouldn't get. The deck of the carrier is jello and I wind up parked on the ocean. Dang.
I take off to ponder what the bleep is going on and I notice something on the horizon.... Its another aircraft carrier.
At this point I was feeling like I was done for the evening so why not check out the mystery carrier?
I had a pretty good idea of where it was and why it was there. Sure enough, its located at N30 E 135 10.
Somewhere along the line, I set the location in the map view and forgot to drop the 1.

OK, since I'm done for the evening I may as well try a landing..

Nice hard deck. I taxi around with the chopper and then switch over to a Hornet. No problems.

So, maybe 135E is an anomaly zone on the FS globe? Maybe its from trying to run old software on Win10 64 bit?
Maybe its some kind of artifact in EZ Scenery and RWY12 Object Placer when you run them on a modern OS
and you have to plan to "burn" the last BGL you create? Who knows??

But I DO have two landable carriers "about" where I wanted them and a spare.
The only tricky part is to make sure I keep the two good BGLs and trash the bad one.