KANB Anniston Regional Airport

tgycgijoes

tgycgijoes

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Here is two and a half days work but I think it came out pretty good AND there is no flicker in FSX, woo hoo!!! It is FAA Regional HQ I was told by the FBO Mgr. Next will be the Terminal. I came across this airport by accident and was fascinated with the buildings. There are only a few and only one runway but I checked the internet and there IS snow during the winter months so I will have to ask Falcon409 to teach me how to do that texture when I have finished with it. I was able to get a really nice detailed photoreal in SBuilderX. Here is the FAA HQ.




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Thanks

falcon409 said:
Nice work Richard!
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This was my first time creating a texture of the brick walls which are used both on this FAA and also the terminal. I took a jpg and then with Sketchup help created it into a Sketchup Brick and Cladding Texture and add it as part of the textures. Had to adjust the size but once I did that they came out beautifully. Also, unlike an imported texture they don't flicker. The FAA is an imported texture. No way I could have possibily recreated that type.

Sadly I discovered online at a realtor's site, the third rather large building to the Northeast is the Honeywell Aerospace facility that closed in March 2021 leaving over 200 employees jobless and during the pandemic not an easy time to find jobs I am sure. They relocated to Phoenix Arizona according to news sources.
 
Need Some Help

I have contacted the FBO several times and though they say they will provide me with a camera-shot of the apron side of the terminal which I have not found anywhere, they just seem to be too busy which I DO understand. Does anyone have a shot of the backside of the terminal or can take one for me if you live near there? Although Google Earth and Google Map have beautiful shots of the two sides and the front on the street, its "MUD" in the normal versions. That is all I need to complete it. While I was browsing not to give up on the Fbo or someone here yet, I was able to get a 2 minute utube video by a reporter for the Anniston Star newspaper and paused/took a screenshot that I will be able to use. Anyne got anything more current than 2016 I will love to have it.
 
tgycgijoes said:
I have contacted the FBO several times and though they say they will provide me with a camera-shot of the apron side of the terminal which I have not found anywhere, they just seem to be too busy which I DO understand. Does anyone have a shot of the backside of the terminal or can take one for me if you live near there? Although Google Earth and Google Map have beautiful shots of the two sides and the front on the street, its "MUD" in the normal versions. That is all I need to complete it. While I was browsing not to give up on the Fbo or someone here yet, I was able to get a 2 minute utube video by a reporter for the Anniston Star newspaper and paused/took a screenshot that I will be able to use. Anyne got anything more current than 2016 I will love to have it.
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When was the airport reopened? I watched a video from 3 years ago and it was vacant at that time.
 
Reopened

It is not open to any scheduled air traffic any longer but IS open to the public (no ATC) for general aviation of less than 20 passengers. There is an FBO at the field which I have talked with a few times. The city of Anniston has not decided just what to do with the land as of the latest information. Honeywell Aviation has been closed since March 2021. That building is listed for sale or lease with a local realtor. So if you want to fly your general aviation aircraft into it when I have completed and posted, have at it! I will send you a copy to beta test for me before releasing it to be sure of no errors. :wavey:

Since FSX was created much from FS2004, there are quite a number of default airports that are closed or no longer exist at all which I found when creating my Gunbarrel Airport, Texas having to exclude the grass airstrip right next to it with the same ICAO designation.
 
Yep, this is likely on the "fading away" list. Not enough industry or the type of tourism to support pax service - with BHM 65 miles and ATL 80, who's going to consider paying for an unwanted connection.
Small corporate presence and some local rec. flyers, isn't a lot, but then I doubt the land is really valuable, esp since the biggest corp. tenant moved out.

Might as well enjoy it while we can.
 
Very True

srgalahad said:
Yep, this is likely on the "fading away" list. Not enough industry or the type of tourism to support pax service - with BHM 65 miles and ATL 80, who's going to consider paying for an unwanted connection.
Small corporate presence and some local rec. flyers, isn't a lot, but then I doubt the land is really valuable, esp since the biggest corp. tenant moved out.

Might as well enjoy it while we can.
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I was fascinated by the FAA and the Terminal Buildings which I have almost completed after a disaster this afternoon, I walked away from the terminal for a couple of days. It's never a good idea to try and create when you are frustrated I found out in the past the hard way. It WILL get finished now that I have the back photo. :banghead:
 
Looks good, you are doing an excellent job and nice to see more sceneries to Alabama state. Keep up the good work !
 
Further Along

Today I finished the terminal and after some tweaking/checking in FSX, it's complete. Here are shots of the front and back.





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Oops I Missed It

I created the Air Terminal Sign and then I forgot to add it so I redid the terminal and replaced the one above in ADE and compiled it for fsx again. It is created in Sketchup 2016 as a texture on a 3D rectangle and the support posts are from the Engineering Toolbox. Also the dome lights were created in Sketchup as well to match the actual lights from photos. Here it is:


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I'm really amazed at these pictures. I am in awe of what you continue to create. Simply excellent job sir. Thank you in advance!
 
FSX Is Dumb

I successfully have created 2/3 of the building for the old Honeywell plant at Anniston (actually Oxford, AL) 6 hours of work but I am really pleased with it so far; more tomorrow. To enhance the airfield, I have added Night photoreal textures with illumination. I have been so lucky to talk with people to clarify information. As I have said, Honeywell Aerospace closed this plant a year ago and it has been for sale. The parking lot lights are kept on at night though for security. My photoreal background is really nice and clear so I put a light bloom at each light pole in one layer and then the night texture overlay in another layer and then blended them together in a bmp. It looks really good. Then I talked with the FBO to find out that KANB iwss NOT lit up at night except for the lamps in the overhangs which I have illuminated.

With this success, I decided to create a winter texture because I found online that Anniston, AL gets snow in the winter and looked at news photos of last winter. Well, I created I think a fairly good representation of snow on the ground, not too much. With SBuilder X I added the bmps for all five seasons and compiled it successfully in an "INF". Put the photo01.bgl into KANB and fired up FSX. ONLY ONE PROBLEM, no matter what month of the winter it is...there is no snow at Anniston in FSX like no snow in Wilmington North Carolina. :snowman: Maybe 15 years ago when the ACES team created all the backgrounds and autogen it didn't snow yet with climate change not affecting Anniston. I don't know but needless to say I had to redo the INF with NO WINTER OR HARD WINTER backgrounds. There is just day and night. When I place the trees with the Autogen Annotator they will I hope change colors like they are supposed to. We'll see. I hope that I don't waste a lot of time placing trees that stay green all year. Very frustrating! :banghead:
 
When you place autogen vegetation using the Annotator the vegetation changes with the season. . .it's in the coding. As for the winter texture, it's basically the same as the fall texture but the trees go "leafless". It's only hard winter that needs snow and that is based on what months you selected for that season in the inf file.
 
Even Though

Even though Anniston Alabama got snow last year ( I didn't check past years) FSX does NOT snow no matter what month. I can only guess what the ACES team chose their ground textures from because MY winter photoreal worked perfectly without any "red boxes" But all around it in December, January OR February which is what was specified when I compiled it in SBuilderX there is no white ground on the default FSX. So, I went with them and deleted the winter photoreal. Trees around here lose their leaves just like they will in Alabama except for the long leaf pines which lose needles but stay green. I am hoping then that the autogen both annotated and default will too. Thank you for the info. Off to lunch. I will post a couple of shots of the Honeywell Building which finished this morning later.
 
Old Honeywell Aerospace

Here is a daytime shot and an aerial shot at dusk to show the blooms on the streetlights. I edited the night texture three times until it actually looked totally black to get it to match the default landclass in fsx around it. If you look at it now in FSX it matches perfectly and I was so pleased that the photoreal and the streets and highways match perfectly as well. Like Hannibal said in A-team: "I love it when a plan comes together".

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Today

For most of the day and the evening I worked on KANB adding sound to the highway and also adding autogen trees where they belong. I think it looks pretty good and is ready to be tested by my beta crew. If it "passes muster" I will add it here into the Warbirds Library for those interested. There are day and night photoreal textures which are seasonally changed by the autogen. There is no winter texture because according to the weatherman in Anniston at the "Anniston Star" it only snows between January 8 to 25 and then accumulation is only up to an inch. Not worth the photoreal winter because I am thinking that is like here in coastal North Carolina and your white lawn is gone by noon if the sun comes out. Last year my grand daughter was scraping the snow off the hood of the cars where it had not yet melted to make a 6 inch tall snowman on the hood of the Subaru.

Our being from Chicago, she has been on a sled in some good snow when her Mom brought her when visiting at Christmas but that was 12 years ago and she was only a toddler and doesn't remember. Our daughter got caught driving with her and the three dogs in the minivan coming up through Indiana only staying on the road by the grace of God and the semi in front of her she tailgated close to the Indiana/Illinois border where I had her get off and stay the night at the Holiday Star Plaza hotel which my wife and I knew well from attending concerts there. At 2:00AM the desk clerk a "Good Samaritan" gave her the room free for the night the hotel was quite empty because of the storm. Complimentary breakfast the next morning and back on the road which was now plowed and salted and a safe trip the rest of the 100 miles to home on the Illlinois/Wisconsin border. Neither she nor us miss those 20 plus hour one way trips especially in weather like that. :snowman:
 
Beta Report

I got the beta reports this morning from my testers and have made some changes. I forgot to replace the default building by the terminal which is the old firehouse so I completed that this just a bit ago. Exported the building to MDCx and here it is finished. To the left by the Old Honeywell building you can see the autogen trees changing colors.


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