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Kill Devil Hills

D

DaveKDEN

Charter Member
Simple, but very nice!

[FONT=verdana, sans-serif]Category: Flight Simulator X - Scenery[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, sans-serif]New! [/FONT] [FONT=verdana, sans-serif]First Flight, North Carolina - KFFA[/FONT]

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[FONT=verdana, sans-serif]File Description:
Modifications to restore the hill that Orville and Wilbur Wright launched from into the history books. Revised layout and mesh to override the flat area within Prepar3D and FSX. Works in any version of Prepar3D and Flight Simulator X![/FONT]
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[FONT=verdana, sans-serif]Filename:[/FONT][FONT=verdana, sans-serif]firstflight_kffa.zip[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, sans-serif]License:[/FONT][FONT=verdana, sans-serif]Freeware, limited distribution[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, sans-serif]Added:[/FONT][FONT=verdana, sans-serif]19th December 2013, 20:57:38[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, sans-serif]Downloads:[/FONT][FONT=verdana, sans-serif]32[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, sans-serif]Author:[/FONT][FONT=verdana, sans-serif]Lance Tucker / LCSims[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, sans-serif]Size:[/FONT][FONT=verdana, sans-serif]167kb[/FONT]

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Just to clarify a fine point, the Wright's flew their flights in 1903 from the flat portion and not the hill itself. The hill was where the US government located the monument. I don't wish to appear pedantic, nor distract from your post, but others thought they launched from the hill using gravity to aid their flight and I just wanted to clarify that issue.

Cheers,

Ken
 
The Wright Brothers did in fact launch hundreds of Glider Flights from the hill both before and after the 1903 powered flight on the field north of the hill. This scenery is fairly accurate, the hill is in roughly the right spot but it's a bit rough and poorly detailed. The hangar shed, workshop, flight distance markers(modern), and museum seem placed correctly. The typical FSX mesh & objects has houses placed in close proximity to First Flight airfield and around the property which is obviously incorrect. It is certainly better than it was before. I am quite surprised that there hasn't been a high end payware of the airfield and monument thus far considering it's significance. Perhaps that will happen in due time. It's been a while since I was last at Fight Flight. I have driven to it by road and flown in once in a C150. In all the years I've visited there, I don't remember there ever being a day without wind on the Outer Banks. In 1989 I had planned to make Hang Glider runs off Jockey's Ridge but after seeing a couple of guys eat dirt and one of them get his teeth knocked out on impact, I suffered a sudden "change of heart"....
 
Good clarification. I was speaking about the historic powered flight, but could have been more clear, and you are right that the glider flights done as preliminaries were flown off the hill.

Cheers,

Ken
 
In all truth, when most folks see the site at Kill Devil Hills the first thing they see is the memorial on top of the Hill and those unfamiliar with the details of the complete history of the site get the false impression that the Hill is where the first powered flight took place even after they stare blindly at the marker pieces upfield where it actually happened. The landscape there now has changed considerably since my first trips there in the 1980's and it's important to note that at the time of the unpowered and powered flights, the landscape was drastically different from what it is now. In the early 1900's the beach area was further out, the land itself was more sandy, with less trees & grass vegetation. There were many dune hills all around the site at the time of the flights which are now long gone. During the winter months when the Wrights left the Outer Banks & headed home, the site was routinely flooded and pounded by Nor'easter storms in which one storm destroyed the 1902 Glider which was left behind on site during their winter exodus.

Anyhow, pretty amazing place & history. I need to get back out there sometime soon.
 
Avsim only has an area for "Scenery", not what I do, which is terrain enhancement. There is a difference, in my book. The work being referenced was pulled out of a larger product that offered high resolution mesh and accurately placed airports, with proper blending into the new mesh. Customers were advised that the product was not to be considered enhanced scenery development.

I could have clearly left First Flight to reflect the default in FSX or what has carried forward to P3D, but when I did this work four+ years ago I realized that the hill had been eaten up by Microsoft's mesh blending. Once I restored the hill I decided to make it look just a little bit better.

When writing the blurb for the "fill in the box" at Avsim, I specifically did not mention it as the launching point for the takeoff of the Wright Flyer 1, but even doing that does not stop others from offering their take. Maybe Bill Clinton was right, when he said "depends what your definition of "is" is...

Whether the hill is accurate or not I cannot say, as I have never been there and doubt that I will ever visit there. But I am attaching a picture of what the 3 meter, laser measured mesh looks like. Any problems with that should be addressed to the North Carolina GIS department, as I'm just the guy that turns into into a BGL file.
 
Shortly after I got my pilot's license, and being from North Carolina, flying to the First Flight airport was tops on my list of things to do! It's pretty cool to fly your own plane, land there at the airport, and walk over the grounds. The airport runway is fairly short, so it doesn't allow private jets to operate there, unless they can perform short field ops. I think the coolest part is to see their progressive improvement on their first four flights, especially the fourth one that Orville ripped off, which is so much further than the the other three. Yes, they designed a barely airworthy airplane. It was horribly underpowered. And even skilled test pilots like Scott Crossfield, had a hard time controlling the replica built in 2003. But, in only a couple of years, continual improvements allowed them to perform maneuvers no one else could perform.

Sam Langley designed an excellent engine for his aerodrome. It produced on the order of 51 horsepower and weighed less than the engine the Wrights made that only put out about 3 horsepower! For me it's kind of sad that Langley did not work with the Wrights and put his engine on their airplane. That would have resulted in a very huge leap in technology.

Ken
 
Meshman,

That graphic is authentic. In fact, you can make out the walkpaths that circle the hill and also lead to the runway on the east side of the national park.

Ken
 
Hello Everyone,

Just wondering if anyone has this file for KFFA. Haven't been able to locate it at the usual sites. Thanks....


Regards,
Rob
 
Meshman,

Thanks for the First Flight upload. Is your North Carolina and/or West Virginia mesh still available by any chance?? Thanks for your time.


Regards,
Rob
 
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