Locher Sarntal airfield in the making

[cavaricooper]

Just got back and this is the FIRST THING I downloaded.... wrapping my head around this fantastic package..... WOW!

Ta V- C

 

[sidler]

Even though I could not locate Detail1.bmp or Detail.bmp, I installed the scenery into both Sim's v3.4 & v4 and it to work just fine! Excellent, Excellent, scenery..love it!


Dick

 

[Dimus]

Good news! I have put a texture.cfg file in there that actually does that, but only works in P3D, not FSX. Great to hear!

I also realized I have left a scenery.zip file inside the Locher\scenery\ folder. That does nothing and you can delete it.

Tinight I finally managed to just fly around the place without making or correcting stuff. I still see some bugs but will probably not do anything about them.

I also made a video, flying the less than idel for Locher Cessna 182 from A2A. Outside views are from the designated "tower" view:

 

[Cees Donker]

Great video Dimus!



Cees

 

[roger-wilco-66]

Good news! I have put a texture.cfg file in there that actually does that, but only works in P3D, not FSX. Great to hear!

Great work!

And wow, did LM finally allow to individualize addon sceneries apart from the global default setup? That would be a great step for adding custom autogen / vector elements without having to fiddle with the global terrain.cfg.
Gotta check this.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[Dimus]

Actually, Mark, I was looking for a way to point to the detail1.bmp that is supposed to exist in the Scenery\World\Texture\ folder and is called by a couple of objects without the need to copy it in my scenery's texture folder. So I used a texture.cfg text file similar to what the airplane addons use for repaints to define fallback folders. It seemed to work in P3D but not in FSX. This is why I ask users to manually do this copying in the install instructions.

 

[Bjoern]

Interesting that the detail1.bmp is simply ignored when used by a third party scenery. I thought it was always loaded into the VAS.


Want to give Bill's Kodiak a try on the field, but I need to fix it up a bit first.

 

[Dimus]

It is not ignored. It is indeed always loaded and used on top of the ground textures. However, in my case I needed to apply it on surfaces that belong to 3d models that blend into the ground. This way, the textured 3d model and the ground where it blends into look similar in texture and detail. There is still some difference as the sim renders the ground different than 3d model but at least not much. See below:

I could have used a detail texture of my own, like I did on the taxiway, but since users have all kinds of detail1.bmp versions like ORBX, REX etc, besides the default one, it is better for each one to use what they have installed.

 

[Bjoern]

True that.

 

[TeiscoDelRay]

Got it and love it and even managed to land there (VR really helps landing at this field) but got stuck right after the walkway that goes across the runway. I had to skew around and then got it rolling again.

 

[Dimus]

It's tricky once you end your landing run, you have to keep your revs up and turn immediately or you might indeed get stuck.

I decided to get the Carenado PC-12 just to try it for size. It barely fits in the hangar:

Take off is also marginal but landing is relatively easy. I noticed in the videos that Gebhard's PC12 has a five bladed prop, maybe optimized for short grass field operations.

 

[Bjoern]

His PC-12 is most probably a NG.

 

[mgr]

Hi,

His PC-12 is most probably a NG.

Based on the movies from himselve it's a classic one, with a retrofitted prop and maybe even also a upgraded engine.
This prop: http://hartzellprop.com/hartzell-introduces-5-blade-carbon-fiber-propellers-for-pc-12-fleet/

Regards,

Marcel

 

[jmbiii]

Landing at LILX is Easy

Really super scenery !

Took off from Bolzano to the south. Turning back north I picked the wrong valley.
Once I found the correct valley, it was a piece of cake landing.

 

[TeiscoDelRay]

Cool but isn't a helicopter cheating Try it in a Lear some time.

Another great thing about this scenery is that is near some other very cool airports including LOWI.

 

[falcon409]

Just one observation concerning the approach. . .I've taken several trips from Bolzano up the Valley and the landmarks are all there and easy to spot. The wires are actually easier to spot than they appear to be in the videos I've watched (thank goodness, lol) however in the videos it seems that the progression from Church Hill down the valley is a steady descent as each set of wires is passed. However I found that the descent took a sharp drop from the second set to get low enough to make a smooth transition for landing. The runway seems to come up much quicker than the videos show it. It was actually better to overfly the first set, descend "under" the second set which put me on a much smoother approach to the runway and still allowed me to overfly the last set of wires.

 

[Dimus]

Somehow it feels that way for me too Ed. It seems that the real obstacle is cables 2. In the approach instruction video you can see cables 2 standing high over the valley at around 1:40 when the cable 3 callout is made. Cables 3 are actually quite low and not really an obstacle when you're descending from the church. It would be good if we could see inside the cockpit during that approach and check if the rate of descend increases after cables 2. I usually start my descend from the church aiming to barely pass cables2, which is what seems to be the case also in the video. So far I have flaps one notch before full. After cables2 I drop my last notch of flaps and stay on the right. After cables 3 i make a small S turn which helps kill some more altitude for touchdown.

The height of cables 2 is not hard to get right as their 2 ends lie on very specific points on the photoscenery. I have arranged for the cable object to be placed using AGL height of the pylon on the right side. This way it depends on each user's mesh but does not change much. I would say that the height of cables2 is pretty much accurate. I could not accurately measure the height of cables 3 so used my best judgement just looking at the videos. At first they were placed a bit higher but I had to lower them as it was close to impossible to cross them and land safely.

Off to LOWI from Locher in the PC12.

 

[jmbiii]

Cool but isn't a helicopter cheating Try it in a Lear some time.

Having been a 'rotorhead' since 1962 I would say it's just second nature. Not cheating. Lears don't really excite me.
However I am enamored with aircraft made in Switzerland. I have a PC-6, PC-7, PC-12, PC-21 and PC-24.
The 24 supposedly been designed as a rough field small jet. Perhaps I shall see if they have fudged a little in the advertising.

 

[expat]

Keen to hear how the IRIS PC-24 performs at Locher. Am a big Pilatus fan too and that jet is on my list.

 

[lownslo]

Hi Dimus,

Finally had a chance to fly your brilliant creation this morning... been a mixture of giggling and a bit of (virtual) terror! Just wanted to offer my thanks and appreciation for all your effort and time. Locher is truly a work of art!

Congrats and thanks,

Greg