Scenery question

[hawkeye52]

One of my FS9 installations is nominally dated 1960. Thanks to CalClassics I have been able to populate the principal airports with appropriate configurations. Nevertheless, there are some airfields CalClassics have not gotten to as yet, so now it is my turn to undertake the re-modeling. My question regards the proper way to proceed.

Should I:

1. Attempt to back-date the existing default MS airport, or
2. Remove it entirely and build a new airport from scratch

Before you answer, kindly consider the following:
a. The default airport is at the same elevation and geographic location as the 1960 airport
b. The default airport runway has the same geographic location, elevation and orientation as the 1960 airport, but is almost double the length
c. The default airport’s ramp area is much larger and contains more structures than the 1960 airport
d. The western end of the single runway extends into a bay in both cases, but about twice as far for the default airport

Advice and suggestions are solicited.

- H52

 

[Dangerousdave26]

I think and someone correct me if I am wrong

You will need to exclude the default objects anyway so for me I would just exclude the whole thing and start over.

Open the airport with ADE9X setup your runway and taxiway to 1960 then start building or placing objects.

You'll be done before you know it.

 

[rdaniell]

I think and someone correct me if I am wrong

You will need to exclude the default objects anyway so for me I would just exclude the whole thing and start over.

Open the airport with ADE9X setup your runway and taxiway to 1960 then start building or placing objects.

You'll be done before you know it.

That's what I just did with a stock airport. I used ADE to get it looking like it did when I was much younger and my father was employed there. My next project is the get some AI T-6s, T-28s, and t-34s flying out of there.

Romeo-Delta

 

[nigel richards]

Yep! Dave pretty well put it in a nutshell.

I would just make this observation;

Especially to first-timers;
If it's your very first attempt at tackling an airport, or you're not yet familiar with scenery work, you could try dabbling around in Afcad first.

ADE9X is indeed an awesome tool, but will require a higher level of scenery understanding beforehand.

Afcad, although limited in comparison to ADE9X is still a very handy tool for making fast airport adjustments; its use is simplicity itself.

View it for now as a kind of airport scenery 'playground' if you like.

Have some fun playing around with runways, taxiways, parking areas, lights... if you don't like what you've made, just trash or change the file till you're happy with the results. You've made no actual changes to your sim or broken anything.

In a very short while, you'll be doing things automatically.

Then, hop over to ADE9X and create something awesome.

Edit; No Dave, you're absolutely right.

Personally I prefer making smaller excludes as a result of installing several third party scenery packs with massive excludes that caused an irritating flashing effect whenever I made an approach.

 

[hawkeye52]

Thank you all. :salute::salute::salute:

I'm fairly handy with AFCAD; the biggest problem will be obtaining the proper building -- a WWII-type Navy hangar.

Can't imagine how or why ADE is so superior to AFCAD, but y'all have aroused my curiosity, so I guess I'll have a look-see!

- H52

 

[nigel richards]

Thank you all. :salute::salute::salute:

I'm fairly handy with AFCAD; the biggest problem will be obtaining the proper building -- a WWII-type Navy hangar.

Can't imagine how or why ADE is so superior to AFCAD, but y'all have aroused my curiosity, so I guess I'll have a look-see!

- H52

It's well worth it H. Among maaany other things, how does scenery objects and excludes grab you?

 

[hawkeye52]

OK, Nigel....I'll look into it. The thing that bothers me about all the "New and Improved" stuff is the learning curve. A perfect example is MS Windows. Often, the new & improved aspects benefit only a few geeks, while everyone else is saddled with having to unlearn and then re-learn.

- H52

 

[Dangerousdave26]

ADE9X was built off of AFCAD. Escenncially AFCAD is the core of ADE9X.

http://www.airportdesigneditor.co.uk/

I strongly suggest you get it and install it.

Understand though there are other tools for FS Scenery those should not be feared most of them are fairly easy to use.

Jump in the water its quite fine.

 

[Mick]

...The thing that bothers me about all the "New and Improved" stuff is the learning curve. A perfect example is MS Windows. Often, the new & improved aspects benefit only a few geeks, while everyone else is saddled with having to unlearn and then re-learn.
- H52

I mentioned to a confuter tech that I wasn't crazy about Windows 7 and that it didn't give me anything I didn't have in XP, and in fact XP was easier to work in. I mentioned how I'd recently read that over 40% of home confuters are still running XP and most of the rest W7, and that Vista was almost dead.

His response was that Vista was a superior operating system and that they'd messed up with W7 by trying to make it easier and more user-friendly than Vista. He thought that we all should have given Vista more of a chance, taken the time and made the extra effort to get used to it and learn how to work around its difficulties.

I said that in this day and age people were completely reasonable to expect a confuter to be simple and easy to use, and we shouldn't have to study it and learn how to overcome technical complexity in order to use an OS that doesn't offer the typical home user anything they didn't have with older machines and systems. I said at this stage of confuter development there is no excuse for a consumer model to have a steep learning curve.

He just couldn't understand how I could think that!

 

[KellyB]

I mentioned to a confuter tech that I wasn't crazy about Windows 7 and that it didn't give me anything I didn't have in XP, and in fact XP was easier to work in. I mentioned how I'd recently read that over 40% of home confuters are still running XP and most of the rest W7, and that Vista was almost dead.

His response was that Vista was a superior operating system and that they'd messed up with W7 by trying to make it easier and more user-friendly than Vista. He thought that we all should have given Vista more of a chance, taken the time and made the extra effort to get used to it and learn how to work around its difficulties.

I said that in this day and age people were completely reasonable to expect a confuter to be simple and easy to use, and we shouldn't have to study it and learn how to overcome technical complexity in order to use an OS that doesn't offer the typical home user anything they didn't have with older machines and systems. I said at this stage of confuter development there is no excuse for a consumer model to have a steep learning curve.

He just couldn't understand how I could think that!

If this confuter tech thinks that Vista was a superior operating system, I can only imagine he was comparing it to DOS 1.0. Any OS that takes as much of the on-board memory to operate as Vista does needs to be scrapped. My local computer tech (#1 son) goes about his place of business dealing with what he calls Vista infestations, cured by exterminating it, and replacing it with either XP or Win 7.

We should have been suspicious when M$oft didn't launch in time for Xmas that year, and had to postpone. When you're that close to launching, and have to punt, something has gone terrible rong!

 

[hawkeye52]

.... we shouldn't have to study it and learn how to overcome technical complexity in order to use an OS that doesn't offer the typical home user anything they didn't have with older machines and systems .....there is no excuse for a consumer model to have a steep learning curve.

Exactly, Mick. The fact is that businesses NEED to introduce new products in order to maintain or increase sales. That's why we have annual automobile models. There is no real need for them, other than by the manufacturers. And that is exactly the situation with most "new & improved" products: really no improvement and really not new; just a change in labeling and/or shape of the packaging. IT IS STRICTLY A MARKETING GIMMICK. Always reminds me of coming home and finding the wife has rearranged the room: the furniture is the same, the capacity of the seating is the same, the comfort is the same, but now you to have hunt around for the lamp switch and the remotes and get used to dropping your butt in a new location.


Rant over!

- H52

 

[rdaniell]

Took me most of the day experimenting but, I finally got John Woodward's Ercoupe to show up at my local airport as AI.

Romeo-Delta

 

[Mick]

...That's why we have annual automobile models. There is no real need for them... H52

Exactly! The catch phrase in the fifties was "planned obsolescence." The idea was that every year the car makers would change their trim, model names, and do all they could to make the cars look different, and every three years they would introduce a completely new chassis and body shell, and none of it was to produce a better product. It was just to make you feel like your car was old and out of date so you'd buy a new one. And to reinforce that impression, you couldn't get parts for an older car.

On one level we responded with federal legislation that said if you sell a car in the United States you have to provide parts support for ten years. That forced them to support the older models but they still kept up with the constant, meaningless changes.

The public then responded on another level by buying massive numbers of Volkswagens, Renaults, SAABs, Volvos, Toyotas and other foreign cars - cars that sometimes went ten years without any cosmetic changes. Detroit still hasn't recovered from that, and now they never will.

I think it's past time for a federal law that says if you sell a confuter in the US you have to provide hardware and software support for ten years.

Of course the confuter industry would scream bloody murder that the government was stifling innovation. I could do just fine with a bit less meaningless "innovation."

My previous confuter that ran XP was seven years old when it died, and there wasn't and still isn't anything I want to do that it couldn't do. If I dug into it I suppose I could find things that my new W7 confuter can do that the old XP rig couldn't - but none of it matters to me, and I'll probably never have reason to dig into it and learn about the new capabilities (if any) that it might (or might not) have.

 

[Mick]

.. no improvement and really not new; just a change in labeling and/or shape of the packaging. IT IS STRICTLY A MARKETING GIMMICK. ..
- H52

Some time ago I saw a box of crackers on the shelf at the supermarket. On the box in big letters it said, "ORIGINAL FLAVOR! GREAT NEW TASTE!"

 

[hawkeye52]

"ORIGINAL FLAVOR! GREAT NEW TASTE!"

Beautiful! Absolutely B E A U T I F U L ! :salute:

- H52

 

[rdaniell]

Some time ago I saw a box of crackers on the shelf at the supermarket. On the box in big letters it said, "ORIGINAL FLAVOR! GREAT NEW TASTE!"

Makes sense to me. Since you haven't eaten any of the crackers in that particular box, they will have a great new taste...

Romeo-Delta