Mackinac Island by Al Heline & Jim Bosworth A step back in history, Michigan's Mackinac Island remains one of the few towns in the United States that is free of automobiles. Imagine, Michigan, home of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler having a town with no automobiles... Horses, they have horses... Bicycles; plenty of them, but no cars, no stop lights, no parking lots and best of all, no horns. One drawback, that also means no aircraft over the downtown area (officially, but we won't tell). Mackinac Island, small as it is, is home to several points of interest. Of course, vital to our existence, is the Mackinac Island airport (KMCD) with its single runway (08-26) sits just outside of town and is easy enough to find. We suggest that you arrive with plenty of fuel because an island with no cars has no need for gasoline or JP. Oh yes, rental bikes are available at the airport. The island is also the home of Fort Mackinac, a true military study on where not to build a fort. The Army War College would teach you to build your fort on the high ground, the highest ground, not as close to the bars as you can get. In your flights around the island, observe how much high ground is higher than the fort. The Grand Hotel is one of the island's main attractions. Although there are other hotels on the island, this is the best known. The hotel represented here is not a complete model, the physical size of the real hotel is an absolute frame rate killer. Until the technology improves even better, we are limited in size here. The same goes for the downtown area. At the current time and with the helicopter pilots in mind, we could not afford to drop the frame rates for a couple additional buildings. The docks are an important part of Mackinac Island in that it is the only major means of getting on and off the island. Currently we present the two larger docks that are available. The business structures are representative only. They are not actual structures from the island. In fact, if you have watched the movie "The Field of Dreams" some of these buildings may look familiar. As mentioned earlier, the harbor area of Mackinac Island is the blood line for everything on the island. The Mackinac Straits present the shipping industry with some of the nastiest weather on earth at times, and some of the most fantastic weather at others. Being an island in the Straits, the area is susceptible to dense fog, heavy rains and of course, being as far north as they are, frequent winter snow storms. With other islands close at hand, it was important to protect the shipping and the harbor by not one, but two lighthouses. The oldest, on Round Island was built originally in 1895. The light was extinguished for about 50 years, only to be turned on again in 1996 after being restored in 1978 for the movie "Somewhere in Time". Six hundred meters away sits the now automated Round Island Passage Light (AKA Mackinac Island light) which was built in 1948. Both lights are functional in this scenery should you elect an evening or night flight around the area. In all, we trust that you will enjoy flying our version of Mackinac Island and invite you to download other scenery that we offer. Important Information Most importantly, it must be pointed out that this FS-2004 scenery work is provide free to the Flight Simulation hobbyist and is created to be used without the necessity of purchasing add-on programs. When we attack a project to improve the FS-2004 scenery of Michigan, we do so with the best tools and information available including topographic maps, aerial and satellite photographs, ground level photographs and the personal knowledge of at least two individuals that have a fair amount of knowledge of the State of Michigan. Often we will find that the topography of an area, rivers, shorelines and other key points of FS-2004 scenery are completely wrong or incorrectly located. We make every attempt to correct these inaccuracies. In doing so, we often have to change the existing topographic 'mesh' to accurately represent what is actually there. This, however has apparently presented a problem to a few flyers that have loaded other topographic mesh scenery, free or otherwise. You should be aware that if other terrain scenery is active, the possibility of conflict exists. As stated previously, we base much of our work on personal knowledge. We can also attest that some of the terrain mesh programs that are available, are inaccurate. Recent changes in the patch for FS-2004 that pertain to terrain mesh are a step in the right direction and hopefully the day will come that it will not be necessary for us to correct the terrain characteristics. Until that day comes, the decision is being placed on your shoulders. To have this scenery package function as intended, it may be necessary for the user to turn off other terrain scenery involved with this particular area of work. SPECIAL NOTE If you have Jim's FS-2000/FS2002 version of Mackinac Island scenery installed, it is highly recommended that it be completely removed prior to the installation of this scenery. Below is a list of files that should be removed. MCD_b.bgl 9/29/03 MIsland_LCF.bgl 7/22/02 A file search of all Flight Simulation files should be accomplished to insure that these files are no longer on your hard drive. Installation If you are using the default (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9) file structure, you may unzip the entire scenery set to your Addon Scenery directory. Please read the following for additional file relocation that may be necessary. * A folder containing DOCUMENTATION is provided and contains this information. After reading it, there is no need to retain it. * A folder containing EFFECTS files is provided. This folder may contain several files, which must be placed in your FS9 'Effects' sub directory. For information, this file provides the working elements of the lighthouse beams, obstruction lights, and other special effects that may be used. * Within the EFFECTS folder, there is a sub directory for TEXTURE(s) that are required for this scenery. Please move the file(s) to the TEXTURE sub directory that accompanies your EFFECTS directory. * A folder containing SCENERY files is provided. This folder contains the numerous BGL files that are required to place the scenery. You may move the complete folder to your file structure by 'click and drag' or you may perform a 'select all' function and either cut & paste or copy the files to your scenery structure. * A folder containing LANDCLASS files specific to the area of scenery is provided. It is suggested that a separate Scenery Library folder for LandClass files be used if you do not already have one. Simply move all LANDCLASS files to this folder. For those not informed, LandClass files provide trees where trees should be and towns where towns should be. They are of the BGL variety but as stated, should be in a folder of their own. * A folder containing TEXTURES is provided. This folder contains all of the various texture files required to make the scenery look like it should. As with the SCENERY files, you may move the complete folder, do a 'click and drag' or perform a 'select all' function and either cut & paste or copy the files to your scenery structure. Remember to ADD to your Scenery Library This scenery will not be visible if you do not add it to your SCENERY LIBRARY within FS-2004 / FS9 program. To complete this: * Start your Flight Simulator program and select SETTINGS screen that appears when you would normally select a flight. The SETTINGS tab can be found in the lower left portion of the window. * This will open a SETTINGS window. From this window select SCENRY LIBRARY, which should be about in the middle of your screen and the lower part of the window. * When the SCENERY LIBRARY window opens, you will see a line of buttons along the right side of the window. From this row, select ADD AREA. * The ADD AREA window will then open allowing you to enter your file structure for the scenery. * If you have used the automated installation, your file location will be C:\Flight Simulator 9\Addon Scenery\Mackinac Island. You can use your mouse and point to the Addon Scenery directory, then Mackinac Island sub-directory. This will show the name Mackinac Island in the SCENERY AREA TITLE window and you can press OK. * You may also select whether you want to cache the scenery. You may select to cache or leave it as the default. Enjoy Your Stay on Mackinac Island Copyright and Distribution -------------------------- THIS IS FREEWARE SCENERY Copyright (C) 2004 James C. Bosworth & Al Heline IT IS INTENDED FOR THE ENJOYMENT AND FREE USE BY THE FLIGHT SIMULATOR COMMUNITY AND MAY BE DISTRIBUTED TO, UPLOADED AND/OR DOWNLOADED TO THE INTERNET FOR FREE OF CHARGE USE BY THE PUBLIC, SO LONG AS ALL FILES REMAIN INTACT AND THIS TEXT FILE IS INCLUDED. HOWEVER, THIS SCENERY MAY NOT BE SOLD, UPLOADED OR DISTRIBUTED TO ANY PERSON, BBS, ORGANIZATION OR ANY OTHER TYPE OF ENTITY WHICH INTENDS TO OR IN ANY WAY PROFITS FINANCIALLY OR OTHERWISE FROM DISTRIBUTION OF THIS SCENERY. ALL RIGHTS, INCLUDING OWNERSHIP AND COPYRIGHT ARE RESERVED BY THE ABOVE. AS STATED, THIS SCENERY IS OFFERED AS FREEWARE. EVERY ATTEMPT TO TEST THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE SCENERY HAS BEEN TAKEN, HOWEVER, WE CANNOT ASSURE THAT IT WILL WORK ON EVERY SYSTEM MANUFACTURED AND WE CANNOT ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED ON ANY SYSTEM. This scenery was tested using Microsoft Flight Simulator 9, on a pair of home built computers - an Athlon K7 1.4GHz processor, Asus V7700-Pro GeForce2 64MB video card AND an Intel Pentium 4 -478 2.0GHz processor with 512MB of DDR memory feeding a PNY Verto GeForce4 Ti 4200 64MB DDR Ram video card. It was created with FS Architect 2002, GMAX, and Ground2K4. We thank the following people for the use of their macro's and texture files: Russel Dirks (who wrote EZ Landclass), Robert Palmer & Matthias Breuckner, Kern Pegg, Jimmy R Martin, John de Langristin, and Christian Fumey (author of Ground2K4 V5.1). Without their products, this scenery wouldn't be possible.