71 replies to this topic

[IBtheSarge]

KPSM - Pease AFB, New Hampsire (USA) - former SAC FB-111A base, home of the 509th Bombardment Wing (Medium)  The 509th's history is long and glorious, the most famous episode of which is probably the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring WWII to a conclusion in the Pacific.  From the days of the B-29's, the 509th progressed through the B-47, B-52 (for a brief period, supporting SEA through deployment to and operations from Anderson AB, Guam), to the FB-111A prior to closure of the base in the 1990's.  Currently it is the home of the New Hampsire Air National Guard's 157th Air Refueling Wing, flying the KC-135R  (The 509th is now located at Whiteman AFB, Missouri and flies the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.)  Pease, and the 509th BW(M) with its FB-111A's and KC-135A's, is about to be reborn:

Alert parking spot #6, south end of the main parking ramp:

Alert parking spots #6 - #1 - there are two more spots (#7 & #8), but the aircraft shelters are a different type of construction and I haven't designed them yet:

Taxi via taxiway Alpha for the south end (rwy 34):

Wide area immediately left is the south hammerhead (Arm/Dearm area); new runway/taxiway signs nearly complete; straight ahead is taxiway HOTEL CHARLIE and the Hot Cargo pad:

ILS for Runway 34:  (Notice the displaced threshhold; each end of the runway has a 1,001' displaced threshhold.  Aircraft can take the active and run pre-takeoff checklists awaiting takeoff clearance, while aircraft land, touching down 1/3-mile ahead of the aircraft awaiting departure -- this IS a combat-ready military installation!)

New Pease NDB (Terminal) with pad and maintenance access road:

Pease VOR/DME (High) with pad and maintenance access road:

ILS for Runway 16:

The north hammerhead:

Looking east towards taxiway DELTA and the KC-135A parking ramp:

Edited by sarge, 19 April 2005 - 09:25 PM.

[IBtheSarge]

Revised AFCAD for Pease AFB, New Hampshire:

The only thing missing are the parking spots for the 157th Air Refueling Group (Air National Guard).  Disregard the Hardened Aircraft Shelters in the opening of this thread; those are being replaced by six of the redeisgned HAS and two of the newly designed soft Flow-Thru shelters.

The tower viewpoint is now placed and will be the site of a newly designed joint Control Tower-RAPCON facility.  Also notice that there is a GCA trailer parking spot in the infield between the runway and parallel taxiway Alpha.  Both the north and south hammerheads now have taxi lines for arm/de-arm activities.

KPSM is on-track for a mid-February release as part of a KPSM/KPBG package.

[James22]

Bravo sarge, this is pretty damnn good!

[SargeJr3]

boy sarge, you rock!

[IBtheSarge]

James22, on Feb 2 2005, 08:44 PM, said:

Bravo sarge, this is pretty damnn good!

Thank you       Had to take a hiatus from designing to learn XML and then the system went Tango Uniform and I had to almost do a complete rebuild.  With the new XML process down fairly well, I can resume designing and bring in airbases with more detailed 3D macros WITHOUT severe fps hits.

Since KPSM and KPBG were both FB-111A bases, they will be issued as a single package.

[vusaf_tbird1]

Doing awesome Sarge. I was wondering if we might chat sometime to talk about some of the active AFBs around the US. For instance, Hill AFB (where I was) and Nellis AFB, for the Thunderbirds. Let me know what you think, and in your busy schedule, if it's possible to update those.

[IBtheSarge]

flight_guy00, on Feb 4 2005, 11:43 AM, said:

Doing awesome Sarge. I was wondering if we might chat sometime to talk about some of the active AFBs around the US. For instance, Hill AFB (where I was) and Nellis AFB, for the Thunderbirds. Let me know what you think, and in your busy schedule, if it's possible to update those.

Hill is on my list of bases to redo .... as for Nellis, I can't match the scenery that ALPHASim has done, but I'm reworking their AFCAD because there are no ramp taxi lines and parking spaces.  No wing-tip clearance for taxiing because of the mass of static aircraft they added into their scenery, plus the ILS localizers and glideslopes are off dramatically.  (That's what happens when you design in A&SD for FS2004 -- Airport & Scenery Design (Abacus) doesn't work for NAVAIDS and ATC Comm when you're designing for FS2004.)

[IBtheSarge]

Had to do some revisions to the soft (unhardened) aircraft shelter flow-through; didn't make it wide enough and the wingtip shadow was falling outside the wall of the shelter when the wings were extended.  Also, I had chosen the wrong texture and had checked "polygon smoothing," causing the texture to flicker.  After redesign, did the first macro placements at Pease using the XML placement process.  There are two of the soft shelters and six hardened aircraft shelters.  Framerate is locked at 25.0 and the framerate hit is 0.1 fps for a rendering of 24.9 fps.  Twilight screenshot:

[IBtheSarge]

At the new soft Aircraft Shelters (flow-thru):


At the new Hardened Aircraft Shelters (flow-thru):

[Folgers]

Not bad..  I don't think FPS will be bad for anyone.

[IBtheSarge]

Douglas Buis, on Feb 14 2005, 02:49 AM, said:

Not bad..  I don't think FPS will be bad for anyone.

Nope .... 8 macros and FS9 only had to draw 2 of them, and the impact was 0.1 fps with all of them in view.  Rest of the macros get placed today, and tomorrow starts work on KPBG.

Just added four of the complex fighter taxi-in hangars in one area, plus the joint Control Tower/RAPCON .... fps hit 0.2 for 24.8 on a 25.0 fps (locked) setting.  Will finish up KPSM today, then should be able to finish KPBG by Wednesday and ready for beta testers Thursday

MUL and SCAVERS watch for PMs late Wednesday/early Thursday.  (Have two others, but they're not in these forums.)

Edited by sarge, 14 February 2005 - 12:32 PM.

[SargeJr3]

sarge, on Feb 14 2005, 08:11 AM, said:

MUL and SCAVERS watch for PMs late Wednesday/early Thursday.  (Have two others, but they're not in these forums.)

Will do!

[IBtheSarge]

scavers, on Feb 14 2005, 07:55 PM, said:

sarge, on Feb 14 2005, 08:11 AM, said:

MUL and SCAVERS watch for PMs late Wednesday/early Thursday.  (Have two others, but they're not in these forums.)

Will do!

PM's out to you and Mul .... let me know if you have problems with access.  It's just wording now; the link to the d/l will be posted as soon as I finish placing 8 more macros.

BTW:  this is not only a shake-out for the airport itself, but also for the macros.  I need to make sure the parts were fitted correctly, the textures don't flicker, etc.  I've gotten so I can crank out a macro in FSDS2 in 10 to 15 minutes, even the complex macros; so any reworking that needs to be done, I need to know about it.

[notadrater]

... And a nice F-111 in the picture to top of the great macros...

[IBtheSarge]

notadrater, on Feb 14 2005, 08:34 PM, said:

... And a nice F-111 in the picture to top of the great macros...

Yep, and I got an AI version of the bird .... unfortunately, it only comes with Aussie paint schemes.  So I'm trying to learn some basic repainting skills so I can make paints for the 393rd Bomb Sq (Medium) that was at Pease and the 380th Bomb Wg (Medium) at Plattsburgh.  The ALPHASim FB-111A comes with a couple of paints for the 380th, but that model is WAY too high in polygon count to use as AI.

[IBtheSarge]

Slight delay on beta testing of KPSM .... ran into a problem doing XML exclude for a series of buildings adjacent to the ramp that MUST come out.

@Mul & Scavers:  explained in the Beta Tester Reports forum, my site.

Will complete assembly of final beta test package as soon as I get this one exclude figured out.

By the way, if anyone is interested, not all default macros are "LibraryObjects" or "GenericLibraryBuildings."  Excluding the refuel point at KPSM was a few hours of trial-and-error.  Since parking next to it "triggers" refuel of the aircraft, the statement excludeTriggerObjects = "TRUE" also has to be included in the exclude statement.

[IBtheSarge]

Got it solved ..... final beta test package will be up for d/l this evening (Wednesday, approx 19:00 Eastern Standard Time).

[SargeJr3]

Alrighty, sarge, will have a check at it (shouldn't be hard, it was near perfect)

[IBtheSarge]

scavers, on Feb 23 2005, 05:58 PM, said:

Alrighty, sarge, will have a check at it (shouldn't be hard, it was near perfect)

Sorry, guys; fell asleep after dinner (it's an "age" thing, don't go there!!!!!   ).  Plus, when I got up, I had an email from the FB-111A Association ..... will receive aerial photographs of KPSM when it was active.  Have to change some of the parking spots, plus there's a very complex macro that has to be made and placed near the alert ramp -- the "mole hole" was a partially underground complex with a series of "tubes" that lead right to the edge of the alert ramp.  Crews pulling alert stayed in the "mole hole" throughout their alert period.

@ TCY -- if I get an aerial photo of the "mole hole" do you think you could do a small "rise" in the ground at that point?  Once I get the shot, I can develop the outer dimensions of the facility; it was only partially underground, so I'm thinking something like a "berm" that the building will sit down inside of and appear to be partially below ground level.  I've got some 3rd party macros of hills that I could place there by just changing the scale; but they look like they were designed for FS2002 and aren't really all that great.  May also be asking you to do a terrain mod in the Weapons Storage Area to give me some berms to butt the munitions igloos up against.  Again, berm-type artificial terrain that was put in place to absorb fragments and blast effect from an accidental detonation of one of the bunkers.

@ mul & scavers -- Figure another week before the final beta is ready for testing.

Edited by sarge, 23 February 2005 - 11:53 PM.

[IBtheSarge]

@ TCY: This is what I need to recreate, right next to the flightline near the alert ramp:



(Trees optional, not completely necessary to the effect)

You can see what I mean by "partially" underground; it's probably not more than a 10' rise in the elevation (airport elevation = 100' or 30.48m).  I don't have the exact dimensions, but from the looks of it the building can't be more than 50'd and no more than 100'w including that extension on the right side.  I've got the FSDS2 instructions on how to make the bend in those tubes, so they'll be fairly easy to generate for the macro.

Are you at the stage in terrain manipulation where you think that might be do-able?  You'll need the beta AFCAD2 and scenery/texture files if you think it can be done.  Let me know and I'll get them to you if you're willing to give it a shot.