Howland Island

[KCD]

Like Jim, I went back to the old FS9 files to try to determine how I had set things up when I made the flight from Lae to Howland (it's all on an old HD in a USB case, it just won't work any more). After looking at the file structure, it is obvious to me that I had both the Charles Wood adventure and the "Howland Island" scenery installed, and that's why I had the Itasca NDB.

Of course Amelia and Noonan didn't have NDBs; they had RDF, so to do the flight properly, one would need to augment the files with Alf B. Meier's "rcacz2.zip ", an RCA DZ-2 Receiver And Goniometer for FS9, and create a proper signal to be periodically broadcast from Itasca (that schedule is available on the Internet although confusion surrounds the time relative to GMT that the Itasca and Amelia were using.

Because I had the Howland scenery, and the Itasca NDB, I decided I would try to tackle the problem of rectifying the situation so the flight could be made as it was in 1937. That would mean I'd have to install all the Erhart/Howland files into my new and functioning FS9, download and install (in the plane) the RCA DZ-2, and finally create the required radio signals for Itasca to broadcast. Since I'm no genius with this stuff (Jim Robertson is 100 times more capable than I), I started on the simple stuff first, reinstalling the Erhart/Howland files.

Here is my problem. The Erhart/Howland files are installed. The Howland scenery has poor instructions, add although I followed them to what I thought was a "T", I have ended up with a Howland Island with all the proper elements, but no runway. I've e-mailed the scenery author, but there is no guarantee that I will get a response, so here is how I installed it. 1.) in accordance with the "install instructions", I unzipped the file to the FS9/Add On Scenery file; 2.) I then moved the scenery and texture files that the instructions indicated needed to be moved, 3.) I "added" Howland, and 4.) I fired up FS9 and had no runway. By the way, the reason for adding the scenery is because without it, FS9 has placed the island in an incorrect lat/lon position.

Can anyone assist me in getting the runway properly placed on Howland?

Thanks,

KCD

[ScatterbrainKid]

Yes and i'm sure we doff our hats to the aviation pioneers who had to do stuff without navaids of any kind such as Francis Chichester, here's a repro of his plot chart in his book "The Lonely Sea and the Sky" which he made while actually in the air during a 561-mile solo flight from Norfolk Island to Lord Howe Island (in the Tasman Sea) in his Gipsy Moth biplane in 1931, he hit the island right on the nose-





Lord Howe Island-



Needless to say, if cloud cover had messed up his sextant shots he'd have been in deep trouble, but his luck held and the skies were clear enough.
He seemed to actually enjoy pushing his luck in this flight and others, and I mentioned it to his son Giles last year but he took the view that his dad's flights were all carefully planned.
Hmm...dunno bout that, for example in a later flight in the Philippines, Chichester senior took off without a map for one leg - believe it or not - to follow the coastline but his luck and good weather held again..

[elmerfudd]

Here is my problem. The Erhart/Howland files are installed. The Howland scenery has poor instructions, add although I followed them to what I thought was a "T", I have ended up with a Howland Island with all the proper elements, but no runway. I've e-mailed the scenery author, but there is no guarantee that I will get a response, so here is how I installed it. 1.) in accordance with the "install instructions", I unzipped the file to the FS9/Add On Scenery file; 2.) I then moved the scenery and texture files that the instructions indicated needed to be moved, 3.) I "added" Howland, and 4.) I fired up FS9 and had no runway. By the way, the reason for adding the scenery is because without it, FS9 has placed the island in an incorrect lat/lon position.

Can anyone assist me in getting the runway properly placed on Howland?

Thanks,

KCD

KCD,

I too, found the instructions a little confusing, since it's been years since I have added any scenery. I did the same thing you did, except instead of moving the scenery and texture files, I copied them, or was going to. It turned out that each of the files that the author indicates 'must' be in the effects folder were already there, so I did not overwrite them.

Try copying the relevant files back to where they were before you moved them (or just re-unzip the files to add-on folder). That may work, as it worked for me.

I'm no expert at this scenery business. I stopped adding scenery in general when I added some Caribbean scenery to FS8, and the buildings were much larger than the buildings already there. I understand that adding some terrain mesh makes quite a difference. I'll have to look into that.

Regards,

Elmerfudd

[Jim Robinson]

I just installed howland.zip and I see runways (4 of them actually) but they are very faint grass runways. As Elmerfudd mentioned the .fx files are redundant with the exception of "Cntrl_Itasca.fx". I made two folders in Addon Scenery, one named "howland_zip" and another named "howland_LC". I extracted howland.zip to a temporary folder, then I moved the resulting Scenery and Texture folders into my new "Addon Scenery\howland_zip" folder. I made a Scenery folder inside the new "Addon Scenery\howland_LC" and moved "LC_000_031.bgl" into that scenery folder. I added both to the scenery library with the "howland_LC" area just below the "howland_zip" area. KCD, your lack of runways may be because you need to put the landclass in a folder of it's own and set it beneath the rest of the scenery in the scenery library? It's not documented well in the instructions, it doesn't really say what you're supposed to do with them, but generally the LC should go below the actual scenery in most cases.

I went to the island in the sim, fired up SBuilderX, and downloaded google imagery for the area. I tried default, howland.zip, and Charles Wood's Earhart_29, and neither of the three put the island exactly where it was supposed to be according to the google imagery and I also checked virtual earth imagery which was the same (position-wise) as the google imagery. All showed the island to be some 3000 meters too far West. 3000 meters isn't a huge deal when you're crossing 2500 nm of water I suppose .

I found that the runways are much more visible using the Earhart_29 package (there are 3 runways using this package), they appear to be gravel runways rather than grass. Actually I liked the default island the best, it seemed to present the best ground textures and had some nice autogen trees, although I'm not sure there were actually any trees on the island in real life. Of course default provides no runways at all so that'll never do.

I see Earhart_29 and howland.zip both use a file named "AF2_KHAQ.bgl" which contains the runways, so I overwrote the howland.zip one with the Earhart_29 one, that gave me the higher visibility gravel runways but set them out in the water slightly. I dunno, I think we need an entirely new Howland Island scenery. I don't have time to mess with it and if I did I'd prefer doing it for FSX to take advantage of the higher resolution ground imagery. The imagery isn't free to distribute so nothing can really be done there anyway. I guess my personal preference would be to use the Earhart_29 scenery and copy over the AE63.bgl to provide the Itasca NDB.

I've been studying up and looking over all the sun and moon shots I did on the first 7 legs of the flight. This stuff gets in your blood and I'm all fired up to do some celestial navigation again now. I'd really like to continue this in FSX if possible but I don't use FS9 aircraft (or anything else) in FSX even though they do work to a degree. Wish that guy would hurry up and finish that Electra for FSX .

Jim

[KCD]

OK, to try to get things going properly, I've been experimenting all morning and don't seem to be making much progress. I have uninstalled "Howland.zip" and all its components, so there is no trace. That means, when I select KHAQ, I get Howland Island with three gravel runways properly placed on the island. I looked for the file "AE63.bgl" to copy to the "Earhart 29" scenery, but there was no such file in my FS9 version of "Howland.zip". So, the question of how to get the Itasca into "Earhart 29"... I copied the file "Itasca.bgl" and that placed the ship approximately where it was supposed to be, but without the NDB.

[Unfortunately, we are dealing with two files, neither of which properly positions the island or the components attached to it. I was surprised to read Jim Robinson's post this morning indicating that neither scenery properly placed the island in the Pacific.]

I next tried various other files to see if I could locate the NDB somewhere, and I did. It was in the "Howland.zip" “AF2_KHAQ.bql” file that places the runways off the island and in the water between the island and the Itasca.

What I'm going to try now is to create an AFCAD for the Howland.zip scenery that places the runways (either better defined grass, or gravel) on the island on the assumption that this scenery is closer to the actual position of the island than the default or Earhart 29; I have no idea if this is true or not as I cannot figure out how to determine the position of either island. I will keep you posted as to how I make out with the AFCAD.

KCD

[teson1]

Hi Jim,
good to hear that you may pick up your trip to Howland the long way.
I've enjoyed following along!

scatterbrain, interesting chart from the Chichester book. Thanks.

elmerfudd,
good luck on your flight. Please let us know how it goes.

[elmerfudd]

teson,

The flight went OK. I ended up about twelve miles or so south of Howland when I spotted it. I had to fly to Majuro in the Marshalls for fuel. From there to Pago Pago. Nest stop will be Tahiti. (I'm not following the Earhart route on this trip, just playing with the Albatross.)

KCD:

I believe the file'AE63.bgl' is not in Howland.zip, but rather is in Earhart29NDB.

Elmerfudd

[KCD]

Thanks, EF, I found it during all the messing around after my last post. I think what that file does is place an NDB originating from the where the radio shack of Itasca Town would be if "Earhart 29" placed the town, but it does not.

Anyway, Here is what I finally did, and it works just fine. First of all, I removed all trace of any Earhart and or Howland files according to the instructions that come with the sceneries. Then I reinstalled them both, starting with C, Wood's files, followed by Howland.zip. Before going any further, but after activating both sceneries, I started a flight from KHAQ, and there were Itasca Town and Itasca, but no discernable runways.

Next I went to the Internet and searched for information on the runways at Howland that Amelia was to use. Here is what I found. Main runway was to be North-South at 4,000' x 150'. Two other runways were to be completed and ready before Earhart made her flight; they were East-West at 2,400' x 150' and NE-SW at 3,000' x 150'. The information providing this information was radio traffic between the Mainland US and Itasca Town beginning in early 1937 and continuing through June. In the radio communications one sees that the surface was to be coral gravel, but by the time of the flight, weeds were beginning to invade the gravel. There are two photographs claiming to be Howland that show the remnants of gravel paths that once might have been a runway.

With that information, I opened KHAQ in AFCAD2 and simply converted the existing grass runways to coral and reduced their width to 150' (they were already the proper length). I then did another flight from KHAQ and found wonderful gravel runways and two NDBs. One (333.0) at the radio shack of Itasca Town, another aboard a second USCG Cutter, the Swan located NW of Howland on the 337/157 line of position and broadcasting on 444.0. The third I have yet to identify and locate, but it broadcasts on 605.0. Realistically, no radio capability was available to Earhart and Noonan from Howland. There were attempts made between Erhart and Itasca and vice-versa. I am not sure about the CG Cutter Swan. Anyway, these things are easy enough to deal with and as I get more information, I will begin modifying my Howland file.

KCD

[KCD]

Well, It seems that Earhart had excellent transceivers on her Lockheed. They were capable of transmitting and receiving on several frequencies from 500Kcs (basically AM and a CW band void of voice communications, but she left the long, trailing wire antenna along the way and lost the capability on that band. From that point on, she used only voice communication and some CW on higher frequencies, but none that we use in FS9 or FSX. So duplicating the communications ability is not possible. Jim Robertson questioned the range of the Itasca NDB in the Charles Wood file "Earhart_29_NDB", he said. "...What you could conceivably do is go ahead and install the Earhart_29 scenery, and then just copy AE63.bgl into the Earhart_29\Scenery folder and that'd give you the Itasca NDB without adding all the other fictitious NDBs. Here's the data on the Itasca NDB, wow, the range of 222 nm seems almost like cheating, or were they really able to pick up the NDB that far out?" He does solve the problem of eliminating all extemporaneous NDBs in favor of one communication element we know was on the scene, the Itasca. After reading Jim's post on the subject, and seeing what he says the range of the Itasca NDB is, I think it highly likely that Charles wood, when he created AE63.bgl was trying to create a broadcast situation of the approximate range that the radios and frequencies in use at the time would provided.

Because I like the Howland.zip scenery, I'm now going to try to modify my already modified files to eliminate the Itasca NDB that came with it, exchanging it for the Charles Wood bgl. Failing that, I will see if I can move the NDB that is broadcasting on 333.0 in my scenery out to the Itasca and remove the others. I'm not so concerned about the USS Swan, which was there, and has an NDB on 444.0 because it cannot be received in the vicinity of Howland. You have to be well to the NW to begin to pick it up, and if you are searching for 333.0, you cannot receive the Swan without changing frequencies.

Finally, I have downloaded, but not installed or played with an old style RDF unit that might closely mimic the equipment that Noonan was relying on. I will try to install it on an Electra and see what it does in the next day or so and report back.

If anyone has any thoughts, I'd like to hear what they are.

KCD

[Jim Robinson]

I think it highly likely that Charles wood, when he created AE63.bgl was trying to create a broadcast situation of the approximate range that the radios and frequencies in use at the time would provided.

Because I like the Howland.zip scenery, I'm now going to try to modify my already modified files to eliminate the Itasca NDB that came with it, exchanging it for the Charles Wood bgl. Failing that, I will see if I can move the NDB that is broadcasting on 333.0 in my scenery out to the Itasca and remove the others.

I thought about that also after I posted that (the NDB range) and I think you're right on the money - C. Wood was trying to replicate the longer range low frequency signals they used back in those days. I know very little about them, the person to ask would be Austin (Salt_air) in the multiplayer forum, he uses them all the time, in fact you're into this deep enough that you really should check out some of the stuff they do in the MP forum if you haven't already, they have something cool like this going there almost every day.

On the Itasca NDB, yes, that's what I would do too. I would go strictly with the howland.zip scenery and delete AE63.bgl completely. With AFCAD2 (actually ADE9X would be my preference) you should be able to add or move that NDB wherever you want it, give it whatever frequency you want, range, etc, with just another modification to your AF2_KHAQ.bgl.

ADE9X has the ability to place objects and a host of other things that Afcad can't do, for that matter it may be easiest to simply forget about howland.zip and Earhart_29 altogether and build howland from the ground up. You could probably come up with a better representation of Itasca town fairly easily given the number of static library objects available free in the file libraries. It may be easier to start from the ground up than to try and figure out which .bgls contain which elements of the existing scenery and eliminate/modify them as required to suit your needs. ADE and all the pertinent info can be found here:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=95

EDIT: To be honest I avoided going to Howland Island to check out the scenery or anything else when I had the world flight underway, I didn't want to spoil it by having some idea what to expect when I finally got there. Of course at my age I can now hide my own Easter eggs so that's not much of a problem anymore .

Jim