Screenshots for Scenery I am creating for FSX and P3D

[rjord]

Preparing to leave Launceston Airport in Tasmania........

 

[rjord]

When adding Qantas flights the aircraft will include the following:

 

Qantas (Current Livery)

Qantas (Mendoowoorrji Livery)

Qantas (Oneworld Livery)

Qantas (Retro Livery)

Qantas (Retro 1959 Livery)

Qantas (Yam Dreaming Livery)

Qantas Freight

QantasLink

QantasLink (Discover Tasmania Livery)

QantasLink (NBCF Livery)

 

 

I will be having a go at creating my new paints for these liveries including light effects such as on the tail logo.

[rjord]

The 1959 Qantas livery mentioned in the last post actually can be seen these days on the Qantas VH-VXQ aircraft.

 

Nov 16, 2015 - Qantas unveils its second 'Retro Roo' plane featuring a vintage paint job. ... The Retro Roo II (VH-VXQ) has the same livery featured on Qantas' Boeing 707 jets from 1959 to 1961, an era when Qantas became the world's first airline to offer a round-the-world service with the jet

 

[rjord]

While testing scenery in FSX I looked out the cockpit window looking out over Botany Bay and saw this incredible image of the Moon as it began to set.

 

[rjord]

Departure from Sydney at 9 this morning was challenging with 23mm in rain falling in 156 minutes.

 

Almost 6 hours later and only around 5mm in the same period....but as you can see by tyhe picture the runway is still wet with a lot of rain and cloud still in the area.

 

My flight will take me north to Newcastle which is currently being drenched with 31mm of rain falling.

Looking forward to the challenge ahead.

 

[rjord]

Leaving Queenstown Airport in New Zealand

 

 

[flightsimg]

We are impatient to get your freeware! Will it be a freeware? :)

[rjord]

Today I start the fairly lengthy task of creating new paint work for all aircraft which fly in and out of Australian airports...with hopefully a realistic texture.

 

The picture below is going to be used for creating the tail for the New Zealand Airbus a320s.

 

[rjord]

After placing the new logo on the tail........... rest of tail still to be added with new texture.

 

[rjord]

For the repaints I am trying adding details which may not even be possible.

This image needed some work in Photoshop to fix issues.

 

If the tests work with this high definition view of the tail......scaled down to not impact frame rates in FSX...... then I will do the same for the aircraft fuselage and wings.

 

 

[rjord]

A couple of screenshots showing a test of repaint on the new tail....a day shot showing more detail and a night shot showing some errors such as the whiter line around the windows.

 

The da shot shows the difference between the new tail and the so far untouched rest of the A320.

 

 

 

[rjord]

The creation of new scenery and new paints is finally under way.

 

In the last 9 days I was gathering data I needed for the project to specify which airports will be upgraded , which airlines will have new repaints or new models created and finally general aviation is also being added to the project.

 

The data covers all trackable aircraft all around Australia with accurate departure and arrival times and correct cruise altitudes

 

Most of the 9 days was spent gathering data on light aircraft and helicopters seen during that day.

 

Now that I know the scope of the project I have the following stats

 

I collected data for the 24 hours period on 2nd April 2018 showing

 

343 different types of light aircraft or helicopters at 102 airports around Australia

25 liveries for domestic aircraft around Australia.

 

Still to do will be to create the weekly schedule of all international flights travelling to or from Australia

 

 

 

To put this together I have subscribed to flightradar which gives me additional data.

 

For example, there was no data for which types of aircraft were flying into or out of Bankstown airport on 2nd April

I now have data on 91 aircraft that used Bankstown on that day with times of when they arrived

I then use the aircraft registration to work out the flight schedule for each aircraft

[rjord]

If I look at Bankstown airport for Cessnas or Piper aircraft only I have the following aircraft in my data.

 

At this stage not sure if all of these will be created as new AI at the beginning but by the time this project is finished I am hoping all of the aircraft models will have been added to the project.

 

 

Cessna 182Q Skylane

Cessna 208 Caravan

Cessna 208B Grand Caravan

Cessna 500 Citation 1

Cessna 501 Citation 1SP

Cessna 510 Citation Mustang

Cessna 680 Citation Sovereign

Cessna R182 Skyland RG

Cessna T206H Turbo Stationair

Cessna T310R

Cessna U206G

 

 

Piper PA-28-151

Piper PA-28-161

Piper PA-28-181

Piper PA-28-181 Archer

Piper PA-28-236

Piper PA-28R-200

Piper PA-31

Piper PA-31-325 Navajo CR

Piper PA-31-350

Piper PA-31-350 Chieftain

Piper PA-31P-350

Piper PA-32-300

Piper PA-32R-301

[rjord]

I know which airports have helicopters going to those airports and the times they arrive and leave.

 

I need to have a look at how I handle AI helicopter traffic as it would be unrealistic having them taking off like aircraft.

I may need to add these helicopters as static objects to the airports.

[flightsimg]

Didn't you say in your first post that your freeware was to be not only about Australia? Bon courage like one says in French

[Rupert]

I know which airports have helicopters going to those airports and the times they arrive and leave.

 

I need to have a look at how I handle AI helicopter traffic as it would be unrealistic having them taking off like aircraft.

I may need to add these helicopters as static objects to the airports.

 

Yes and no. If you're speaking of choppers with skids, that's correct. However those with wheels often land and take off similar to fixed wing planes as long as they have the space to do so.

 

Michael

[rjord]

Didn't you say in your first post that your freeware was to be not only about Australia? Bon courage like one says in French

 

Hi Michael

 

Thanks for your reply...... based on what you said I did some research and sure enough I found a video on youtube showing a Robinson R44 helicopter taxing to a runway and taking off down the runway.

 

Have never seen that before.

 

As you can see in the pictures below of the helicopter it was hovering above the ground all the way from start of taxi to the runway and then takeoff.

 

This will allow me to add helicopter traffic to my project as have picked up the helicopter flight schedules as well from 2nd April

 

With the helicopter hovering above th ground I assume it had skids and no wheels and was getting to the runway a few feet off the ground.

 

[rjord]

One of the problems I had with adding real flight schedules to FSX was that when I was testing the schedule the AI aircraft were not at the airport.

Went through making sure the AI were not for FS2004 and that the AI model was FSX compatible and did not understand why the aircraft did not show.

 

I have now resolved this as I think there was an issue with the timing at the airport and the timezones used to add the schedules.

 

I have redone the flight schedules for Qantas, Jetstar and Tiger Airlines and picked up the live timetable for 2nd April using UTC time and not local time.

Creating the timetable using UTC seems to have fixed the problem.

 

The picture below is of Tiger Airways at Gold Coast Airport used in my tests to confirm the schedules were being added correctly.

 

Over the next few days I am adding 702 flights to airports around Australia.

 

[rjord]

A Bell Jet Ranger being tested prior to reskinning.......

 

[flightsimg]

With the helicopter hovering above th ground I assume it had skids and no wheels and was getting to the runway a few feet off the ground.

 

The movement of helos in a terrain usually features such that pattern. Some payware usually provide for that capacity but I don't know whether that's possible with most usual techniques. Cheers and good luck!

[Rupert]

I flew Ch-34s and CH-46s and we often took off, landed, taxied, etc. just as if we were flying fixed wing aircraft. For one thing it made it much easier to work with the normal pattern flow at airports. The operation such as you're describing with the Robinson is very similar to what Hueys or other choppers often do especially when very heavily loaded.

 

During combat and especially at high ambient temperatures, choppers often take off "overweight" to be able to complete their mission. By skimming along just off the ground a chopper usually can build up enough air speed to lift out even though it's too heavily loaded to do a traditional hover take-off.

 

I have seen many movies and even war memorials which show a chopper just off the ground and nose down at such an extreme angle you'd worry the rotor tips might hit the ground. When you see that, they're usually flying in ground cushion and building up their lift out speed.

 

And yes, both wheeled and skidded choppers often do what is called an "Air Taxi" whilst moving about as well.

 

Michael

[rjord]

I saw there was a helicopter package for FSX called Heli Traffic 2009.... however it appears not to work with FSX Steam Edition.

So happy to work around that.

 

Creating accurate flight schedules for Australia is continuing and I use AI Flight Planner 3 to create the traffic file.

 

For the Jetstar picture below its real schedule is

 

 

Leaves Cairns at 1:55 UTC and arrives Sydney at 4:36 UTC

unload aircraft after arrival at gate and prepare it for departure : 54 minutes

 

Leaves Sydney at 5:30 UTC and arrives back at Cairns 8:18 UTC

unload aircraft after arrival at gate and prepare it for departure : 1 Hour 12 Minutes

 

Leaves Cairns at 9:30 UTC and arrives Brisbane at 11:30 UTC

unload aircraft after arrival at gate and prepare it for departure : 40 Minutes

 

Leaves Brisbane at 12:10 UTC and arrives at 14:20 UTC

Flights for this aircraft finished for day.

 

 

Testing of this adding the schedule into FSX has the times within about 7 minutes of the actual arrival times at each airport.

 

 

 

 

Jetstar sitting at Cairns International Airport

This aircraft has been upgraded from an Airbus A320-200 to an Airbus A320-232

 

[rjord]

When adding the flight schedules from 1st April into FSX, and P3D, I am updating the aircraft as well.

Usually the AI packages will have the 737-800, A320-200 and A321-200 for example

 

With this project all aircraft are updated so that the

 

: 737-800 is replaced by the 737-838

: A320-200 is replaced by the A320-232

: A320-200 is replaced by the A321-231

 

The 737-838, A320-232 and A321-231 are currently flying around Australia

 

 

 

 

 

If you click on and azoom into the picture below you will see this is a Qantas 737-838 leaving Sydney Domestic Terminal

 

[rjord]

This project allows me to also update the airports as well as aircraft configs.

 

For example I have updated the Cobham Aviation Services QantasLink 717-200 to the 717-231 and I noticed the parking code was QFAZ which has now been updated to the correct airport gate code of QLK.

 

Qantaslink has 2 aircraft types...... the Boeing 717-231 and the Boeing 717-2K9 and I have updated the aircraft files to handle both aircraft types.

[rjord]

Moruya Regional Airport is one airports flagged for airport updating as the airport was upgraded in 2016. The only airline flying to this airport is Rex and when you start at this airport the Saab 340B aircraft is half within a fuel station.

 

I use google to get reference shots of the airport for my upgrade of the airport in FSX.