Getting Castle AFB back on the air.

So, I wanted to bring back Castle (KMER) to its former glory as THE B-52 flight training base, but this is tricky in FS2002.

I have AFCAD (140) and the FS02 version of Edit Voice Pack (EDITVP) installed, but it was still an adventure.

Castle, in FS2002, is already abandoned but it still has its VOR and ILS. I'm not really interested in adding actual traffic (yet?), I just want to be able to taxi, take off, and land while being able to "talk" to ground and the tower (which is already gone).

Note that this would be a lot easier in FS9, I could just download the darned thing from MAIW and be done with it but we're talking FS2002, the red headed step child of FS. :p

So, some digging in the Library here and at AVSIM produce at least one AFCAD file for KMER, which I install. I'd rather install an AFCAD file then edit it rather than starting from scratch. :pilot: BTW, one quick tip with those FS military bases. DO NOT include parking in the Alert Area (AKA: Christmas Tree) and its dedicated taxi way if you're modelling a base from the mid 1960's to 2000. Traffic in that Alert Area is very tightly controlled and backed up by guards with M-16s. You would never see civilian or even normal military traffic in that area.

So great, I've got taxi ways and Progressive Taxi doesn't send me out to a corn field. Then I notice what's missing- Comms. :rolleyes:

A quick check of the AFCAD manual tells me that all I need to add is a Tower (and Ground and ATIS, etc.). This part is easy in AFCAD, just go to Lists then Communication and add a Tower and all the other bits.

So, I'm figuring I'm almost done and try a test flight. Comms work but both the Tower and Ground refuse to say "Castle". Great. :p

Looking at the text display I figure out they WANT to say Castle, they just don't know how. So, its off to find voice files.

Searching at MAIW brings nothing, it turns out the word Castle is actually quite rare (in FS, for some reason). Another search brings me to https://adventure-unlimited.org/files/ . They have tons of voice files and most of them work in FS2002 and its version of Edit Voice Pack. I finally track down a file that says Castle- but its for an airline. :p Still, I'm close.

I try another search for KMER and hit pay dirt. :cool: I import the sound file into EDITVP and check it, it sounds fine so I update EVP then save it.

One more try. I added an ATIS for KMER even though I really didn't want it. Tower and Ground still refuse to say Castle but ATIS has no problem with it. OK, now, what the.....?

I check the comms listing in AFCAD again. I did everything by the book so the comms look something like:

Tower CASTLE

Ground CASTLE

Atis KMER

Hmmm... The manual says this is right but FS doesn't seem to have an airport voice for Castle even though ATIS is working fine.

Time for another experiment. If this doesn't work I can always try hex editing a CASTLE voice file.

So, I open the Comms list again and change it to:

Tower KMER

Ground KMER

Atis KMER

:cool:

Ta daa! It worked.

:pilot: