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Post by Al on Nov 11, 2015 11:16:38 GMT -5
Looking really good Ken.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2015 3:40:24 GMT -5
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Post by Erik on Nov 15, 2015 17:45:45 GMT -5
Interesting project! Some time ago as I was buzzing around in the CV340 I "back-backdated" Wolfgang and Tom's EGLL 1961 to about 1954 (and EBBR as well, for that matter). It's all no permission asked, decompile-edit-recompile work so definitely not something to share but I too came across the parking on the northern runway (eastern part). Thought it was the standard before the central area came into full use and got it to work. This view is from the junction of 33R overlooking 10L. Some wingspan restrictions apply but even B377s are accomodated there. Of the latter situation there are photos, as well as two-row opposite parking there - albeit not the combination of both. Google Earth has a 1945 Heatrow photo showing the placement of many runways, and I think I found quite some info on PPrune as well (mentioned earlier in this thread). I think those generally confirmed the placement used for the CC scenery - obviously! Erik
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2015 4:40:50 GMT -5
Hello Erik, Many thanks for this. A 1945 photo would show the three original runways, one of which was not used after 1949 because of building in the central area; a replacement was built further west and became 15R/33L. The parking on the eastern part of 28R apparently began as a temporary expedient in 1954 (see earlier posts in this thread) and naturally 28R was then closed to landings. Unfortunately an attempt to replicate this has failed because although the runway has been closed for landing in Afcad ATC continues to land them there, and they land in the middle of the parked aircraft. If you were able to prevent this I would be very interested to know how you did it. Should you be sufficiently interested I would be happy to send you a beta if you would care to message me your e-mail address, Ken
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Post by Tom/CalClassic on Nov 16, 2015 9:24:39 GMT -5
Hi,
You must close BOTH ends for landing and remove the start locations from that runway. Even so FS might still use the runway in certain circumstances, especially if there is no parallel runway.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2015 11:09:28 GMT -5
Many thanks, Tom, but in that case it comes at too high a cost, especially as runway parking was not something they did all the time and many users (assuming there are any) would quite likely not want it. I now attach my attempt at a very old hangar indeed, the one built by Fairey c.1930 which was not demolished until the early 1960s, by which time it was something of an eyesore. There are photographs of it taken from the south in the 1930s but there was quite a breakthrough when I found on Flickr yesterday evening a colour photograph taken from the north in 1957. This shows that the hangar ends were then a lightish green. I would post it except that it has a copyright statement on it, but try the link below. I may have another go at the shabby concrete of the two small accessory buildings, which is not as close to the original as I would like. Of all the airport buildings this is ironically the most important in that it is the one most people will see first and also most often. www.flickr.com/photos/caz_pix/18332866599/in/photolist-tW1JwT-eehdU6-5R63m-6kkkrP-6kkjEc-7A2Mru-7MwRBM-7MAQwY
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Post by Erik on Nov 16, 2015 17:41:28 GMT -5
Hi Ken, Indeed I did as Tom says, and I closed several runways completely for flight ops that way: 05L/33R, 10L/28R, and 15L/33R. This does leave me with runways for all wind directions and the shortest is nearly 2300m/7500ft so no landings have to be made that produce awful sounds. This probably gives you more answers than a test, of which I am not sure I can do it reliably anyway... Meanwhile, great job on those buildings! Must be quite some hours of research and labour. Take care, Erik
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2015 2:31:44 GMT -5
Hi Erik, Many thanks for your help on the runways and general encouragement. For the reasons I gave in my reply to Tom I shall not proceed with runway parking, although users who have Afcad can, of course, do whatever they want. It is getting old photos which is the main problem. I have two which show the original terminal buildings from the east and west without giving a complete layout, and one of the main terminal building marked with the words 'London Airport' which shows about two thirds of the frontage but not all of it. The layout of the many prefabricated buildings is therefore what might be called Impressionist. On the other hand there are good photographic records of the Control Tower and associated parking and public viewing area, the BEA building, the BOAC hangars and now the Fairey Hangar, and my versions of those are reasonably accurate, allowing for a desire to simplify things to save frame rates. The building work itself is now reasonably quick as I have become more proficient with Sketchup. I am tempted to have a go at the Hunting Clan hangar too. I have one photo of it and want to replicate Hunting Clan's African safaris in the very fine Piper-Mackay Viscount (photo of the BEA Viscount above). However, as the hangar was built in the late 1950s this would not be historically accurate, so I would probably provide it as an option, Best wishes, Ken
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Post by Tom/CalClassic on Nov 17, 2015 9:56:42 GMT -5
Anything you want to build for the 1961 version is fine with me.
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Post by Defender on Nov 17, 2015 13:02:34 GMT -5
Ken,
Have you tried going through YouTube for building details? I saw one that seemed to show the old terminal as reddish brown, probably brick? It was a BOAC Strat taking off from 28R. The Hunting Clan hangar is on a 1952 Flight Global chart item described as "Comet hangar" so there in 1953. Also thinking some more about the 10L/28R restrictions, It seems very likely that it was because of the limited distance, about 350', between that runway and the extended parking area on the southern edge of the north taxiway opposite the old north terminal. That parking area appears in 1949 and may have been in use until the late 50's, or until the Oceanic Terminal was fully operational.
Time permitting I will see if it's possible to prevent AI operations in a way that matches the published restrictions. Maybe not, but some time ago I made copies for myself of comments made by Jim Vine (FSDeveloper site I think) on how FS deals with runway selection. Here it is,
APPROACHES
The pecking order is as follows where ILS gets the highest score and NDB gets the lowest score.
ILS (instrument landing system) <<<<<<======== Non-weather related GPS (Global Positioning System type approach) <<<<<<======== From here down are all weather related approaches RNAV (Area Navigation type approach) LOC (Localizer) LDA (Localizer Directional Aid) SDF (Simplified Directional Facility) LBOC (LOCALIZER_BACKCOURSE) VORDME (very high frequency omnidirectional range with Distance Measuring Equipment type approach) VOR (same as above without DME) NDBDME (nondirectional beacon with DME type approach) NDB (same as above without DME) RW (runway visual)
BUT ONLY PROVIDED THERE ARE APPROACH CODES
When a full ILS (LOC + GS + DME) is added to a runway it serves only one purpose. The purpose is for the User Airplane. Inside the User Airplane is a radio and instruments that lock on to the Localizer and GS (with option DME) so the User can fly these beams. That is the only thing the ILS does. It has nothing to do with any type approach and nothing to do with any type AI Plane. As long as the weather is VMC at the airport ATC will vector the user and AI plane to that runway for landing if the winds are conditioned correctly. However ATC says to use it as the visual runway because ATC does not see the runway as a ILS unless there is also an ILS approach code.
To summarize
1. Regardless of weather, User and AI Planes are told by ATC to use an ILS Approach if it exists in the approach code (with or without an actual ILS beam)
2. In good weather if no ILS exists in the approach code then ATC uses a hardcode in the .dll to get you and the AI plane to the runway
3. In bad weather (< 3nm vis) if no ILS exists in the approach code then ATC looks for another approach in the pecking order of the database but If there is no approach code in the database the AI flies the hardcoded .dll approach.
4. Using ADE, you can write a ILS approach code and ATC will use it, regardless of weather, even if a runway does not have ILS added to the runway
Since AFCAD cannot add approaches it sets the approach flag to FALSE. This means that FS falls back to the default approaches that are shipped with FS. ADE9X copies all the stock approaches into the bgl and sets that approach flag to TRUE. That tells FS to use the approaches in ADE9X plus any you add or edit and not the stock approaches in the default database.
FLIGHT PLANS
If you want AI planes to fly a ATC approach you have to set the FP to IFR. AI Planes on a VFR FP fly a downwind, base or straight in final based on the direction they are coming from.
RUNWAY SELECTION
Each runway and each runway end has a start location round symbol as seen with AFCAD. These start locations are used for many different things in the FS9 database including Flightplan arrivals for AI Traffic. A FP for the AI Plane is from a departure runway start location to an arrival runway start location. The FS9 default AIPlayer.dll and ATC.dll files always select and assign the closest runway start location for the arrival plane based on direct great circle route headings/winds/visibilty/type instrument runway/runway length/etc..
The closure runway box in the AFCAD runway properties was for FS2002 and left behind in FS2004.
In most cases when the runway has ILS code at one end ATC will favor the ILS approach code end over a non-ILS. Normally the weather engine picks up on the fact an ILS exists and ATC will not use the non-ILS end of the runway until winds exceed a higher value. That value of wind seems to be different per individual airport/runway.
Another consideration is that ATC favors the primary end of a runway more then the secondary end (primary gets a higher score). In FS we can find runways where the secondary end is listed first when that runway end should be used with normal winds. (30/12).
The above applies to both the User and the AI plane. FS uses a scoring system for runway selection. We try and increase the score over one end vs another by making the ends unequal in what the end of a runway offers. In my studies of the Kai Tak approach many users never want the secondary end (31) of 13 to be used. Impossible!! For each setting we make for the 31 end we can lower the score over the IGS 13 end. We close runway 31, remove start locations, delete the approach codes, etc. ATC will now always favor the IGS 13 runway even with high tail winds. Only when the wind exceeds 64 kts from the north does the Kai Tak runway 31 open as the active in clear weather.
Another problem is the wind. FS does not know what 0.0 wind speed is. When zero wind speed is set FS uses a very small amount of wind to force a runway to be the default. FS does not know what 0.0 wind means. The catch is FS likes to work in a clockwise direction from 0 to 180 and 180 to 360.Some airports will not use the high number runway end even when the 07/25 is reversed to 25/07. The clockwise very small amount of wind when we set FS to 0.0 wind speed will see 07 first in a semi circle. For every airport we can reverse the low to high runway number effectively there is another airport that will not work the same. It's trial and error to see if a runway honors what we want it to do.
Bill
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Post by johnl on Nov 17, 2015 14:36:34 GMT -5
There's some quite good footage of mid-1950s Heathrow (and aircraft) in the film "Out of the Clouds". Also a nice cameo from James Robertson Justice as a BOAC prop-era "Atlantic Baron".
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2015 16:22:03 GMT -5
Many thanks, Tom. Bill; I have used various sources, but of course can never be confident that I have found everything. Even so, I suspect that the amount of early film material is limited. I have 'Out of the Clouds' and, much more useful, the compilation DVD 'London Airport (Heathrow) 1949-1965'. The first film on this, from 1949, is available on You Tube but the others as far I know are not. 'In on the Beam' (1951) features the talk down procedure, and I suspect that the people who did this for Ealing Studios in 'Out of the Clouds' were professionals. I have also acquired the book which John recommended, Alan Gallop's 'Time Flies: Heathrow at 60'. On page 49 there is a photograph of a visit by Sir Frank Whittle in 1949. Behind him is a longish two-storey white terminal building with the words London Airport on it, so that was clearly a major building at that date, and my model of it (see above) gets reasonably close. I have read somewhere that the only brick building was the Control Tower and have seen nothing to contradict that. Thank you for your kind offer of help on the runways. I would certainly be grateful for anything you can do. Would you like a beta? One thing I would really like to know, and will find out before I release the scenery, is whether the central terminal was in use before the Queen opened it, and if so when it came into use. 'Out of the Clouds' has the date 1954 and I am sure now that the interiors were shot inside the new buildings, while there is a quick glimpse of what looks like a completed new control tower. It must all be in 'Flight' when I get round to looking. One quick question upon which I welcome comment from other simmers. When I use finely corrugated plates of the kind that were very common I get madly swirling patterns at certain angles. Does this happen on other people's systems too, and are there ways of minimizing it? Best wishes, Ken
Stop Press. In June 1954 Flight reported that the new passenger buildings were expected to come into use the following summer - 1955. On April 8th 1955 Flight reported that the new control tower and short-haul passenger handling building would come into use on April 17th. Excellent photograph of the exterior of the new building, ideal for those working on Heathrow 1961. Photographs of the interiors which make it extremely doubtful whether 'Out of the Clouds' was shot in them after all. If you are searching Flight, by the way, 'London Airport' will produce much more than 'Heathrow'.
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Post by Tom/CalClassic on Nov 17, 2015 20:15:30 GMT -5
Hi,
I don't understand what you mean by finely corrugated plates, sorry. I do get swirling patterns using some chain link fences.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2015 3:50:25 GMT -5
Hi Tom, I mean corrugated plates in which the vertical lines are narrow and close together. As many of the prefabricated buildings in the new airport are not corrugated (and nor is the large BEA building) there is no problem with them, and I have also made Nissen huts (there are two of them in the second screenshot) where the corrugation is wide and also no problem. Before making my own hangars I used library ones where the swirling was a major issue, and it can be seen on my BOAC hangars, but because they are a very dark blue it is masked. However the Hunting Clan hangars are a lightish grey and there the swirling is fairly bad. I have had these issues with FS scenery on various computers since about 2002 and it can be particularly noticeable with fences, as you say. The only solution may well be to give the Hunting Clan hangars plain walls, which from a distance will not look very different anyway, Ken
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Post by Al on Nov 18, 2015 10:29:44 GMT -5
Hi Ken, MIP Mapping quality has a great affect on the swirling you see at various angles on some building. If you drop it to 1 all the swirling disappears but the detail of the building also becomes unacceptable. If you move it up to 3 or higher detail comes back but so does the swirling. I have always run my MIP Mapping at 6 as a good trade off between the flickering and swirling and having could detail especially on land textures when looking down. Not sure what you can do except to not use patterns where vertical or Horizontal lines are to close together but I am no texture expert so may someone who is will comment.
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