Enniskillen St. Angelo - EGAB

[IanP]

Not a WW2 base this time, unfortunately (well, it was, but there's a story behind that which I'm not getting involved in right now), but a modern-day GA airport which has been pretty much overlooked in FSX.

Enniskillen St. Angelo airport is situated in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, close to the border and right on the shore of the very picturesque and far from small Lower Lough Erne. Unfortunately, in FSX default scenery, it isn't. Well. It's close to the border, right enough, but Lower Lough Erne - or indeed any water at all - is totally absent and Enniskillen Airport is a runway and a little fuel pump. After visiting the real airport last year and spending an hour splashing a Maule M-7 amphibian on and off Lower Lough Erne, I decided to do something about that.

What I've uploaded right now is not the end of the project - it's the beginning. Lower Lough Erne has been reproduced based on everything from very high level satellite imagery, through old CAA charts to road maps (which was blooming hard work to say the least) and I've recreated the airport using default objects and techniques, placed in ADE9x using an aerial photo of the airport before redevelopment.

That aerial photo will become photoscenery at the next stage - it actually already has but I haven't included it here for a variety of reasons - and if we get to revisit Enniskillen with cameras later this year as we hope, I intend all the buildings to become custom and accurate as well.

Seeing as the area is so badly represented in the default scenery, though, I thought I'd post this for anyone who wants it. Right now, it's only available from my site, but I'll upload it to Avsim at some point, too. I have no idea how long it'll take me to do the "proper" version!!! :d

Link: http://www.ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk/modern/egab/IJP_EGAB_vP01.zip

Screenshots:
Before...
11900

...and after!
11901

Enjoy or ignore, as per usual. Comments and criticisms welcome here, by e-mail or on Nick's forum... Abuse probably best sent by e-mail. ;)

Hopefully it's of use to someone! :salute::wavey:

[RyDraiggoch]

Thank you Ian

My father flew PBY's from Castle Archedale and I visited both St Angelo and Loch Erne about ten years ago. I have been messing about with a WW2 version for Fs9 including scenery for Castle
Archedale at Killadees for some time.

Would you mind if we offered it over at www.classicbritishfiles.com (http://www.classicbritishfiles.com)???


Leif

[IanP]

Not at all - go ahead.

One of my water landings was at Castle Archdale, which was kind of fitting. I was just wondering what would be involved in putting it into the sim myself a couple of hours ago, but haven't investigated at all, yet.

You may be interested to know that it appears Ken Delve's Miltary Airfields of Britain - Scotland and Northern Ireland, the final book in the series, was supposedly released at the end of last month. That's according to Amazon, who then say they have none in stock.

I'll pop into Geek Central (the Ian Allen bookstore) in Brum tomorrow and see if they have it. I was looking at putting Enniskillen back to WW2 in FSX, after, before or during my other work on the site, depending on how much info is in the S&NI book. Wonder if it's possible to combine resources on that? ADE9x will certainly compile to both, but whether a file created in FSX can be opened in ADE9x for FS9, I don't know.

Cheers,

Ian P.

[RyDraiggoch]

Thank you Ian it will be up at "The Pond" shortly

If you are interested in having a bash at Castle Archedale in FSX I have three CDs of
photogrpahs both old and new of the site - including some shots of the huge 3 bay belfast hangar
that was built for the Short Shetland

if you would like them your more than welcome


Leif

[IanP]

Thanks Leif,

Let me crack on with Enniskillen first, as someone else is already chasing me for something I've said I'll build for them as well, but I'll get back to you as soon as I'm in a position to look at doing anything else.

I've uploaded this scenery to Avsim as well, now, by the way. It should hopefully be approved and available before too much longer, depending on how busy they are.

Ian P.

[kilo delta]

Thanks for this scenery,Ian........always grateful to receive any Irish FSX addons.:)

[michael davies]

Thats a marked difference !, only went to Ireland once, on a training course, and the one thing that really struck me during descent into Kerry County airport (Farranfore) was how darned green it was !. I've been to a fair few places in the world but no where is as green as County Kerry.

I wonder what default Farranfore looks like ?, I often fly the other training course short hop I did (Stanstead - Amsterdam ), never enough time spare for the Heathrow - A-Coruna (now thats one scary place to land) crane building flights, might relive that old Irish trip now that you've jogged the old grey cells Ian :salute:.

Kindest

Michael

[IanP]

Kerry was actually better than I was expecting, Michael - I just nipped over there from Cork in the Aerosoft Cheyenne.

Comparing Google Earth to what FSX has, it looks reasonably close, although the fuel bay is on the grass in the sim and there are no gates to park the real-world Ryanair B737NGs at. There is a single Ramp GA Large that would suffice, if you could sweet talk a B737 into using it, though.

Cheers,

Ian P.

[myles]

Just to say thanks for St Angelo, Ian. It should sit well with Terry Shield's Ards Airfield and was very overdue.

Keep up the good work! :salute:

Myles

[Cactuskid]

Thanks for another great add-on Ian! This is a great starting point for a hop over the border and a flight around Donegal Bay... :applause:

[IanP]

Thanks folks.

Just out of interest, I communicated with Crowood Press, who publish Ken Delve's Military Airfields of Britain books, and the date on Amazon is just another attempt to rack up the pre-orders. The book is actually due out in August or September. Hmm.

I'm waiting for my FSPaxX pilot to get as high as twins, then will probably start flying around Ireland to rack up some hours as a break from the Orbx PNW area. I've also got the phototexture into the sim for Enniskillen now, but will probably stop at that point until I have photos of the real buildings.

Cheers,

Ian P.

[CodyValkyrie]

Ian, a VERY good friend of mine lived in Enniskillen and died there not long ago of cancer. I'll tell you the story sometime... you may be VERY interested to hear not only about this person, but their connection in a VERY BIG way to Enniskillen.

I'll admit, you posting this weirded me out a bit. Thanks for sharing mate.