RAF Banff/Dallachy scenery? [Archive]

JensOle

January 2nd, 2013, 04:01

With Mr. Garwoods superb Mosquito hitting the FSX scene I found muself reading up on Coastal Command operations against German shipping on the Norwegian coast during the war (well, I'm hopping to see a FB.VI... ). Very interesting reading about the Banff and Dallachy strike wings flying Beaufighters and Mosquitos, often with Norwegian pathfinders or "outriders" in Mossies from No. 333 Sqn. Sad reading as well to see the heavy losses these units had during the closing months of the war going after German shipping in Norwegian fjords.

So I went searching for a decent Beaufighter for FSX and to my suprise I found out that Garwood had even made this aircraft a few years back. The Beaufighter package contains a nice sellection of both night and strike fighters with the possibility to change the addon stuff like nose radar, gunner and tail leading edge extension from entries in the aircraft.cfg file.

I'm currently researching and painting No. 144 Sqn RAF schemes from the early 1945 time frame, when the squadron was based at Dallachy.

My question to the SoH crowd is; do we have any scenery of the old coastal command bases up in Scotland for FSX?

William Njurmi

January 2nd, 2013, 04:15

IanHenry

January 2nd, 2013, 05:39

Jens,
as far as I'm aware, there is no scenery available for Dallachy and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Banff</st1:city></st1:place> airdromes (I’ve looked for it myself), although the remains of them are clearly visible if you have the Playsims Northern Scotland scenery (Vol 6) installed.<o:p></o:p>
There are books available:<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
A Separate Little War by Andrew D Bird ISBN 1 904010 43 1 which is about the Banff Strike Wing.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
A SteepTurn to the Stars by Jim Hughes ISBN 1 870384 71 7 which is a history of aviation in the <st1:place w:st="on">Moray Firth</st1:place>.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
There’s also a book called “Strike & Strike Again” that has been out of print for many years, I don’t know who the author is, it’s about the Dallachy StrikeWing, and I’ve been looking for a copy for the last 10 years with no success.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
I can recommend Andrew Bird’s book, it’s a very good insight into life on a wartime RAF station in the North of Scotland during an extremely cold winter.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Unfortunately little remains of Dallachy and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Banff</st1:city></st1:place>,and what there is, are disappearing fast, Dallachy is being filled with industrial units, although the road through it is the airfield perimeter road and you can still see the aircraft hard standings. The control tower still remains, it’s in the middle of a farmer’s field, and there is a particularly well maintained memorial in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">village</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Lower Dallachy</st1:placename></st1:place>, which always has a fine display of fresh flowers (I can only assume the residents ofthe few houses opposite put those on). The airfield always has a ghostly atmospheret o me.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Verylittle remains of RAF Banff, most of it seems to be taken up with a lorry trailer park & a go cart track, but there is a visitor centre there and a memorial off the main road.

Dallachy airdrome
78251

Regards,
Ian.

JensOle

January 2nd, 2013, 06:01

Thanks for the information! Do you know of any other FSX scenery of RAF ww2 airfields in Scotland/North England?

I have been to amazon and ordered a few books :) The IWM ww2 picture collection also have a rather good selection of Dallachy Beaufighter pictures.

I'm working on NE164 PL-T of No. 144 Sqn and NE831 PL-O (belly landed back at Dallachy after the disasterous "Flack Friday mission) is probably also coming.

Stan V.

January 2nd, 2013, 07:08

There is one base for Catalinas in Scotland, called something like "Degor". I could not find from flightsim.com or avsim or from myself ( I got it installed though). And then there is sub-hunting missions for Catalina (search word Catalina), but I suppose a Mossie could do them as well as a recon mission.

The file you mention was called RAFOban.zip and it was posted by its author Jim Dhaenens (jdhaenens@sbcglobal.net). I think I got it originally at AVSim but I was unable to find it again when I looked.

IanHenry

January 2nd, 2013, 07:14

Jens,
I think the only airfields in the area are the ones in the excellent ScotFlight and Scotflight RAF Collection, Lossiemouth and Kinloss, both of which are modern. Over the years there have been many airfields in the ares, Lossiemouth is only 10-15 miles from Dallachy and Kinloss about 10 miles from Lossie. Kinloss is still there, but it was recently closed when the Nimrod fleet was scraped, and Lossie flys Tornado Gr4's. Sorry I can't be of more help, but I don't think the older airfields of Scotland have been very well catered for.

Regards,
Ian.

William Njurmi

January 2nd, 2013, 08:57

Yes, RAF Oban seems to have disappeared from the usual download places. Got to back up the one installed.

Stan V.

January 2nd, 2013, 09:21

Yes, RAF Oban seems to have disappeared from the usual download places. Got to back up the one installed.

Have you tried contacting Jim Dhaenens via email?

Sundog

January 2nd, 2013, 11:13

Just an FYI, Orbx has hinted that they will be making some WW2 airfields for their England release, but there hasn't been anything confirmed yet.

William Njurmi

January 3rd, 2013, 00:22

Have you tried contacting Jim Dhaenens via email?
Nope. I have it installed, I was just trying to help the Mosquito man.

norab

January 3rd, 2013, 02:11

don't think any are from Scotland but a great source of WWII bases for FSX is

http://www.ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk/node

Motormouse

January 3rd, 2013, 02:13

Jim Dhaenens RAF Oban seaplane base can be found at Surclaro.
Other WW2 fields are in Scotflight payware packages fs9/fsx , but brought up to date .

IIRC there were some covered by some cfs2 scenery which may or may not work in other versions of
Flight sim.

Ttfn

Pete

Just had a quick look, Banff was done for Cfs2

JensOle

January 3rd, 2013, 02:41

Hi,

Thanks for the help.

I have Oban as well, great place for the Catalina flights, but not very well suited for Beaufighter flying..

I have been checking out Ians sceneries, they are all from the south, but RAF Grimsby (closer to the coast, not far from RAF Binbrook) could work as a stand in for Dallachy since it is close to the North Sea (in striking distance of the Norwegian fjords...lol)

norab

January 4th, 2013, 09:22

took me a while to find it, fictional freeware but this might fill the bill nicely

RAF Stronsay. Presenting RAF Stronsay airfield. A real airfield but redesigned as it might have been used in WW II. This is located about 30 nm north of Scapa Flow, the site of the Royal Navy's ships in WW I and II. ICAO and navaid numbers are in the readme file. Wry humor is evident in a couple of places. Notice the items in the gate guard house, the outhouse and the military personel done by John dutton of Malta, who sadly passed away May, 2010. By Robert Lacy.

78345 78346 78347

http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/8890/fsx-raf-stronsay-scenery/

and patch

http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/11246/raf-stronsay-elevation-fix/

HTH

oldpropfan

January 5th, 2013, 19:02

Haven't done much airfield modding since the PNW started getting Orbx'ed so I thought I'd shake the rust off and see if I could remember how to use all those tools sitting idle on my desktop.

RAF Banff - X6BN

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/banff_1.jpg

RAF Dallachy - X6DL

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/dallachy_1.jpg

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/dallachy_2.jpg

Just a beginning and info seems to be hard to find. If anyone can point me to sites where I can access historical Ordanance Survey drawings of the airfield building layouts that would be great, if not I'll wing it. Any info on what kind of nav aids these fields might have had, an NDB or something to home in on to get home?

Give me a couple weeks as I hack at this here and there and we'll have some bases to fly from, historical accuracy not guaranteed.

Al

Motormouse

January 6th, 2013, 00:15

Have you looked at airfieldinformationexchange.org?

Ttfn

Pete

IanHenry

January 6th, 2013, 00:41

RAF Banff (of Boyndie as the airfield was called) has a visitor centre:
http://www.dtascommunityownership.org.uk/content/case-studies/boyndie-visitor%E2%80%99s-centre

Regards,
Ian.

JensOle

January 6th, 2013, 07:01

Great news! Thanks a lot for taking on this forgotten coastal Command airfield!

The Beaufighter repaints are coming along, and they sure are looking forward to land back home on Dallachy.... :) A lot of research has gone into trying to get the late war Beaufighter coastal command scheme as close to the real deal as possible; Extra dark sea grey-sky scheme, decals/stencils, weathering, rocket details, exhaust stains

144 Sqn early 1945: (the screenshots are a few days old and more details have been added).

PL-O was a surviver of the "Black friday" raid on 9 Feb. 1945 and belly landed with heavy damage back at Dallachy.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/JensOle/British/Scrshot2042.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/JensOle/British/Scrshot2142.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/JensOle/British/Scrshot1982.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/JensOle/British/Scrshot1922-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/JensOle/British/Scrshot2252-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/JensOle/British/Scrshot2242.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/JensOle/British/Scrshot2352.jpg

IanHenry

January 6th, 2013, 09:33

There looking great Jens, looking forward to them.

Regards,
Ian.

JensOle

January 13th, 2013, 02:18

Thanks!

I'll have paints for rest of Dallachys Strike Wing Beaufighter squadrons ready for the new scenery as well.

EO-Q1 from 404 Sqn RCAF (shot down during the "black friday raid 1945), P6-L1 from 489 Sqn RNZAF have already been finished. All Beaufighters from Dallachy with "1" after the code had the thimble ASV radar nose.

IanHenry

January 13th, 2013, 10:15

Looking forward to all the re paints and scenery. If you ever get the chance to go to the Dallachy Wing museum at Fochabers (if it’s still there, it’s housed in an old church in the centre of the village) there’s a Navigators seat with a hole blown in it from a cannon shell during Black Friday. It was recovered from the bottom of a fjord and reunited with it’s occupant who lent it to the museum. Looking at the hole, it’s difficult to understand how he escaped uninjured. You would at least have thought he would have ended up with a sore bum!

Regards,
Ian.

oldpropfan

January 14th, 2013, 19:37

Beautiful paints Jens, hope my attempt at recreating the field does them justice. Had a visit from my son, who has been working overseas, and the Norovirus this last week so FS work came to a standstill. Slowly back at it, here's a shot of the almost finished Dallachy, just need to add some trees and redo some apron work and it should be good to go. Then on to RAF Banff!

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/rafdallachy2.jpg

Al

JensOle

January 15th, 2013, 11:08

The Dallachy scenery looks superb! From the pictures I have seen it is spot on regarding the layout.

Thank you!

IanHenry

July 8th, 2013, 00:35

I was wondering if the Dallarchy and Boyndie (Banff) scenery was ever completed? It has been quite on this subject for a long time. As a matter of interest, the runways of both airfields are depicted on the new Orbx Scotland scenery, in far better condition than they currently are.

Regards,
Ian

JensOle

July 8th, 2013, 01:47

Hi,

On my part with the Beaufighter repaints, im slowly working through my "backlog" of prosjects to release them. I hope to have them ready this week.

oldpropfan

July 8th, 2013, 02:30

My apologies, redid the parking and made some other small changes, got it ready to upload then never actually did. Completely slipped my mind as I shifted over to RAF Banff. Will get it uploaded in the next day or two, in the meantime here is a shot over the final version.

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/Dallachy_zps8038b4f1.jpg

Any Beaufighter models out there suitable for AI ( frame rate friendly)? The base is bare looking without any parked aircraft.

Will put other projects aside and get Banff done also, sad that it's been 6 months and it's not out yet. I really need to learn to focus and get things done instead of trying to do a dozen things at once.

Al

IanHenry

July 8th, 2013, 02:41

JensOle

July 8th, 2013, 04:21

My apologies, redid the parking and made some other small changes, got it ready to upload then never actually did. Completely slipped my mind as I shifted over to RAF Banff. Will get it uploaded in the next day or two, in the meantime here is a shot over the final version.

Any Beaufighter models out there suitable for AI ( frame rate friendly)? The base is bare looking without any parked aircraft.

Will put other projects aside and get Banff done also, sad that it's been 6 months and it's not out yet. I really need to learn to focus and get things done instead of trying to do a dozen things at once.

Al

I know what you mean! Looks jolly good! I hope the Bofors crew have that he-111 in their sights...

Maybe you can test one of the old CFS2 beau models? Should be easier on the frames.

oldpropfan

July 9th, 2013, 02:08

Packaged and uploaded, hopefully I didn't forget anything in the file. Download and installation of the Ted Andrew's RAF Buildings libraries for FSX will be required. Thank you to Bill Womack for allowing use of his WWII Airfield Buildings library also.

Comments and critique welcome.

Now off to try to find a suitable AI or two.

Al

IanHenry

July 9th, 2013, 04:06

Many thanks for that, downloading as I type.

Regards,
Ian.

ZsoltB

January 21st, 2015, 12:27

I use FTX ORBX Global - LC - Vector
I installed RAF Dallachy
Unfortunately, there are conflicts

Any idea?

Zsolt

JensOle

January 21st, 2015, 13:18

Different terrain mesh, they are not compatible with each other. Call me crazy, but I uninstalled ORBX and kept Dallachy and Banff.. The scenery you need beside the airfield for the Beaufighter is the sea...hehe

oldpropfan

January 21st, 2015, 23:38

ZsoltB

January 22nd, 2015, 06:11

Zsolt, if you could post some pictures of the conflicts you are having I could try and see what I can do to fix some of them. Don't have Global, LC, or Vector by Orbx but if it's nothing too severe I'll see what I can cook up for you.

Al

Hi,

Good thoroughly looked around at the base
I have to say that everything is fine, except for the trees on the runway

http://i60.tinypic.com/2yxqerr.jpg

http://i61.tinypic.com/2uhs6k8.jpg

Zsolt

IanP

March 9th, 2016, 07:09

I know this is an over a year old thread, but if the problems were never resolved regarding the trees, the only answer is to place a landclass polygon to match the flatten/exclude of type "Grass Skirting 1". It's an easy fix, removing all the trees instantly (for Orbx, "grass" landclass is a golf course!!!)

Or there's an alternative one. I found this thread while creating my own version of Banff, which should be available shortly. It has the additional landclass poly already in place. ;)

Cheers,

Ian P.

JensOle

May 20th, 2016, 05:20

Al,
I’m having a problem with high power lines crossing over the RAF Banff scenery in P3D V3.1.

I’m running UT X Europe and The Banff scenery is on top of the scenery list. All other default scenery is excluded from the Banff scenery, but for some reason the power lines comes and cross the airfield.

Any advice?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/JensOle/Scrshot225.jpg~original

IanP

May 21st, 2016, 01:57

You need an "exclude utilities poly", JensOle... It has to intersect the power lines at some point along the poly and not entirely cover it, so a triangle cutting through the position of the power lines will usually dispose of them.

Anyone can add one using SBuilderX or ADE - just make sure that you compile it as a separate BGL file if you don't want to alter the base airfield and leave it in the same folder as the scenery bgls.

My Banff has been slightly delayed while I work on some additional stuff for it. It's becoming custom model city. :\

Ian P.

JensOle

May 21st, 2016, 02:26

Thanks, I finally manage to get rid of the power lines with an large exclude rectangle in ADE over the airfield and surrounding area. Strange that the smaller exclude file did not do the trick.

Are you working on Banff as well? Great to see these sort of forgotten Scottish airfields come to life in the sim! It would be great to have RAF Peterhead as well... The base for the Mustang squadrons which escorted the Banff and Dallachy wings :-)

Ian Warren

May 21st, 2016, 03:39

Very very typical conflict with elevations with ORBX, one little airfield I did in NZ make a flatten and when specific ridges appear simply put in autogen, one I thought of was creating a template from the aerial screen and rebuild it as photo then recompile it then you then add default FSX autogen, it dose work ... maybe worth a go, also be a good for other historical WWII airfields :encouragement:

The then new scenery is nicely populated with shrub style around the boundary, the time consuming part is doing the arty farty with the photo material drawing in road and bits and pieces... I don't have the Geo-photo placement program, I have done the art work after get the general layout..... It really works well, course with adding default autogen rather library objects .. they come in with the current scenery.

IanP

May 22nd, 2016, 02:51

And you have to create textures to work with each season, Ian... Northern Scotland does not remain pretty much the same colour all year round, unlike much of the southern UK.

JensOle: The only reason an exclude utilities (or exclude all) wouldn't work was it it didn't intersect the linear object, horizontally or vertically. You might want to check that you haven't set it to 0 feet AMSL. :) The other option is that they are placed models and not a linear asset, in which case the exclude rectangle will be the only way to get rid of them. I know I got rid of them using an exclude triangle, though, with Orbx SCO and Global.

My version of Banff is being done off the Aerodrome Reference Plan that I discovered in a book on a sale table at Ian Allen Bookstore in Birmingham and I'm making loads of custom models, which unfortunately won't apply to Peterhead. I will look at what's available that I can use to do the Mustang paddock, though - it does need doing, as we already have Banff and Dallachy for the Beaus and Mossies!

Ian P.

JensOle

May 22nd, 2016, 06:10

Good stuff !I read in one of the Banff books that it was build on a sloping elevated ridge and that very few sections of the airfield actually was level..

I have already made several 19 and 65 Sqn Mustang paints for their period at Peterhead, so they just need a home!

IanP

May 24th, 2016, 00:28

It's an unfortunate feature of the real world that nothing is ever flat... The Scottish Highlands, however, are particularly not! :)

For Banff, I've blended the aerodrome site in as best as I can with the surrounding scenery, which does unfortunately have the effect of "flattening" the immediate area around the Aerodrome Site itself. As I would like it to be usable with AI, however, this is an unavoidable compromise.

Once I've modelled a handful of 30' Nissen combinations, to go with all the Handcraft and 24' Nissens I've been battling with recently, I'll post some screenies on another thread.

Ian P.