Slowly but surely...Ellington Field

[thetford569]

Hey guys! I don't even know if I should post this or these images because it's taken me almost a year to get this far. Family life, work, and all sorts of other hobbies and pleasure have gotten in the way of the work I started on this project and they will continue to do so! Anyway here are a few shots of a scenery I am working on for KEFD - Ellington Field in Houston, TX. This is my second big scenery project after my Alliance Airport project a couple of years ago. I don't know how the big freeware designers do it....ya'll are amazing!!! There's not enough time! I began working on the "military" part of the airfield first because it seemed the most difficult and the one I had the least amount of research photos for. I have definitely taken some liberties here using aerial photos and parts of other buildings to construct some of these. With no access to this part of the airfield I wasn't able to get good research photos so hopefully my future models will be closer to 100% accurate. These are definitely not but they do the job well. I'm continuing work on this slowly but surely and I have no idea when it will be finished. I just thought it would be a good time to throw it out there that this airfield is being worked on. I hope you like what you see so far! These screenshots are from Prepar3D 2.3 however the scenery is compatible with and will work in FSX. I am testing it in both simulators as I build. Thanks!


Brandon Thetford

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[trucker17]

Looking good....

[CG_1976]

Will you be putting in the CGAS that resides there?? Then I can fly routes and pitch's between Jim's Corpus CGAS your Ellington and Art's Mobile CGAS and Opa Locka CGAS??

[MCDesigns]

Sweet! Driven by there many times on the way to Galveston, nice work!

Yep, 3D modeling can take a fair amount of time. Good job on the photoreal

[ColoKent]

Will the NASA ramp be modeled?

Kent

[delta_lima]

Will the NASA ramp be modeled?

Kent

What he said ...

Looks great!

dl

[falcon409]

Great job Brandon. I have thought many times about doing NAS Ft Worth, but like you, reference material for Military bases is difficult to get at best. I wish now that I had taken a ton of photos while I was stationed there, but I wasn't interested in scenery design back then, lol. If I tried now I'd be face down on the tarmac with an M-16 pointed at me, lol.

Great work though and an amazing job on the specific buildings despite your lack of reference photos.:applause:

[Dimus]

Wonderful job there! You seem to also have a very good ground image to work on.

Yes, I know how it is with available time. This is why I recently opted for smaller fields and I never start anything unless I have all or most of the info I need. I hate to have projects left unfinished.

It is also very important to define where you will end adding details or their extent. One can never finish adding stuff, especially if info is found after you start. Try to define your target and keep at as it. It really looks very promising!:encouragement:

[b24_witchcraft]

Very nice work and excellent choice. :)
Look forward to downloading this since the Korean War and Vietnam War jet aircraft and helicopter part of the Collings Foundation's collection is there.

[Bomber_12th]

The scenery is looking great!!

I have a personal interest in that airport, as it is one with a big warbird presence. It is the home location of the Texas Flying Legends, one of the world class collections of airworthy WWII aircraft, which continues to expand each year - featuring an award-winning B-25, an original Zero, two P-51D's, a P-40E, an award-winning P-40K, an award-winning FG-1D, an FM-2, an award-winning Avenger, an award-winning L-5, an award-winning Harvard, and a C-53, as well as a P-51C, razorback P-47D, a P-38L, and two Bearcats, all of which are under restoration or pending restoration and will be future award-winners. It is also the base of the Collings Foundation jet and helicopter collection, which includes their F-4 Phantom, A-4 Skyhawk, F-105 Thunderchief, Me-262, and Huey. The Lone Star Flight Museum has also been working on moving their collection from Galveston over to Ellington.

Edit: Witchcraft's post also mentions about the Collings Foundation connection.

[thetford569]

Thanks everyone! I haven't checked on this thread since I posted and I haven't worked on anything new with the scenery either! Lol...like I said it may be 2016 before it's finished! I hope not though. I know what I want to do with it....it's just finding the time and I am having fun right now flying with P3D instead of tinkering with stuff. I'm trying to do an even amount of everything as I tend to get bored if I don't change it up. Anyway as for the scenery I do plan on both the CGAS and NASA areas. I have really good reference photos of the Coast Guard hangar and the areas between there and the NASA ramp. Some of the NASA buildings I don't have good photos of so it will take some "artistic license" to get it right. But that's what I have been doing with the Air Force and Army ramps so hopefully it will turn out ok.

I have NAS Ft Worth planned as a future project and I have some reference materials for it with more coming hopefully soon. My goal would be to finish Ellington and move on to that next....we shall see! Once I get all these buildings modeled it should move quicker! Thanks again for the kind words and I'm looking forward to getting everyone flying in this one!

Brandon