RAF Middle Wallop

[paulb]

And here's what Hornchurch looks like this evening.

I'm undecided about what to do with the runway extensions over the peri track for the No.2 and No.3 runways (12/30 and 10/24 on period plans). They weren't there in the Battle of Britain, which is when I'm sort of aiming this at, but then I'm not sure how much of the extension beyond runway No.1 (02/20) was there either and I've included all of that. It *looks* like it is there on the early war overhead photo I have in a book, but it's kinda blurred and hard to tell.

I'm tempted to leave it like this. Anyone else got any suggestions or comments?

Whatever the heck "Hangars: Civilian x2" is meant to be, they're not there on any of the information posted above, so they ain't going on!


Cheers,

Ian P.

Hi Ian

I have a few books on airfields. I will look at them later today and post what info I can find.

Cheers

Paul

[IanP]

Thanks Paul. I have lots of later-war information now, but very little early war. Interestingly, there's a picture in Ken Delve's Military Airfields of Britain (Northern Home Counties) that shows Hornchurch's E-W runways constrained within the peri track, but says that the area to the West is "Housing Development". Unfortunately there's no date for that. I'm presuming post-war, but that's just a guess.

W. Bleddyn: I had a very similar problem with the Bellman hangars at Halfpenny Green, which was caused by a layering issue and a duplicated library. I had placed my "Ted Andrews" directory right at the bottom of my airfields list, just above the default Addon Scenery folder in scenery.cfg, and in one of the other folders was a duplicate copy of the hangars library bgl file (or possibly the FS9 version of it, I can't remember). The duplicated library, however, only had the textures in the associated texture folder for the hangars they had used in their scenery - the T.2 and B.1.

Because FSX was seeing that library first, it was loading the Bellman hangars from the library with no textures and they were showing black. When I disabled the duplicate (I think I deleted it in the end, I can't find it now), the Bellmans started displaying fine.

Can you do a search on your FSX scenery directories for "rafhangar*.bgl" please? I may be wrong, but I think Mr. Andrews has used the same GUID for the FS9 and FSX compilations of the same hangars, so the FS9 library (which I think is called RAFHangarsLib.bgl) will overwrite the FSX versions (RAFHangarsLibFSX.bgl) if that is the case.

The other - simpler - option to check if this is the same issue is to place your Ted Andrews folder at position 1 in the scenery library (or position 2 if you are using AES, which whines otherwise...) and seeing whether they load then. If they do, then you have a duplicated library problem again somewhere.

Edited to add: One other thing that may help anyone who uses two or more of my sceneries is that there's no reason at all you can't just grab all the scenery folders, all the texture folders and chuck them in one place. Cleans up scenery.cfg a lot and reduces the risk of a clash. Nick C uses "Ian's Stuff" I think, but you can just as easily chuck it into a single airfield folder. It'll work just as well all in "IJP_X2HN" as it will in anything else. The only reason I separate them all out in the install zips is so that people can pick and choose which ones they install or remove at will.

Hope that helps.

Ian P.

[W. Bleddyn]

I actually got it sorted in the end. I have this modern Duxford installed as well and it uses a bunch of Ted Andrews stuff. I had totally forgotten about that. Strangely putting the libraries I got from your site below the set I was using for Duxford in my scenery list fixed the problem I was having with Middle Wallop. Made no sense to me but I won't complain.

[paulb]

Hi Ian<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
<o></o>
Ok, so here is what I have found so far –<o></o>
<o></o>
“No runways existed at Hornchurch, the grass aerodrome allowing for a 1,200 yard run from N to S ; 1,130 yards from NE to SW and 830 yards from E to W. A perimeter track 18 feet wide circled the landing area and covered accommodation was provided by three C-type hangars. Petrol storage amounted to 72,000 gallons and 4,000 gallons of oil. One and a half million rounds of .303 ammunition were available from stores.<o></o>
Flying obstructions were created by a factory chimney 100 ft high on the North-Eastern boundary and the nearby <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">London</st1lace></st1:City> balloon barrage. Ford’s car factory with three chimneys lay three miles to the south.” <o></o>
Attached is a picture taken in April 1941 looking North.<o></o>
Source – The <st1:City w:st="on">Battle</st1:City> of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Britain</st1lace></st1:country-region> Then and Now - Winston Ramsey <o></o>
<o></o>
Covering the 20’s “Two metal A Type sheds were erected in an arc, having central space for a third, which, in the mid-1930s was a Type-C (225 feet long) Aircraft Shed, steel-framed, brick walled and featuring a wood and metal serrated-type roof.”<o></o>
“By the end of August 1940 the stations building had been camouflaged.”<o></o>
“HM King George VI visited the airfield on June 27 1940. The King was visiting a rather small grass aerodrome encircled with a 18 foot perimeter track. A few ground defence pillboxes were situated at strategic points, and four bofors guns were ready to ward off the Luftwaffe”<o></o>
1941 - “A 4.5 inch anti-aircraft battery positoned to the west of the airfield was backed with eight bofors guns”.<o></o>
“By mid 1941 Sutton’s Farm had become part of the aerodrome and was accommodating additional Spitfire dispersal”<o></o>
Attached is a picture of Spitfires in a revertment May 1941<o></o>
Source – Action Stations Revisited – Michael Bowyer<o></o>
<o></o>
Hope this is of some use! I will keep looking.<o></o>
<o></o>
Cheers<o></o>
<o></o>
Paul<o></o>

[IanP]

Thanks Paul.

Neither of the photos show the extensions to the west, which are presumably Sutton's Farm, as the road is still clearly open and hedge lined in April 1941. Therefore I'll leave it as is. The northern extension shouldn't be there either, by the look of it, so I've managed a mix-and-match air station sorry!

If anyone objects too much, I'll take the Northern extension off.

Concrete is now laid and 40 parking spots have been set down. I need to whiz round with a longer tailed aircraft (the RAS Mk.XIV in this case) to make sure the tails don't vanish into any grass covered protective berms, then I'll create a new thread for it once it's zipped up.

Unfortunately, it'll mean downloading my objects library again (also not yet updated) as the "E" dispersal pen is new.

Ian P.

[SADT]

Hi Ian,

Does that mean we can combine all of our object libraries into into one folder - so I could put your libraries, ted andrews libraries and Bill Womack's libraries into one folder? Could I also put all your scenery into one folder? :salute:

[IanP]

Theoretically yes.

As I said, it will just make it more difficult to get rid of anything you don't want, later.

You will need to ensure that any altitude adjustment files still go in [FSX]\scenery\world\scenery though - those can't go in the same place as the "main" scenery and library files.

The danger with putting the object libraries in is that if anyone else installs the same object libraries, you won't know you already have them and will end up with the same issue that W. Bleddyn had earlier.

Still fighting with an 'E' Fighter Pen and Gmax at the moment for Hornchurch... I broke it while trying to be clever and have had to remake it from scratch.

Ian P.

[huub vink]

Although Hornchurch is mentioned more in this, I wanted to thank you for RAF Middle Wallop!

Thanks Ian!

Huub

[W. Bleddyn]

Looking forward to it Ian!

I just wish I could make AI come and take advantage of your airfields. RealAir's West Malling has the later Spits of course and I reinstalled the FCS Wellington and Hurricane for the 4 fields that they add. I need to learn to edit their AI files to make the planes touch and go at your creations. :salute:

[IanP]

I just put a load of JustFlight Spits at Hornchurch and they didn't work as AI.

I'll try the WoP2 Spit at some point, but I've already established that the WoP2 Bf109E just takes off and flies straight ahead, never turning. That's the same thing that the JF Spits do. Very odd.

Anyway. New thread going up...

Ian P.

[SADT]

Ian please do try the WOP2 spit! I would love to see a squadron of virtual spitfires at your airfields!

It is a very framerate friendly model, so I am sure it would not tax peoples sysytems too much!

[IanP]

Actually, thinking back, I already know that the WoP2 Spitfire doesn't work.

The reason is quite simple... It has a LOD. A little black box. As soon as you move more than a hundred yards or so away from the aircraft it becomes said little black box and that's it.

The FCS Hurricane add-on includes an AI Hurricane? That's an FS9 model, though, so has all the problems inherent with such a model.

Ian P.

[flyer01]

W. Bleddyn: Nope. No use at all.


flyer01: Not that I'm at all biased, but... http://www.ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk/node/73 maybe?:salute: :d

I use my own version of Friston as my home base most of the time, but have yet to visit it in the Accu-Sim Spit. All my flight hours in that so far (about two of them?) have been checking out Middle Wallop or Hornchurch.

Thanks all.

Ian P.

Made a visit in the Spitfire to Q1CF from EGFN to say hello.

Attachment 29953


flyer01:salute:

[W. Bleddyn]

Actually, thinking back, I already know that the WoP2 Spitfire doesn't work.

The reason is quite simple... It has a LOD. A little black box. As soon as you move more than a hundred yards or so away from the aircraft it becomes said little black box and that's it.

The FCS Hurricane add-on includes an AI Hurricane? That's an FS9 model, though, so has all the problems inherent with such a model.

Ian P.

Yes, and I found both it and the AI Wellington (which can be downloaded from flightsim.com if you have the add-on) have issues with the textures disappearing when you get a short distance away from them when viewed from the VC, although if I was looking at my plane external any AI in view seemed fine.

The Airfields with the Hurri also have an issue with transparency. Objects behind trees disappear as well as objects seen through the windows of AI vehicles.

I wanted the Wellingtons in there because they take off at 22:00 every night for a "raid" over Germany. I thought it would be fun to "escort" them as far as I can

This is RAF Kenley, buildings look a bit dated but better then default, as do the Hurricanes but they are alright for AI. At the top, just left of center you can see how a tree is blocking out the building behind.

[lucas81]

Better late than never... Ian, I would like to thank you very much for this great scenery and for your hard work with the scenery library objects. I have created separate folder in my Addon Scenery just for your beautiful addons. They look great!

Lucas