RAF Banff/Dallachy scenery?
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Thread: RAF Banff/Dallachy scenery?

  1. #1

    RAF Banff/Dallachy scenery?

    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?

    Best regards
    Jens-Ole
    Repainting since FS5..

  2. #2
    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.

  3. #3
    Member IanHenry's Avatar
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    Jens,
    as far as I'm aware, there is no scenery available for Dallachy and <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Banff</st1:city></st1lace> 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></o>

    There are books available:<o></o>
    <o></o>
    A Separate Little War by Andrew D Bird ISBN 1 904010 43 1 which is about the Banff Strike Wing.<o></o>
    <o></o>
    A SteepTurn to the Stars by Jim Hughes ISBN 1 870384 71 7 which is a history of aviation in the <st1lace w:st="on">Moray Firth</st1lace>.<o></o>
    <o></o>
    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></o>
    <o></o>
    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></o>
    <o></o>
    Unfortunately little remains of Dallachy and <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Banff</st1:city></st1lace>,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 <st1lace w:st="on"><st1lacetype w:st="on">village</st1lacetype> of <st1lacename w:st="on">Lower Dallachy</st1lacename></st1lace>, 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></o>
    <o></o>
    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
    Attachment 78251

    Regards,
    Ian.

  4. #4
    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.

    Best regards
    Jens-Ole
    Repainting since FS5..

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by William Njurmi View Post
    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.

  6. #6
    Member IanHenry's Avatar
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    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.

  7. #7
    Yes, RAF Oban seems to have disappeared from the usual download places. Got to back up the one installed.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by William Njurmi View Post
    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?

  9. #9
    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.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Stan V. View Post
    Have you tried contacting Jim Dhaenens via email?
    Nope. I have it installed, I was just trying to help the Mosquito man.

  11. #11
    don't think any are from Scotland but a great source of WWII bases for FSX is

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

  12. #12
    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

  13. #13
    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)

    Best regards
    Jens-Ole
    Repainting since FS5..

  14. #14
    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.
    Attachment 78345 Attachment 78346 Attachment 78347

    http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloa...onsay-scenery/

    and patch

    http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloa...elevation-fix/

    HTH

  15. #15

    If you build it they will come!

    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



    RAF Dallachy - X6DL





    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

  16. #16
    Have you looked at airfieldinformationexchange.org?

    Ttfn

    Pete

  17. #17
    Member IanHenry's Avatar
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    RAF Banff (of Boyndie as the airfield was called) has a visitor centre:
    http://www.dtascommunityownership.or...%80%99s-centre

    Regards,
    Ian.

  18. #18
    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.
















    Best regards
    Jens-Ole
    Repainting since FS5..

  19. #19
    Member IanHenry's Avatar
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    There looking great Jens, looking forward to them.

    Regards,
    Ian.

  20. #20
    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.

    Best regards
    Jens-Ole
    Repainting since FS5..

  21. #21
    Member IanHenry's Avatar
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    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.

  22. #22
    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!



    Al

  23. #23
    The Dallachy scenery looks superb! From the pictures I have seen it is spot on regarding the layout.


    Thank you!

    Best regards
    Jens-Ole
    Repainting since FS5..

  24. #24
    Member IanHenry's Avatar
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    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

  25. #25
    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.

    Best regards
    Jens-Ole
    Repainting since FS5..

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