Heathrow 1966 Work in Progress

[TobyV]

Hi Peter, interesting story (and nice car!) If my mental arithmetic serves me correctly, you would have been about 4 years older in 1964 than I am now. My question is: Will I be able to afford an XK (nearest modern day equivalent) in four years?

I have a feeling somewhere that there might be an API macro for such a car although I am not sure. Things much more complex than a "three box saloon" are quite hard to model with the very primitive tools I use. I am presently working on a Commer Spacevan

[Wolfgang]

Hi Toby,

is there any progress, or is it halted ?

Cheers
Wolfgang

[DaveB]

Wolfgang..

I was only thinking about you a few days ago while looking through my FS9 addons. Any plans to bring any of your work into FSX? I need an incentive and too much is being left behind in FS9 at the moment

ATB
DaveB

[TobyV]

I only have the chance to work on it when I visit the UK and I have time and the inclination as it's all on my old computer and nothing runs on my Windows 7 laptop! I have only been there three times this year so there might be more chance of getting it done on time and on budget by outsourcing to a certain major MoD contractor (purveyor of submarines and until not so long ago, planes that could find submarines)

All being well I should be heading home on Thursday so I'll take a look see where I got to. From memory, I added some more stuff last Christmas, but Terminals 2, 3 were not yet finished and the control tower and the queen's building not yet started. I've had a trickle of new photos and information so there might be a little more to go on, but we'll see. I also have a number of other little projects I'd like to get finished!

[TobyV]

So, ISP problems now resolved and having landed safely back in blighty, i was able to get on my old computer, take some screen shots and remember where I had got to (one year ago!). Last year I managed to add these:


Air India hangar - probably demolished to make way for T4


d'Albiac House (in the north of the central area - think this was used for freight / administration - believe it still stands today albeit somewhat modified in external appearance


The British Eagle hangars that were I believe demolished to make way for either the present bmi or Virgin hangar.


The Pan Am hangar - probably demolished to make way for T4


Speedbird House, former HQ of British Airways, demolished around 1999/2000

I haven't started working on the ground yet or all the little details (vehicles, fences, trees, sundries) that give it the feeling of detailand erality so at the moment it's all sittign on the default ground textures which are pretty bland.

[TobyV]

More progress:

Re worked the ground textures - the original Just Flight VFR scenery tiles, from 1999 back to 1967 within the vacinity of LHR at least! Mostly that involved removing the (present day) runway 27R extension, the cargo areas, Terminal 4, reworking the British airways maintenance base areas (removing TBC and the 747 hangars, reinstating the Wing hangar) and general mods and reversions to taxiways and the other runways which were still in existence (but even by then, probably not in use since some photos from 1965 onwards show parked aircraft on them):


At the same time, I've been reworking the AFCAD file to match the new textures and added the parking places at the gates of T2 and T3 (in those days Europa/Britannic building and Oceanic building!).

In terms of the buildings themselves, the maintenance areas are largely complete now. One obvious omission (due to insufficient photographs thus far) is Comet House:


Terminal 3 ("Oceanic building") is almost there now, just some connecting bridges and outbuildings for passengers being transferred to/from the aircraft by bus to add and some details such as blast deflectors, equipment on the roof and the gate numbers! Today I was mostly trying to get the gates to look right (yes, they really did dwarf the aircraft a bit, perhaps mine are a little tall, but not by much )

[TobyV]

One more, here i've tried to recreate a photo from airliners.net. it's not perfect and it's easy to see where things aren't quite spot on and where things have yet to be added (vehicles, blast deflectors, the plant or whatever it is on the roof of the building on the right) but it's not a bad shot for a lot of "reckoning" from old photos and bashing on the calculator to estimate sizes and dimensions of parts of the buildings:


http://www.airliners.net/photo/East-Afr ... 1058135/L/

[tonymadge]

It's looking like the Heathrow I remember when I was a kid

[TobyV]

I'm glad to hear it Tony! I'm trying to create something from around 17 years before I was born so I can go on are photos, video clips and the odd remnant that is or was still around when I've been there!

[Wolfgang]

Hi Toby,

nice to see it growing and to hear you are still working on Heathrow.
Do you use Maps2bgl, to place the airport and buildings ?
I mostly use this handy program to create an photoreal layer for construction
and placing runways buildings etc..
Later, after completition, i delete this layer.
With this method, I had no headache anymore by constructing, if the modern airport has still some of the old
builduings and structures present.

Hi DaveB,

sorry no plans at this moment and in the near future, to convert any of my FS9 airports into FSX.
The newest and biggest project, we worked on the last 2 years is "Central Europe 1961"
Screens can be seen here:
http://calclassic.proboards.com/index.c ... hread=3719
Beware, it's an long thread

But still for this project, which will hopefully come out in 2013, we do not plan within FSX.
For most of our users FSX is still not as performant then FS9 with all our Calclassic traffic
and AI planes.
Some of Tom's updated AI propliners are now Hi Quality models, derivated from his flyable with LOD's.
At the new Frankfurt ( included in CE61 ), as an example, I had to delete many "schnickschnack" items
to get the fps higher than 30 on some computers.
It's designed for usability on some years older mid class systems.

Maybe in future I will take an deeper look into this Lockheed/Martin P3D Sim......we will see.

Cheers
Wolfgang