Retro Kai Tak unveiled!

[speedbird591]

Phew! It's taken a good few hours of downloading, installing, flightplanning and airport building but I've finally got FlyTampa's KaiTak (FS9 version) up and running with retro AI and looking much the way that it did a few years either side of 1980. I now have 72 individual aircraft/liveries using it on a pattern of one take-off and one landing scheduled every five minutes. So there's always something happening and about the right amount of aircraft on the ground at any given time. Here are a few random screenies to give you a taster.







The only change I've made to the FlyTampa scenery is to convert some of the regular stands in the Cargo area to designated large cargo stands to accommodate the large number of freighters that visited KaiTak.




Of course, all these aircraft have to go to and from somewhere to create the movements. I found an idyllic, palm-fringed tropical island just south of Taiwan, about 40 minutes flying time from HKG, which hosted a virtually unused air force base with a 10,000 ft runway with ILS plus a 6,000 ft tarmac strip. I've widened the strip and given it ILS so that it, too can be used for AI traffic. With liberal amounts of concrete, I've created parking for ALL the AI traffic plus a few other AI aircraft I've got in reserve or am assessing. So to support the illusion of frequent aircraft movements in and out of KaiTak, all they do is hop over to here for a couple of hours and back again.




It's just a five minute drive from the strip to the base, using the road, in the Austin K2 ambulance!

On Sundays, ALL the retro traffic will spend the day here because Sunday is air show day at Kai Tak. There are 16 vintage airliners - mostly props and a couple of early jets, courtesy of California Classics - down at the strip and on Sunday morning they will fly over to Kai Tak and do a selection of landings, take-offs and go-arounds.



Haven't quite got this bit finished yet but have done a couple of trial runs and it looks quite good. The spectators will be flown in from around the world in an assortment of modern airliners from the World of AI collection, so there will be a couple of A380s on the gates. Doing it this way keeps Kai Tak completely separate from the rest of my FS9 World which is populated with current WoAI traffic. So by hopping over from Chek Lap Kok, I can step straight back in time to around 1980. Good job I kept the flares and platforms!

Cheers

Ian

[DaveB]

Are those trees on the hard standing Ian :o

Impressive mate.. very impressive

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Garry Russell]

Are those trees on the hard standing Ian :o

Don't see why not

I don't feel so bad about the weeds on the patio slabs now....they're almost as big

Nice shots Ian

Garry

[speedbird591]

Are those trees on the hard standing Ian :o

Quite right, Dave. Using AFCAD I just went wild with the concrete slabs and when I fired up FS I realised I'd encroached into the forest. But I rather liked the effect so I put the parking areas either side of them because they gave it an exotic effect The airshow pilots all try to get those parking spots now because they're in the shade!

Ian ;-)

[DaveB]

No problem at all mate. They do add a rather 'foreign' quality ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[speedbird591]

Perhaps this view will convince you, Dave?



Ian

[DaveB]

Right.. where's my flight bag

I think it's great what you've done Ian, I really do

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Nigel H-J]

Ian, that is superb, have nothing but admiration for those who set out to achieve this sort of thing and before you say it......No, I would find that too time consuming and complex to do. Apart from that, I have to consider whether or not I would be able to afford to replace the computer should it be thrown out of the window!!

Just out of interest, how do you rate FlyTampa's KaiTak in comparison to 9Dragons? Is there any difference between the two and if so in brief what differences have you noted?

Regards
Nigel.

[speedbird591]

Thank you very much for your kind comments Nigel, Dave and Garry. To be honest, I've spent so many hours on this project that I'd lost track of whether it's any good

I would find that too time consuming and complex to do.

Me too, Nigel, me too I've been waiting to see if somebody else would do it for me and eventually realised that it wasn't going to happen. I think if I'd realised how long it was going to take, I wouldn't have started it :roll: But as you know, I've always loved Kai Tak airport from the first time I flew in there and I thoroughly enjoy doing so in FS, but the modern day World of AI traffic just doesn't feel quite right. I thought I'd just try a few retro aircraft to see what it looked like ... and then I was off I didn't know much about AI or AFCAD before but I've learnt a hell of a lot from this - most of it from The Master -Peter (what would we do without him?) and a bit through trial and error.

Writing a weekly flight plan for each of 72 aircraft was the most time consuming thing. And then as the idea evolved, I'd scrap them and start all over again. And finding the aircraft wasn't easy, either. You can't just browse, you have to think of something you want and search to see if anybody's done it. And getting them just to show up can be quite a feat! I'm glad I've done it now and I can see me spending rainy days tweaking it and finding other things to do with them for a long time into the future...

I've had a real laugh this afternoon as we had the first dress rehearsal for the Sunday air show. I wrote a reasonable sort of display timetable and all the spectator aircraft got themselves in position with no problems. But the air show pilots are totally useless, flying round in circles trying to find the ILS and nearly crashing into each other. Some have gone missing and one is still flying round in circles after four hours. I've left them to it and been doing housework and popping up to check every hour or so. I'll post some screenies later. There's a lot more training to do before they're ready to go public!

Oh yes! Your question about FlyTampa v. 9Dragons. I really don't know! I loved 9Dragons and I love FlyTampa about the same I think the Hong Kong scenery is better in 9Dragons but the airport is more realistic in flyTampa. The approach is about the same but FlyTampa claim that the lighting and checkerboard effects are more realistic and they are probably right. What swings it for me is the way that FlyTampa's airport is grubby and worn like the real one was and add to that the moving AI vehicles around the perimeter road and the moving AI ships and that gives FT the edge.

Must go and check the other PC and see what trouble they've got themselves into now :roll:

Ian

[speedbird591]

Well, here are a few screenies of the first air show dress rehearsal. Like I said, it didn't go well. Only two of the four support aircraft made it. The Brits borrowed my personal 1-11 and the Soviets sent this mysterious looking Ilyushin 62. According to the readme it is from the MChS, the Ministry of Extraordinary Situations. With a title like that I had to have it in my collection!



I remember when I used to visit Moscow in the 70s, my favourite entertainment was the Park of Economic and Cultural Achievements - got the same sort of catchy name! You could get a beer there. There were vending machines, but not like you know. They were like a big fridge with a tap. You put in 25 kopecks, press a button and watery beer came out. You had to catch it in the glass ... which had a hole drilled in the lip and it was chained to the machine - yeuch

Anyway, back to the point about support aircraft. I'd forgotten to provide support for the Yanks but I think I'll get Air Force One for them as they did very well today. The French went over the top as usual and to support their single Caravelle they sent an Airbus A380 in house colours. Typically it got lost and I don't know where it is now and the Caravelle crew went to pieces. They approached Kai Tak from every point of the compass before finally finding the ILS and getting it down.

The airlines that flew the spectators in did a splendid job and found some really colourful aircraft to lift the mood.

We were using Rwy 31 to make it easy and it was probably just as well, considering the standard of flying :roll:

I think the Russians were tanked up on vodka as they were very aggressive

I think gravity rather than skill got this one down

The Brits put on a restrained show

While the Yanks showed a bit of flair

This DC3 got hopelessly lost and went round in circles for hours before finally landing just as the others were going home


Oh well, I had a good laugh but back to the drawing board before the next attempt!

Ian