Retro Kai Tak unveiled!
Posted: 08 Aug 2008, 20:49
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
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