RAF Coningsby is situated in Lincolnshire in Eastern England, about 15 miles NE of Sleaford. It is the home of the Eurofighter Typhoon in the UK and the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Tornados and Harriers of 41 Squadron also frequent the main apron as The Fast Jet and Weapons Operational Evaluation Unit. The Southern area Quick Reaction Alert force is also based at Coningsby and is shared by 3 Squadron (Typhoon) and 25 Squadron (Tornado) on a rotational basis.
This project has been a great learning experience for me in getting to grips with Gmax for 3-D work. I have long used SCASM based design tools but I am really pleased I passed the pain barrier and made the change to XML not just for versatility but because the performance frame-rate wise is so much better. However, I am appreciative that not everyone has a PC as fast as mine, so as usual, I have created choices as to what is installed. Note however, that the scenery was designed primarily for FS2004. I am no lover of FSX but I am conscious that many users do want to use the new version of the Sim and hence I went through the learning process to make my scenery compatible. Expect the frame rate to be hit by around 50% for similar settings!
My scenery uses the aerial image of Coningsby from Just Flight's VFR Real Scenery of South East England that is designed for use in the FSX version of MSFS. The image was originally supplied by Infoterra and is currently displayed in Google Earth. I am extremely grateful to Just Flight for arranging and supplying permission to use the image. The airfield and immediate surrounding area is aligned to the much wider VFR Scenery product from Just Flight but will also work with the default scenery too.
I wanted to produce detailed scenery that looks realistic as far as is possible from material gleaned outside the airfield. Google Earth is fantastic for 2-D shapes and textures but piecing together the sides of structures involved a great deal of detective work and even so there are still omissions. I spent a very enjoyable day around the airfield just viewing from the established spots. There was also a lot to be seen on the net, particularly in the backgrounds of aircraft shots. I also made use of photographs of standard RAF buildings that were originally erected around the time of World War II. I also remember visiting Coningsby some years ago when they held an annual air show.
7.7 - 14 votes
redarrows123 | 29 Sep : 08:41