Flattening in FS2004?

[Stewart Pearson]

Currently working on the South American Alberts for MAIW and doing afcad for SBAF in Brazil.

As usual MS gave us a runway and nothing else. Not a problem have used excludebuilder to get rid of the autogen on the south side of the runway, where all the parking is.

Now find a big hollow in the terrain right where I need to put taxiways and aprons. Now I reckon what I need to do is flatten the pesky area to the altitude of the runway.

Need suggestions for an easy to use utility that'll do the trick, or failing the existence of such a tool, some guidance on how to do it.

Cheers

Stew

[scruffyduck]

Sbuilder will create flattens for FS9

[Stewart Pearson]

Thanks Jon, will give that a look-see.

Cheers

Stew

[chris.eve]

SBuilder will indeed do the flatten job for you, but I prefer SceneGenX as a complete airport development tool (for FS9). Not only does it do everything that AFCAD does (and more, albeit possibly not quite as intuitively), but it will create flattens and exludes as well as placing library objects. I find keeping all of the features for an airport withing one source file a lot easier to manage, at least initially.

With the airfield up and running and looking basically "right", SBuilder can be used to generate newer-style flattens, excludes and airport boundaries should you wish. It's also great for fences ;)

Point of note ... you don't actually need flattens for aprons and taxiways in FS9, they're "self-levelling" to the altitude of the airport, that is to say, they effectively create their own flatten, it's just runways that "float". With a complete network of taxiways "under" the runway etc., a flatten can be superfluous, though you may prefer an all-over level field to a set of contours with taxiways etc "carved" into them.