Viljandi, Estonia (EEVI)

[Paavo]

Uhh. To make it short: started it on Friday, worked on it the whole weekend and here is the current progress of that small airfield (famous for its challenging sloped runway and tall trees at both ends) in Southern Estonia:









To do:
- finish AFD information (start locations etc.),
- create night textures for buildings,
- add runway border cones,
- add windsock.

[Mace]

Hi Paavo

You know that you can do a sloped runway in FSX. You have to make a landclass poly, and it will conform to the mesh. Is this what you have done here?

I did this as a test in Nicaragua, for a small airfield (MNSC). It worked fine, BUT I discovered after some testing that,
1) ATC does not recognize the runway,
2) which means that AI won't land on it.

So, sloped runways are fine for bush strips but not ok for strips with scheduled air traffic.

I have thought about a possible workaround, which would be to place a standard-type runway slightly underground, if that's possible in FSX (have not tested), and get the best of both worlds...

Anyway, is this what you are doing?

[Paavo]

Originally Posted by Mace

You know that you can do a sloped runway in FSX. You have to make a landclass poly, and it will conform to the mesh. Is this what you have done here?

Yes. I simply excluded default flatten and added high resolution mesh that fits well with the aerial imagery I use.

Originally Posted by Mace

I did this as a test in Nicaragua, for a small airfield (MNSC). It worked fine, BUT I discovered after some testing that,
1) ATC does not recognize the runway,
2) which means that AI won't land on it.

So, sloped runways are fine for bush strips but not ok for strips with scheduled air traffic.

I have thought about a possible workaround, which would be to place a standard-type runway slightly underground, if that's possible in FSX (have not tested), and get the best of both worlds...

Anyway, is this what you are doing?

My primary goal regarding AFD was to make the runway at EEVI correctly appear on the airport list and GPS display. Although the default runway creates a flatten around it, I was able to overcome it by setting the width of runway to zero with hex editor (osman's document on BGL file structure was a great help on this). There's a little traffic in real world (and no AI traffic at all) at EEVI and I sacrificed compatibility with AI for the sloping runway.

However, I tried to make AI traffic land at EEVI, but aircraft always stayed at airport reference altitude, which means that sometimes the aircraft were under ground and sometimes hovering above ground. I have not found a solution for this.

[Mace]

Originally Posted by Paavo

My primary goal regarding AFD was to make the runway at EEVI correctly appear on the airport list and GPS display. Although the default runway creates a flatten around it, I was able to overcome it by setting the width of runway to zero with hex editor (osman's document on BGL file structure was a great help on this).

So, setting the width to zero was what you did to remove the flatten property that runways have. But how did this make the runway appear in the airport list and GPS display?

Do you mean that you actually do have a <Runway/> defined, but it's width is zero? And this makes the runway still appear in the airport list and GPS display?

There's a little traffic in real world (and no AI traffic at all) at EEVI and I sacrificed compatibility with AI for the sloping runway.

My test airport MNSC, has regularly scheduled airline traffic so that was another factor in my decision to convert it back to a standard runway.

However, I tried to make AI traffic land at EEVI, but aircraft always stayed at airport reference altitude, which means that sometimes the aircraft were under ground and sometimes hovering above ground. I have not found a solution for this.

I don't have a solution for it either. I can't imagine any workable solution until AI are coded to not use the airport ref point as their base altitude.

[Paavo]

Originally Posted by Mace

Do you mean that you actually do have a <Runway/> defined, but it's width is zero? And this makes the runway still appear in the airport list and GPS display?

Exactly.
Since bglcomp does not accept zero as a valid value for width, you'll have to edit bgl file directly with a hex editor such as xvi32.
I have not experienced any loss of frame rate or memory leaks after this modification.

[Paavo]

http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=EEVI

[Vitus]

Hi Paavo,

after three hours downloading from avsim, I installed your scenery and flew a few pattern around the strip.
You did a great work!!! I like the bumpy runway and the small "terminal"
The borders to the standard FSX Scenery are perfect - I couldnt see them at all (until I switched to map mode )
When airborne, its really hard to find the strip, and the trees around makes it even harder to land.

I didnt found any bugs or inconsitencys, except that the scenery is veeery small

Keep up the good work and do the next strip!!

Best regards
Vitus

[DocMoriarty]

I tried it flying a little around with a Bell. I liked especially how you made the reflections in the windows in the house next to the tower. It was winter and the runway was practically invisible so i'm not sure whether i really hit the runway when landing but there was nobody around to see me so guess i can keep my virtual pilots licence