Kern Valley Airport (L05) was one of my favorite small airfield in FSx/P3D. Nor only because of the great rendition by Orbx but also because the area was stunning: Isabella lake, Kern river, the south of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the runway into the valley. It’s also a pilot’s challenge due to the high altitude + high temperature. Did I mention the wind also?

If you want to support the “dev”, click “I want this too!” on https://flightsim.to/request/scenery/8273/l05-kern-valley

As with my previous freeware Agua Dulce, I want to do my best, to recreate the ambiance that I had with FSx/P3D of a iconic general aviation airfield. This traction on some icone GA airport, led me in the real world to land here with a rented C172. And I remember saying in the downwind “As in Flight Simulator” 

The Huey with the CalFire livery is free on flightsim.to:

Another amazing SoCal airport in the works by this legend! Thank you!

 

Looking forward to it!

Vincent the Machine!!!

Nice work and thanks!  I so need to get back into PE!

It really is a nice place to fly.  I tried the default last night and I did actually experience a bit of wind-shear on approach!

Vincent's airport will make it much better.

Don't forget to check the weather stone before take-off!  

Even though I live thousands of miles away in the UK I’m strangely familiar with this little airport.

When I used to get long layovers in Vegas I used to rent BMW motorcycles and head off into the Sierra Nevada mountains and have ridden past here several times, you get a good view of it from the road. 

I must admit I was surprised to see an airfield there the first time I passed in such a challenging location.

 

28 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

Don't forget to check the weather stone before take-off!

Yes! It was one of the thing which was mandatory for this scenery. As well as the broken prop blades hanging in the restaurant 😉

20 minutes ago, jon b said:

Even though I live thousands of miles away in the UK I’m strangely familiar with this little airport.

So true. I feel the same, here, live in Paris, France.

Your work is brilliant, in fact first class.

Served with the Royal Australian Navy and spent 12 months out of Seattle, San Francisco, then was based out of Long Beach and San Pedro.

Love flying the the West Coast.

Cant wait, have all your work, it is as good as any payware.

Kind Regards

Brian, BJ from Oz

Looking forward to adding another "vbcorp" airport to my scenery folder. 

Given the quality of all of his airports in California, I've got to figure out a way to get @vbazillio to fall in love with southwestern Ontario. We've got lots of little airfields that could use his attention to detail.

I’m surprised you’re not charging money for your work, this definitely looks well above the quality of a lot of MSFS payware airports. Keep up the great work!

Thank you all for your messages! But I would like to clarify a point: most of you don't see how much easy it is with the embedded Scenery Editor and free addons available, to design an enhanced version of an existing small airport. Internet is full of support and the most valuable data is the time you can free for this passion 😉 

1. Get ready with whatever Internet search engine to find help at each steps of your learning curve. +2 years after the release of MSFS, there're tons of guides and tutorials all other Internet. Free some time in your agenda. That's the tricky part.
2. You need to practice a bitmap editor (GIMP is free), a 3D modeler (Blender is free, sketchup is widely used as well) and a vector image (don't laugh at me: I use Powerpoint, there's tons of free alternative). GIMP/Blender are not the easiest to start with but there's a huge community to help.
3. Collect the maximum of real content to make your airport as real as it gets: search everywhere for a picture, a Youtube video, a Yelp pic, Flickr, Google Maps, Street View, Bing Map (the Bird Eyes view is appreciated); official airnav data... Anything is useful and hidden inside Internet. This step is vital and a real funny part. Looks like you're a detective digging into a whole Internet to find the small detail that will make the difference. It's also an endless task as some content pops up at anytime. It happened weeks ago with my KSEE/Gillespie where new Youtube videos shows some taxiway signs I couldn't identified otherwise.
4. Generate the default airport in a editable format with the free addon ADE : https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/forums/airport-design-editor-for-msfs-2020.160/ This will give you all the content you see in the default MSFS format into a editable format, directly WYSIWYG into MSFS. 
5. Open the MSFS Scenery Editor with the framework generated by ADE and start modifying, enhancing, replacing, revealing, adding object from the default MSFS library. My first sceneries were "made" with 100% of default buildings and object. It's like LEGO game combining hundred of available. It's also the magic part where you'll put your personal touch: adding an extra APRON object with the right color to support a default building can make the difference, dropping here and here some cones, adding a PAINTED LINE, making something more transparent and weathered...etc is also a long process. Just a matter of time. The MSFS Engine seems to be very efficient. The hardest part may be to find the most appropriate object to match the real one except if you want to create it from scratch. There're few PDF available on flightsim.to showing the library but updates after updates they become outdated and searching in the library is also a long process. NB: I personally choose not to use free library object (mostly available on flightsim.to).
6. Build 3D objects with Blender, texture them with screen shots enhanced (size, alignment) with GIMP. I started with zero custom building (KMYF/San Diego Montgomery, LFGH/Cosne-sur-Loire...) and now focus on iconic objects that could make the difference, the feeling that it's unique and bring your unique touch. For example, with this Kern Valley, the restaurant and its terrace, the broken blades hanged on column, the weather pilot forecast were mandatory to get represented in the sim. As well as the slope on the main apron and the tiedown (I'm currently working on it) and light a bulb from real pilot and could raise interest for this scenery.

All these, prove that I'm a real amateur, fueled by passion and... some spare time. Pro's (in team) are using extensively some mentioned tools and don't rely much on re-using default MSFS object library, not to mention that I stay on small airport. If I build 3 or 4 buildings, that's my maximum, so far. That's the difference with a freeware amateur and professional products.

At the end of day, if there're simmers enjoying my work and sharing the passion for the same type of GA airports, that all what I need 😉 There's room for so different way of practising our sim passion.

Edited March 13, 20233 yr by vbazillio

Vincent, thanks so much for your efforts. I only recently discovered your SoCal airports and have been enjoying flying around the San Diego area for the past week as I’ve gotten back into GA flights.

But thanks also for the above! Last night I flew into a random PA airport surrounded by a stunning landscape and was really disappointed to see that the airfield contained hardly any buildings. I thought to myself that I might make a project out of it for my first airport.

Your post above is exactly what I needed to see, to help and encourage me to actually give it a go.

Keep up the great work and thank you for your great contributions to this community!

2 hours ago, Redge said:

Last night I flew into a random PA airport surrounded by a stunning landscape

which one please?

Looking forward to this Vincent. Your projects are well chosen and getting better and better. I think you see the connection between how fondly some Orbx airfields are remembered and how well-received yours are. The passion for getting all the little details just right is what brings these places to life.

Edited March 15, 20233 yr by CapnCrunch

1 hour ago, turbomax said:

which one please?

It was KIPT - Williamsport Regional.