Chris Low's Seattle and google earth

[Guest esveld]

Finally I took some time to look at all the nice enhancements for FUIII that I downloaded the last years. Take for instance the scenery enhancements packages of Christopher Low and others; Seattle 2005 and SanFran 2006++. I haven't explored the latter, but in one of the read me Chris expressed his disappointment that so few report back some discoveries in his enhanced world. Well Chris, thank you very very much, I cannot imaging the enormous effort it must have take you and others to figure out and realize all the additions.The FU world looks quite a bit more interesting, especially with the enhance AI traffic keeping you company.For a non-flltime simmer it is however hard to tell what is original looking glass, and what is added later. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the airports show much more facilities, surrounding buildings and not to forget trees. The Seattle area in FU looks a very lushfull and natural area, what it probably also is. However, when I inspected some of the airports in Google earth, I noticed that, besides the mountanous areas, there are suburbs and business locations scattered everywhere, where the aerial photograpy in FU still shows fields and forest.For curiosity and as a tribute to our scenery makers here some side by side comparisionsCrest Airpark, Firstair field and Harvey(hope the attachements come trough)Erik Esveld

[Guest esveld]

Martha Lake, Pierce countyThe first is apparently not in use anymore, it is also in the middle of a residential area now. The letters on the runway are still vaguely visible..Erik E.

[Christopher Low 5,332]

Erik,You REALLY need to get a copy of the FU2 San Francisco scenery, and then install SanFran 2006. This is my description of the pack taken from the FU3 file library....."SanFran 2006 is a complete upgrade of the San Francisco scenery region, and includes AI modifications to the Unicom and tower controlled airports, a significant upgrade of San Jose International airport, a version of Oakland International airport that has been split into two separate components, hundreds of trees at virtually all of the airports and airfields, five extra real airfields (including a fully operational, tower controlled version of Hamilton AFB), a new version of Byron Municipal airport, six Unicom airports upgraded to tower control (Byron Municipal, Davis Woodland Winters, Half Moon Bay, Nut Tree, Rio Vista, and University), an animated objects package, and lots of interesting objects scattered throughout the region (marinas, parks, ports, bridges, oil terminals, electricity pylons, electrical substations, water towers, radio masts, fire lookout towers, lighthouses, and wind turbines)"In other words, this is more of a SCENERY pack. It includes well over 200 individual scenery packages, and the models that are included in them (expertly constructed by Jon Point) are scattered throughout the region. You will also notice that there are a lot more electricity pylons in this pack than Seattle 2005.

[Guest esveld]

Well I have SF06++ as mentioned, and made a flight with the marvelous beautifull Twin Otter from Byron to Halfmoon Bay over the Altamont Pass. The wind park is great (you probably even tried to get them annimated). I like finally to use the radio now, since it mak more sence to me what the operator is yelling at me. Actually, the lady from bay control was very kind, but advised a 2k feet alt, what was rather low to get over the mountains. And the tip about taxiways alt-F12 found in some previous post is indeed very handy.When I flew SF in the past, I was a bit anoyed by the overall desert like color scheme of the area. With the new configuration file and some fine tuning of the haze setting, it turns out a lot better. I just discovered that setting the season to winter also improves the overall over-cast impression that the haze often produces.A lazy way to look arround is just to sit at a busy port and jump on the abundant AI traffic with shift-P. A question, is the shift-F for comm frequencies still working as intended, or are the new or altered frequencies not automatically available. And about the twin otter, is there a keystroke to pop-up the radio-stack? With a lot of communication, the radio-stack blocks the view, and one needs to put it up and away quite often with the mouse.Last question, is it indeed not possible to fly from Seatlle to SF?When zoaring I only see outer terrain arriving at SF.Thanks folksErik E

[Christopher Low 5,332]

Ahh, thank goodness for that. There's lots of stuff to see in the SF region with SanFran 2006 installed. If I could solve a problem with the pylon models (any new ones that I add can only be seen for a very short distance; I have no idea why this is the case), then I would extend the pylon network. I'd also like to see several new bridges in the area, but that's another story ;-)