SurClaro Flight Simulator Resources

[Patrick Ellis]

This is one for the old timers.

I have the 1997 release (v.1.0) of the Abacus Airport and Scenery Designer, this program was designed for creating airports and other scenery for FS95 and FS98, and it made to run on Win95, but still loaded on WinXP without a problem.

My questions is this: Is the scenery created by this utility still transferable to a newer build of MSFS, such as FS9? I've looked through the scenery files, this utility creates simple .bgl's and scenery files, and adding the scenery to the directory seems transferable to FS9, although I haven't tried to actually create anything yet. Can anyone give me a simple explaination for making this utility still work for simple GA airports? I don't have FS95/FS98 installed, instead I'm saving it to a dummy folder and will copy the files manually.

Thanks.

[Patrick Ellis]

OK, I sort of answered my own question.

I found the old Airline Training School (ATS) I did in 1998 on a floppy, read through the old documentation and created the necessary folder, yadda, yadda, yadda. Once in, I restarted my FS9 and selected the ATS Runway 9L departure in the Cessna. After a short roll and banking over the airport, I had a flood of memories come back about this place. It looked abandoned now, in the scenery level I have selected there were bushes and trees growing through the taxiways and paddocks, the hangers were ugly, the building was really ugly. I did a few laps around and switched aircraft to see if the ILS system still worked, and it did.

I have about 20 sceneries like this, one of them is a really nice farm with a concrete 3500'X50' in the outskirts of San Luis Obisbo, and a huge international airport built near the town of Three Rivers. And who knows, I may find some updated scenery files and try making some new stuff...

http://home.earthlink.net/~p.d.ellis/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/ats.jpg

Here's the details I wrote in March of 1998.

AIRLINE TRAINING SCHOOL (ATS) Bakersfield California Campus (Version 1.1)
+325' (+97 Meters) N35* 33.36 W119* 26.02'
ATIS 123.45 Mhz VOR (ATS) 114.15 NDB (ATS) 211.2
9L 10,500' X 200' Concrete ILS 109.90 IATS
27R 10,500' X 200' Concrete ILS 110.45 IBCU
29 9,500' X 150' Concrete ILS 110.55 IAMS
11 9,500' X 150' Concrete ILS 110.15 IAPS
9R 7,500' X 100' Asphalt ILS 108.20 IABS
27L 7,500' X 100' Asphalt ILS 108.45 IALS
H-1 100' X 100' Concrete
H-2 100' X 100' Concrete

This is an updated version of the Airline Training School (a fictional flight school for airliners), with VOR and NDB added to its navigational environment. Features include a desert setting some 20 miles west of Bakersfield, California, complete radio navigational and ILS landing systems, varied length and width runways, large operations buildings on the airport property, large hangers (big enough to fit several Boeing 737's and up to a 767 inside) with automatically opening doors and lighted interiors, ample paddock areas and convenient refueling boxes.
To the south approx. 6 miles is Airport City, a fictional city with several high rise buildings and other features. This is the location for the administrative area for ATS.
INSTALLATION:
Create a folder in your MSFS98 titled "ATS", and create a sub folder in that called "SCENERY". Since you already have ATS unzipped (or you wouldn't be reading this) place all your .bgl files in the folder called "SCENERY". Next, launch your MSFS98 and get into a flying screen. Once there, click on "World>Scenery Library...click "OK" at the warning and on the "Files" button when inside the first library screen. Select "Add" and in the scenery path area type C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\ Flight Simulator\ATS\Scenery\*.bgl exactly as shown. If done properly, then the remaining area will light up, you type in Airline Training School in the scenery title area, click on the scenery area as local, hit the active button and hit OK all the way out. You should be able to fly ATS at this point.

This scenery was produced using Abacus Airport and Scenery Designer and contains an encrypted copyright code, Copyright March 1998 by P.D. Ellis, all rights reserved. This scenery my be distributed and likewise posted on any internet system as long as the following provisions are made: No one is charged for it use, it is to remain unchanged for this version (except for changes by the author) and credit is given for the authors labor.

Enjoy.

[Exxman]

Abacus has an update available to version 2 for ASD. Find it here:

http://www.abacuspub.com/asd2/asdflyer.htm

Contains the new SCASM update as well which is required for FS9. Ver 1 of ASD will not work with FS9. You can also use AFCAD 2.x to modify and create airports in FS9. Freeware. Will put generic items in but not to the scope of what ASD can handle. Just in case you didn't know...

Are you going to upload your scenery to our uploads section? Is it compatible for FS2002/FS9?

Nice work.

Exx

[Patrick Ellis]

Well Exx, this one was compatable, I had to change the pathway to reflect the FS9 use but it works. I just did a quick, simple single runway, there's ome elevation variances but that's easily fixed. I have two of my five floppys being corrupted so I'm still looking through other things finding old scenery. And the files are small, just five .bgl file.

I'm going to assume the upgrade is on the Abacus website, I found a bunch of updated texture files on fs.com, and there may be some on here as well I haven't seen yet. Once I get everything updated and get some practice, sure I'll upload some. Too bad though, the disk that had "Flying Cloud Regional was corrupted, it was a 9750'X75' asphalt runway with refueling based on top of a cloud at 11,300'....perfect for those pesky pit stops when you don't have time to land....

[Exxman]

Cool...didn't think it work due to FS9's bgl compile structure. Learn something new everyday...thanks.

Try this page for some shareware file recovery programs. Might help bring them back...

http://www.canadiancontent.net/tech/downloads/File+Recovery+Programs/

Exx

[Patrick Ellis]

I think these are going to be toast, my wife put them in a box with my neodynium magnet slot cars...can you say "erasure"?

It's a matter of having the pathway correct and using a seperate folder, like for this ATS scenery the pathway was C://program files\microsoft games\flight simulator 9\scenery\ats\scenery\*.bgl. The 5 .bgl's were placed in a sub folder in the main scenery file.

The other thing is I noticed it lost a lot of the textures for the buildings, that's because those files were changed as FS progressed. I simply copied those filed from A&SD back into the FS9 texture files and got my textures back.

I have one other salvagable scenery, this one is the partner to the ATS scenery and I helped a good friend of mine create it. here's the text file:

AIRLINE TRAINING SCHOOL
MID AMERICA CAMPUS
Copyright May 1998

Welcome to the second ATS scenery. This campus was built in the flatlands of Kansas near the community of Hill City. Lessons learned from the original ATS near Bakersfield California were applied here, including a lot of new features. In creating this scenery several Virtual Airlines had the chance to specify the area's and type of facillities they'd like built, and we tried to build to please.

This ATS has some nice off airport scenery, such as the large administrative building south of the airport, a large ponding basin and the FSRC Championship 18 hole golf course and Country Club with large hotel building to the west. We included access roads, driveways and other paved features in this ATS. The town of Hill City is represented nearby.

The airport itself was designed to be spread out over a larger area, with the largest runway being completely seperate from the rest of the airport. All runways have active ILS Glideslopes and night lighting has been varied from runway to runway depending on priority. Large colorful hangers are used, and the VA's that contributed were allowed to pick their own color schemes. The varied colored VA buildings were also an added feature of this ATS.

Here is the technical information for ATS-Mid America

AIRLINE TRAINING SCHOOL-Mid America ID: TSM
Hill City, Kansas N39* 24.01' W99* 49.16' Elevation: 2237'/679.70 meters
ATIS: 136.95
4R 8500 X 150 Asphalt 108.05 IATS
22L 8500 X 150 Asphalt 108.10 IWBT
4L 10500 X 200 Concrete 108.15 IEAI
22R 10500 X 200 Concrete 108.20 IDOG
9L 7500 X 100 Asphalt 108.25 ICAL
27R 7500 X 100 Asphalt 108.30 IOMA
9R 13000 X 250 Concrete 108.35 IBAC
27L 13000 X 250 Concrete 108.40 IPCA
36 14500 X 300 Concrete 108.45 ILRW
18 14500 X 300 concrete 108.50 ICUX
NOTAM: 300' tall radio towers to the northwest of the field .25 miles

Installation:
Create file called ATS-MA in your main Flight Sim folder, in the ATS-MA file create a sub file called scenery. Take all the .bgl files and copy them into the scenery subfile.
Start your FS and when in a flying screen select the world icon, then go to the scenery library. Click OK to enter, then click on files, and then add. In the scenery path area type this: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator\ATS-MA\Scenery\*.bgl if done correctly the rest of the windows will light up. In the scenery name area type AIRLINE TRAINING SCHOOL-MID AMERICA and select the local box in scenery area, and hit active to turn this scenery on. Click on the OK's until you exit out of the scenery library and after you FS updates with the new scenery you can fly the scenery.


I'll try to get it loaded and offer some FS9 pics later this weekend.

[Patrick Ellis]

I finally loaded the ATS-Mid America scenery...dang!! This place is sprawling across the flatlands of Kansas. I had to get up to over 10,000' just to get screenshots.

This scenery was originally created for the use of 5 virtual airlines in 1998, each VA had it's own specific color coded hangers and admin buildings. Here's the ID that was worked up for the location:

http://home.earthlink.net/~p.d.ellis/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/airport2.jpg

I took the Cub up and took a few shots from the air...like I said, this place is huge.

http://home.earthlink.net/~p.d.ellis/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/ats-ma2.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~p.d.ellis/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/ats-ma.jpg

A lot of the textures are primative by FS9 standards, but in the days of FS98, this was state of the art. I'm working on installing updated textures and hope to start producing scenries for FS9 in a month or so.

[groundsquirrel]

That is some really quite remarkable work. I have merely dabbled in repainting and playing with a little panel work and .cfg file tweaks for aircraft and sim performance. My best work to date are the simple but elegant Bluestream Airlines birds. I would be happy to workhorse your productions as one of my passions is seeing how hard I can run my machine.

[Patrick Ellis]

I may take you up on that Squirrel, to do some beta of my sceneries as soon as I re-learn it. BTW, the golf course is on the right side of the first pic, and all of the hangers (colored roofs) have automatic opening doors and lighed interiors. I did one scenery that even had planes in the handers, but that's one of the sceneries I lost.

I've done some repainting too, my PC12 is posted up in the virtual airline section, and I've painted most of my own VA's birds. I'm just retired now though, and leave that to the experts.