Freeware - EGHE - St Mary's Airport - Isles of Scilly UK - Upgrade

This time around I have tickled St Mary’s Airport on the Isles of Scilly up and down. This’ll make a fine pairing with Land’s End. Now all we need are Twin Otters.

This has new runways with proper gradients, new ground textures, new buildings and a separate scenery file with a few modest tweaks of the surrounding islands.

The runway approaches have had rocks embedded in the shoreline as there was no way I could leave it with that boring green blotchiness.

The scenery file is deffo a work in progress with plenty more to come when I have the time to do it right.

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Awesome !

The only thing that looks a bit weird is the burial chamber up on Porth Hellick Down

and maybe the red Scillonian. Great work though! Definitely following this.

Yes. That’s a fail. Got a Scillonian on the way and plenty more. I won’t do heavy terrain until the UK update to see if it’s any better but I doubt it’ll improve.

Custom terminal for the airport soon too.

So cool !!

Nice to see the Garrison walls

If I had any clue about this stuff I’d offer to help out.

Loving St Martin’s.

Do you have a priority list ?

Mermaid? :slight_smile:

Lighthouses and boats at the moment. And probably covering all the roads as they’re even greener than normal.

Hugh Town could really do with erasing and starting again but there are no houses available worth mentioning and autogen improvement is hopefully the one guaranteed upgrade in January for everywhere.

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Just been playing around in the Icon A5. Nicely suited to Scilly.

Took a trip out to Bishop Rock.

Nice garden chairs. Hahaha ! Probably nip back in a mo and watch the sun go down.

You probably know the light is way above the top of the lighthouse. And doesn’t do the double blink.

Who cares though !! I’m enjoying this loads!

Epic work so far !

That lighthouse is one I nicked from a free 3d model place and buried a beacon inside. You have nine to play with in the sim itself and that’s the least weird. Couldn’t be arsed to give it proper glass.

It should be visible forever but for some reason it isn’t there. It is in Shetland.

You’d have to get very clever indeed to make a lighthouse that worked as a real one. I’m not sure it’s possible but I might ask around.

What I will do is try is to get a better one put together. That one’s pretty rough but still fun. I’ve got a round head lighthouse installed now and also a peninnis one. Not perfect likenesses but better than that one.

Update should be out in 3-4 days.

Great stuff ! I’ve just finished flying as the sun went down. Really really enjoyable.

Yeyy !

Version 1.3

Epic work !!!

Still holding off until the UK update, but this pretty much completes the terminal bar wall hangings and stuff, sorts the runway starts and does a better Bishop Rock lighthouse that you can land on. Not sure what you can land with of course.

Once I’ve cleared up the mess Asobo have made of all my other noodlings I’m going to get serious on this.

It has only just begun.

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Good news!

Because this (for me at least) is the best mod of them all !

It’s epic work !

I’m intending to upload myself into this when I croak as I assume the tech will be available then. I’d better make sure it’s to my satisfaction since I’m spending digital eternity there.

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haha!

just adding a few letters so this post is at least… oh… sorted!

Hey Superspud, not sure if you’ve seen but Aerosoft have just released a payware St Mary’s this week (30/9/21) It looks pretty nice from the pictures but it doesn’t seem like they have done anything with the actual islands themselves.

I wondered how this would play with your version? Would it be possible if I bought the airport to keep all your island stuff, a sort of inverse of what you did with the channel islands, where you took out your boats to accomodate Seafront’s but kept your airports. Is it possible to have an aiport less version but with all the island enhancements?

From squinting at a preview as far I can tell the only thing beyond the immediate airport area is a cargo ship in the harbour, which would probably be the only bit that clashed, and other boats here and there.

No idea whether they’ve populated the whole harbour.

Someone could try adding a z to the start of their folder name which would make the Aerosoft version load first and override anything I’ve put down, but then again since the harbour stuff is in the non airport file I’m not sure how they’d interact.

As for making a specific version for this if The People want it then I’ll oblige, but there’s not really that much done to the rest of the islands yet so they may as well throw away the whole lot if there’s a lot of clashing.

Things like all the roads, markings and and the football pitches are tied to the airport file so all that’ll be left is a few rocks, docks and boats. Water mask is the big one but it doesn’t seem possible without Asobo changing things themselves.

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I’ve got to say after comparing photo’s of yours and theirs back to back there isn’t a lot of difference. When I first looked at their screens I thought they had added features that yours didn’t have, the walled enclosure, the solar panels and the terminal waiting room area, along with real people models.

Now looking at yours, I can see from the screens that you have those features too, I just had never gone around to the back of the airport or gone inside the terminal before.

It shows just how accurate your version is. I’ve alway bought every payware airport that comes up in the south of England, as that’s where I fly almost exclusively, but yours might just be better overall so I might give this a miss.

Shocking.

The prime difference between the two versions as far as I can tell is elevations.

My previous versions, perhaps two updates back, were the same as the Aerosoft one in that the correct sea level and some runway angle had been restored, but the rest of the airport area was flat.

That’s not reality and I’m slightly appalled Asobo still haven’t addressed this especially since it has been correct in Bing Maps all along and was correct before World Update 3.

I got some elevation data and added it to the site which makes the approaches closer to reality, especially on the land side.

It’s still not A1, there are a few weird lumps and glitches, but I every time you get something right something somewhere else breaks horribly.

If I get an Xbox I’ll be buying this but until then someone else will need to tell me if there’s an issue with how they interact on PC.

Just tried the Aerosoft St Mary’s. What a downgrade! I was expecting to get an improved airport at the expense of losing some island scenery but I prefer your airport too. In fact, your’s has much more attention to detail with the authentic posters inside.

Away from the island theirs is atrocious. They haven’t even built harbour docks, and some of the rocks you have modelled are just pankcake textures.

I apologise for doubting your talent Superspud. Your superior version has been promptly reinstalled.

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I’ll let you live.

This time.

I have spotted it in a couple of videos. It looks like there are some omissions I wasn’t expecting like a totally empty bit around the fire training section, and the back of the airport looks near flat whereas in real life it falls away big time.

The creators won’t have had the advantage I have of being stuck there for hours on end waiting for the weather. Lots of people don’t care about the details, just the airport. Which I think is weird.

Anyway they can still use the scenery bit and dump my airport.

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So I’ve just spend 90 minutes in VR exploring St Marys, St Agnes, the Great WEstern Rocks and Bishop’s Rock lighthouse, after reading a guidebook and deciding on doing a virtual tour.

Have you hand modelled stuff on these islands as the level of detail is exceptional? Just down the hill from the airport I came across a tree lined field with actual live animated horses. I thought I was imagining it at first, but they actually started tossing their heads and looking at me, it felt like I was playing Skyrim!

Then I had a tour of Hugh Town and saw the Scillonian III moored in the harbour. I climbed the hill and found The Star Castle, with fortifications that I could actually walk through. On the other end of the island I found what I can only describe as Bilbo Baggins house, a circular, grass covered structure that clearly isn’t autogen.

There is a model of the defunct lighthouse on St Agnes, the daymark is present on St Martins. The Great Western Rocks are all 3D modelled and look incredibly like the real ones from what I can see on Youtube. There is even a weird memorial plaque that I wondered what it was on one of the rocks, but I found in a Youtube video that has been accurately reproduced.

Finally I got to Bishop’s Rock Lighthouse to see it surrounded by seagull’s and a small boat with people watching a whale leap out of the water!

I don’t know how much of this is your work but it’s absolutely incredible and the greatest scenery I’ve seen yet in MSFS.

This is such a captivating place to explore in VR, I feel like I’ve been there in real life almost.

For whatever parts were your work,this is a truly exceptional job, so thankyou!

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