Around the world flight, using FSEconomy, and WED

[DocBird]

9 hours ago, anthony_d said:

LR definitely collects the info, and they present it on their online dashboard.  But they only present the most popular airports.  I’ve shared the same opinion as you about being able to Search info about particular airports.  

Would also be useful to determine more statistics such as “busiest 2D airport” and so forth.  That could be a great tool for prioritising development jobs for gateway artists.

Sorry for hijacking this thread... But yes it would be great to get as much information as they have.

Or wouldn't it be cool to have a guest book/tower book in the tower of each gateway airport where you could write a short note to the "developer" so that the developer of the airport receives an e-mail with that message? Would be much leaner feed-back process than to go to the gateway page and file a bug for an existing airport and could also be used to praise the airport...

I truly think that this would be very rewarding!

Edited October 19, 2019 by DocBird

[Janov]

10 hours ago, DocBird said:

Sorry for hijacking this thread... But yes it would be great to get as much information as they have.

Or wouldn't it be cool to have a guest book/tower book in the tower of each gateway airport where you could write a short note to the "developer" so that the developer of the airport receives an e-mail with that message? Would be much leaner feed-back process than to go to the gateway page and file a bug for an existing airport and could also be used to praise the airport...

I truly think that this would be very rewarding!

Hi Till,

You are right, you can already do this, go to the Scenery Gateway website, log in, find the airport and write a "comment" about the airport. This is not only to report problems, you can also write a thank you or whatever. There is a tab "Add a comment" and another one "Report an issue".

If the developer has opted in on this, he will then get an email notification about your comment or issue.

I think you are right that it would be nice to have an "in game" way of doing it, but I think a lot of users wouldn´t like the nagging "Do you want to rate this airport?" 😉

Cheers, Jan

 

[anthony_d]

So here I am on the eastern side of China in the city of Yantai, with a tale of two airports!

I flew into the airport of ZSYT, expecting to perform a hefty upgrade of this combined airport and military base.  It was a complicated affair, and bugged with CIFP data errors always showing up.  So I called out for help, and Michael pointed out that ZSYT actually has a new home - a brand new airport opened in 2015.  They moved the ICAO code as well.

For me it was a serious facepalm moment!  By this time I was chest deep into development work on the old airport.  However whilst I could request a new airport code, it didn't avoid the fact that there would be an ugly and inaccurate ZSYT superimposed on top of the old airport.  

So there was nothing for it but to upgrade ZSYT to the new location, and when I do upgrades, I do not do half measures.  This has a fantastic gleaming new terminal building.

Ramp close up of new ZSYT

Terminal Wide view of new ZSYT

 

Remote Parking stands

Cargo

 

Big picture

ZSYT is a busy airport.  If that was the level of traffic that frequented the old airport, then it would have been very congested on the apron.

 

Here's the Old ZSYT (given a new designation of XZ0001)

Hellllooooo!  Is anybody home?

 

Back office view

 

Yes!  We're home, come join us for some fighter aircraft companionship!

 

Needless to say, while I'm flying in fseconomy, the old Yantai airport is still what that application will recognise.  It's database hasn't been updated for years.  

 

Anyway, for now it's onwards and eastwards.  To Korea, and beyond!
 

Edit:  so that’s now 300 airport submissions to my name on the gateway.  I ought to celebrate with a cake or a beer.  Maybe a 3d printed cake of a gateway airport.....  I wander if an “export to cake” function could be implemented in WED!  Sounds like a delicious idea!

Edited October 22, 2019 by anthony_d

[Janov]

Haha, you crack me up! And two airports for the "price of one" - what a great bargain for the Scenery Gateway!

I applaud you for always taking your time and doing a thorough job, no matter how remote (or decomissioned) an airport is. Quick question on the "painted gate numbers": Do you use the "numbers with dark edge" (as opposed to clicking on the number until the "no edge" version comes up for a seamless sign) on purpose to save time? I guess it really doesn´t matter and I could easily see you doing this - I have thought about doing that myself.

Congrats on pushing past 300! That puts you at #9 on the list - another 10 and you will become 8 (Beda is unfortunately not doing any airports anymore).

I got pushed to #3, but I have to admit that a lot of my airports were just "3 hour affairs" when I went through the german airfields big and small. Now doing mostly "big ones" doesn´t help with that number - but then again the number doesn´t say a lot...one big airport could easily be more effort than 50 small ones. I am happy that a lot of artists are contributing like they do and will gladly take last place if that means we continue to populate the X-Plane world at the rate we are going! 💪

Cheers, Jan

 

[anthony_d]

2 hours ago, Janov said:

Do you use the "numbers with dark edge" (as opposed to clicking on the number until the "no edge" version comes up for a seamless sign) on purpose to save time? I guess it really doesn´t matter and I could easily see you doing this - I have thought about doing that myself.

Generally it's dark edge.  It's a time saver. 

I map out the markings polygon, Ctrl-Q, Rotate, Copy, paste and move it.

I generally use these X coordinates for number boundaries:
0.003, 0.093, 0.181, 0.272, 0.363, 0.454, 0.545, 0.636, 0.727, 0.8, 0.89

Then it's just muscle memory, rythm and lots more copy/paste.  The extremities of the coordinate space tend to tax my brain as the number pattern starts to break down

 

2 hours ago, Janov said:

but then again the number doesn´t say a lot...one big airport could easily be more effort than 50 small ones

Yes,  I have to say that the artist rankings by number of submissions doesn't really illustrate the overall size of the contribution that a particular artist is making.  Question is, what would?  It's been discussed for at least a couple of years I think, but as such I don't think it's a priority.

[anthony_d]

Nearly a month has gone by.   So what on earth had happened?  Well I was departing from RJNF Fukui in Japan, when I suffered a loss of rudder.  Oh dear I thought.  This isn't an X-plane induced failure.  This is a USB failure.   So some quick thinking I plugged my rudder pedals into another USB port.  All was fine until around 4000ft climb out I lost all other USB ports except one.  It was clearly a failed flight which no abnormals checklist could ever prepare a pilot for (I wouldn't have been able to load up such a checklist since my mouse was wiped out by the same failure.

Anyway, the whole PC failed to power on just two days later.  It turns out my motherboard had died. So after replacing my PSU and motherboard, I finally got my machine working again.

So now I'm back in action, I've managed to make it from RJNO (Oki, Japan) to the Aleutian Islands off Alaska.

 

Oki airport is a small airport by Japanese standards, but one with plenty of detail.

 

Now continuing on my round the world trip, I'm finding that much of the pacific rim around here has been 3D'ed.  So I managed to make it all to way to PATU Casco Cove CGS before I found another 2D airport.  This truly is a remote place, and I think it's the westernmost airport in the united states (or easternmost, if you ignore the wiggle in the dateline)

 

Then onwards to PAAK Akta.  Another very small airfield.

 

So from here I head east to the continental part of North America.  There's a lot of gateway airports here already, but I'm sure there will also be plenty more 2D airports that I might land upon.

Here's hoping for no more nasty surprises.  Motherboard failure wasn't as expensive as all that, but it's been an expensive year for repairs to my house, so it wasn't so welcome in that context.

 

Edited November 20, 2019 by anthony_d

[anthony_d]

So I continued my round the world flight across North America.

Two more Alaskan  airfields got the gateway treatment.

PACD Cold Bay is in the Aleutian Islands, and it's good enough for regular airlines.

 

PAPH Port Heiden however is a more typical Alaskan rough gravel affair.  What's that you say?  Gravel is luxury for Alaska?  Well I suppose it is better than an unprepared gravel river bank.

Anyway, beyond Alaska, I made it right across the continent to Newfoundland before I found another Wedbot airport.  Such is the way of things - north America is reasonably well served with gateway artists.  But I got to CCP2 Exploits Valley, and it was wedbot screaming out for an upgrade.

 

So I got back to Aberdeen without anymore wedbot candidates.    Well after watching a few youtube videos over Christmas, I resisted the temptation to purchase a copy of Cities Skyline.  Much how I loved transport tycoon etc in my past, X-Plane is my family!  I must resist the dark side!!!

So what's an fseconomy pilot to do?  Why trade in my Beechcraft for something a bit roomier.

So I was back in the air having purchased a Saab 340 in Stavanger airport.  I needed  wanted to get it back to Aberdeen, but I only fly from west to east (because the direct route isn't so profitable, and rather boring!) and so I fly off on another round the world trip!

So I made it to URWA Astrakhan in Russia where I found another Wedbot airport.   This has a bit more detail to render, but the terrain on the apron is very much a roller coaster.  However rules are rules.  If the runway is serviceable, the flatten stays off!

 

 

Onto the next airport......

[FlynBrian]

Love your work thank you

[Janov]

Sitting in seat 4B on this next trip! Thanks for taking me along!

Cheers, Jan

 

[anthony_d]

OK.  First things first it's confession time.

There was one airport I landed at in Spain on my first round the world trip.  I was suffering from "I want to get home itus", so I skipped making it.

So I revisited it.  This is LEIZ La Perdiz.  A perfect little stopover for any farming tycoon in the middle of Spain.

 

Next onto my continuing adventures:

First Up is UT1F in Turkmenistan.  By all accounts it's got all the appearances of an abandoned Soviet Airbase.  So if  you fancy some interesting tourism, fly to Turkmenistan, fill a tank up with some Jet-A at the nearby airport and then just "walk in" and help yourself to the soviet era fighter of your choice.   There's no fence!  I get the impression that nobody really cares about security here.   Now I'm sure these things might need their batteries charging, and I have no idea how much hydraulic fluid there is left in these aircraft.  Tyres might need pumping up too.   But hey..... why not give it a go!  If it doesn't work, well then you've got plenty more to choose from!

 

 

So then I flew south back into Iran for a 2nd time.  I ended up in OIMT Tabas.  A small airport with a couple of daily scheduled flights

 

Next it was back into Turmenistan to UTAM Mary. Now this is one of those combined airbase / airport fields.  That normally means moderate complexity and sure enough it took about 12 hours to fix this one up.  The airbase side of things looks a bit worse for wear, but it still has some hint of operational status.  The airport side certainly looks a lot more fresh.   So I spent some more effort trying to spruce this side up.

 

 

 

So eastwards I go into the western extremities of the Himalayas.  I have a feeling that I'll be busy with lots of Wedbots around here.

[anthony_d]

So I've been busy.  I've managed to fly from Turkmenistan to India, via 8 wedbot airfields.  That took a long time.

First up is UT56 Gaurdak in the eastern extremes of Turkmenistan.  It's got all the appearances of being deactivated, but it still looks like a usable runway.  

 

Flying East, we get to Tajikistan.  It's quite a scenic part of the world, and here in UTDK airport Kulyab, we have a very serviceable airport with scheduled flights

 

Now I needed to get south to Pakistan, but I was low on fuel.  Now the airport above in FSEconomy doesn't have any fuel, so I headed southwest to a small airport called UT46 Parkhar South.  Can you land a Saab 340 on a 2500ft runway?  Sure!  Why not?

 

Filled with fuel I headed south over Afghanistan.  The scenery in this part of the world is drop dead gorgeous.  If only this part of the world could stabilise politically, it would probably become the worlds premier mountain adventure sports destination.

So I ended up at OP26 Khewra in Pakistan.  This is an ICI company airstrip.  It's tiny.  The perfect place for shipping out...… various ores?

 

Heading east, I end up at a proper little Helicopter base called OPMA Mangla

 

Thankfully Pakistan air traffic control gave me permission to fly to India.  My destination was VICS Kanpur Chakeri.  As luck would have it this is an air force base, so it's quite complex.

Solar Panels are definitely in fashion in India


Lots of old buildings here, with many hidden amongst the trees


The south side of the base has what looks to be a very small passenger terminal.  So I gave this bit my detailed love and affection.

So next it was south bound to VE46 Jagdalpur.  This is a small place, but recently upgraded with a new terminal building.  It's a proper regional prop kind of airport.

 

Finally I end up in VOVZ Vishakhaptnan Vishakaptann Vishakhapatnam.  Go on, you try and roll that off your tongue!  Can you say it?  No?  This airport has 4 million annual passengers, so it's an upcoming place.  I'm sure you can book a flight to it on expedia, but good luck amending your ticket on the phone to the helpdesk!


Runway 5/23 is all that wedbot had to offer, but there's now also runway 10/28

It's also an airbase, so it was a complex place.

 

Garrgh!  Patchwork repairs to the taxiway.  Nothing screams out "I want more money" than a patchwork taxiway.  Well, OK you can try driving in Aberdeen, I think that place screams out a bit more.

Nice new terminal building.  Opened in 2008 according to Wikipedia.

So from here I continue roughly eastwards.  First Kolkata, and then onwards to Bangladesh, Myanmar etc...

 

[FlynBrian]

Great work nice additions, your efforts are most appreciated

Best regards

Brian

 

[Janov]

Nice to read and follow along, all supplemented with some great humour and interesting facts! You are turning into a X-Plane travel blogger! 🙂

Cheers and thanks, Jan

 

[anthony_d]

Well my journeys continued east.  First to Bangladesh, then Thailand.  I was choosing a route down the Malay peninsula with Singapore on my mind, when a job caught my eye.  A juicy $10k fseconomy assignment across the Gulf of Thailand to VVTS Tan Son Nhat International Airport.

I wandered what this airport was, and soon enough I landed and found out exactly what it was:  A 50 hour job!

So there was nothing for it but to get to work.  Here are the results

So it has two terminal buildings, one very modern looking and an older looking terminal building.  It also has extensive cargo facilities. The last statistics in 2017 showed 35.9 million passengers passing through this airport.  Passenger numbers on Wikipedia suggest an exponential upward trend going into the future.

Nonetheless, there are what appear to be disused aircraft in a deep pocket of the cargo facility.  Parking for cargo has priority over parking for aircraft!

 

The old terminal building was depicted here.  Only four jetways...….

But many remote stands.

The central taxiway is out of bounds, and so there's quite a circuitous route for aircraft to navigate around most of the stands.   I also wanted to depict the many shades of asphalt and concrete that you get at this airport.  Not quite 50, but they are all grey.

So the bigger picture shows some signs of decay.  During the Vietnam war this was the one of the busiest airbases in the world.  There is still a military facility at the western end.

Overall it appears to me that this airport probably won't stay still.  It's extremely busy and almost every passenger parking space was taken up on the main apron.  I read somewhere that Ho Chi Minch city was one of the most entrepreneurial places in the world.  However given the built up nature of the urban landscape surrounding this airport, I can easily imagine that the authorities will build a brand new airport to accommodate growth.

Onwards...… I think a southern pacific route can be found.  I wander what airport comes next.  However Storm Ciara has lately taken out a couple of fence panels, so my attentions must turn (hopefully briefly) to more tedious duties.  If only life was as easy as lib/constructions/fencing/fence_Wood_02.fac click - click - export - done!

Edited February 10, 2020 by anthony_d

[Janov]

Hi Anthony, another well done airport!

There are no "quick and dirty" jobs when it comes to big airports like this if you are used to putting out a certain level of quality...maybe your journey will take you to WSSS Changi (I hope) - this airport is gathering bug reports (outdated runways) all the time... Plus it is the first airport I flew to in the 747-400 in 2002, so I would like to see it get the "anthony_d treatment" 😉

Cheers, Jan

 

[anthony_d]

Changi airport.  Last time I was there was 2008, when I was commissioning a control system onboard an oil production facility.  Good times.  I was on rotation there for 11 months.   Favourite moment was 3 minutes to midnight on Chinese New Year.  Taking off on a british airways 777  Runway 2L.   At midnight, we passed through 3000feet and the whole city below was lit up with fireworks beneath us!  Unforgettable! 

Terminal 3 had just opened and pretty much in the same month the very first Airbus A380 passenger service had touched down

Fast forward to today, I notice that there’s now a terminal 4, and a suspiciously “new terminal” expanse of dirt immediately east of the existing airport sandwiched between the existing runway 2C and a newly constructed runway 2R.  The whole place seems to be screaming out “I wanna put Atlanta airport into 2nd place”.

What do you reckon Jan,  a 300 hour job?

[Janov]

10 hours ago, anthony_d said:

What do you reckon Jan,  a 300 hour job?

I haven´t checked the current state of the airport...it was last modified by CleverestEU who seems to know what he is doing.

Then again, I tend to even tear down my own work when "touching up" an airport. If you totally redo it, yes, 200+ hours for sure.

But maybe one can get away with just adding the latest changes and updating the runways so that we get rid of the incessant "Missing runway(s) at WSSS" bug reports. These are autogenerated each time a user tries to enter an RNAV approach to a non-existing runway...

Cheers, Jan

[anthony_d]

4 hours ago, Janov said:

But maybe one can get away with just adding the latest changes and updating the runways so that we get rid of the incessant "Missing runway(s) at WSSS" bug reports.

Noooooo.  I can't.  If I see so much as a single taxiline not lining up with the underlying satellite image, then I get a severe case of OCD.

I'm one of those, "If I'm in it for a penny, then I may as well be in it for a pound" kind of people.
If I'm redoing WSSS, then it's a full scrap and rebuild job.

That said, I haven't looked at Changi airport.  It could be pretty good already.
 

[anthony_d]

Right.  Three more airports done.  

So I took off from Vietnam bound for Borneo.  It was a decent fseconomy assignment to the Malay part of the Island.  However it was three stops before I got to a genuine 2D airport.

The first one was WAQQ Taraken Juwata airport in Indonenisa.  This has a newish terminal building complete with the luxury of two jetways offering shelter from the tropical thunderstorms that periodically deluge the place.  Oh if only Aberdeen airport could learn,  but I digress...….

Wider view of the back office.  The double runway is a relic of the old airport name:  WALR.  This will be deleted once the gateway approvals process is done.

Main terminal building WAQQ

 

Next a short 70mile journey south to WALK Tanjung Kalimaru airport.  It is cast in a similar mould to the last airport, with a modern terminal building and two jetways.

Terminal view


Wide view

So next it was several hops to the next 2D airport of WABB Biak airport.  This has a civilian apron, and a military apron.  Not such a fully feature airport, and it's a bit strange to have a fuel farm right next to the control tower.  I just hope the tower staff are non-smokers...…..

 

Military side of the airport

Big picture.

So Indonesia is a huge country.  Probably the most populous maritime country in the world.  What struck me about this place was that airports are hugely important for its future economic prospects.  The roads between close airports are often twisty and terrible, but likewise 1800 miles from Biak Airport to Jakarta.  Those kind of distances you just wouldn't do on a ship.  So I reckon that in 10 years time that Indonesia will become a very important market for the commercial aviation industry.

As for Changi Airport,  well I think I'll take a raincheck on that one.  Maybe later.

Eastwards.... to the big blue!

Edited February 18, 2020 by anthony_d

[Janov]

Another three well done airports! I always thought that the Scottish people thrive in the rain - hence the uncovered walkways to the aircraft in Aberdeen. No worries about Changi, I think someone else will pick that up.

Yes, Indonesia is certainly picking up in air travel tremendously. With the explosive growth come further problems in quality and safety, of course. The only airport I ever flew to was Soekarno-Hatta WIII. I also did that for the Gateway, of course that was aeons ago and could do with an upgrade as well. One step at a time...

Cheers, Jan

[anthony_d]

Three more airports.  

So Papua New Guinea was my next stop.  There were two airports visited.

AYVN  Vinimo is on the north coast of the big Island.  This is a small airport, completely inaccurate in X-Plane before (like all the taxiways were to the south of the runway).  Judgeing by various satellite images, it's had an upgrade and it's now capable of receiving an B737 class of aircraft.

 

Next airport was AYMH Mount Hagen in the central highlands of New Guinea.  Also a small airport, but it has a regular scheduled service to Port Moresby airport.

 

From there I had a Island Hop across the south pacific.  All the the airports were already 3D.  But I arrived at SCDA Diego Aracena airport in Chile.  This is served by six airlines and it has extensive military facilities.  

 

 

So from here, I'm aiming to fly North across the Amazon rainforest, aiming for the Caribbean sea.  I'm expecting a few more Wedbot airports in South America, but once I get to the Caribbean, then I expect the number of Wedbot airfields will diminish on my way home to Scotland.

Northwards I go.....

[Janov]

Excellent work, Anthony! You inspire me to speed up my work on London so you can stop over there on your way back to Scotland. Take your time... 😉

Cheers, Jan

 

[anthony_d]

3 minutes ago, Janov said:

Excellent work, Anthony! You inspire me to speed up my work on London so you can stop over there on your way back to Scotland. Take your time... 😉

 

I think I'll be taking the Canada/Greenland/Iceland route back to Scotland.  There's less Coronavirus going in that direction!

Speaking of which,  I really should get some beer for the weekend.

[FlynBrian]

Just took 2 hours to get through Canadian customs getting back from a Puerto Viarta winter temperature escape. Now in a 14 day self imposed quarantine and some time to fix My Ontario missing air strips. So just be forewarned of Covid-19 delays.

Love the dedication you have Anthony 

[anthony_d]

Northwards through South America.  I landed at three Amazonian landing strips.  One in Peru and two in Brazil.

SPPB Tipisha is a grass strip in Peru.  Not much to look at, but I've added as many salient details as I could manage.

 

Next up was SBTK Tarauca in Brazil.  A few more facilities here, but it's unlit.  

Next was SWEE Estirao Do Equador.   It's got a very rough and ready look on the satellite images.  With this airport and the previous three, there was some tree clearance work to do.  So now your approaches can be done without needing to do a delicate dance with treetops

 

Finally my last airport in South America.  SVGI Guiria in Venezuela.  In the absence of any further information, I've left the runway in an unlit state.  

Northwards and westwards I go.  My plan is to track along the eastern seaboard of the USA to Canada, then Greenland, Iceland and home to Scotland.