This scenery file depicts the counties plan, more or less for an airport re-use of El Toro Marine Base. The base has been turned over to the county, and it's re-use is a major controversy in Orange County. The airport plan has been the most popular among voters in two elections, but the opposition still rages on. El Toro would be the second largest airport in the Los Angeles Basin, and would relieve much of the already overcrowded congestion at Los Angeles International (LAX). The airport is divided into four sections due to the cross shaped runway pattern. Section A is the main commercial terminal area. Section B is the cargo operations. Section C is for general commercial aircraft maintenance. Section D is for general use aviation. This scenery was designed for FS2002, but should work in FS2000 as well.
1. Create a temporary folder on your desktop named whatever you like, maybe ET, and extract the file into it.
2. Open the temporary file, and you should find a folder named El Toro. Move this folder to your FS2002 SCENEDB folder.
3. Start up FS2002 then go to WORLD, then in the drop down go to Scenery Library and select. Then click on ADD, find your SCENEDB folder and click on it, then find the El Toro folder and click on it. The name El Toro should apper in the title window automatically in FS2002. If you're using FS2000 you will have to type in El Toro.
4. Then click OK, and you should see El Toro at the top of your scenery list. Click OK again, and the scenery will begin to install. At this point you should have the scenery, but there will be FS default buildings scattered in front of the main terminal, and instead of 4, you will have 8 runways, and a mess of taxiways.
5. This is the most important step to clear up the scenery. This scenery has flatten and exclude switches to get rid of all the default stuff, so you must exit Flight Simulator. Then copy the following lines:
Then go into your main FS2002 or 2000 folder and scroll down till you find the main scenery configuration file. Open it and scroll all the way to the bottom, since that's where our El Toro scenery configuration should be. At the end of the El Toro cofiguration there should be a line with Layer # on it. The layer number will vary according to how many add on sceneries you have. Simply go to the next line immediately below the Layer, and paste your Exclude and Flatten lines there. Then hit file, and save, and that's it! Now go back into FS, and you should no longer have the default scenery cluttering up your new scenery.
This scenery was created using Airport 2.6, and is extremely dense, especially around the main terminal area. In order to create the main terminal area I used buildings inside of buildings, which creates the architecture I was looking for, but also adds a great deal, bringing frame rates almost to a hault. To compensate for this, the scenery has three levels which it can be run at. You must go to your Options, then Settings, and then Display. In Display you will see a slider for Scenery Complexity. Use the slider for best results. The following settings are recommended for using this scenery.
1. Very Dense= This setting will give you everything that I put into the design, all the static aircraft, the roads, parking structures, landscaping, and reflecting pools inside the main terminal area. Beware, at this setting frame rates are extremely jumpy, and I would not recommend it for landing or taking off, unless you have some type of super computer. This setting should only be used if you want to see everything around the main terminal area.
2. Dense= This setting will give you most of the static aircraft, and service vehicles, but will eliminate almost everything on the inside of the airport, which results in better frame rates. At this setting you will be able to see almost everything that is there on the airport side, including the hotel which is also very visible from the airport side. In testing I was able to taxi, take off, and land satisfactory, with a minimum of jerkiness.
3. Normal= This setting will give you visually the entire airport, but will eliminate most of the static aircraft, and service vehicles, and will reduce the number of buildings in other areas away from the main terminals. This is the best setting for flying the airport, and will give you very smooth landings, take offs, and taxiing even around the main terminal.
The type of aircraft you are flying will also help or hinder the frame rates. I got good results with the default FS aircraft, but when using custom highly textured aircraft with ultra cockpits, I could hardly move in the Very Dense mode. I will most likely come out with a future follow up to this scenery with less dense terminal structures in the near future. I had to leave out many features I wanted to include in this scenery such as tarmac lines, and docking aparatus, but if I added anything else, I think the frame rates would have gone to 0. Hope you enjoy this airport, and hopefully it will really get built in the future!
Bill Melichar If you have any questions, etc. feel free to E-mail me at:
bilboyz@aol.com
