Portsmouth Airport (X2PM)
for
Microsoft Flight Simulator X and Horizon VFR Photographic Scenery Generation X (Vol. 1) only
by Trevor Clark
Important Note
For this scenery to function correctly it is necessary to download additional free objects and textures via the internet, please see the installation instructions in this document as to where to find and install them.
Portsmouth Airport in the south of England was once an important hub for early package holiday flights to the Channel Islands and France. The airport also housed the Airspeed aircraft factory that was later taken over by de Havilland and later was used to build parts for several British airliners like the Airspeed Ambassador, DH Comet and HS Trident. In 1973, the city council who owned the site decided that without tarmac runways, the airport was no longer able to cope with more modern aircraft. As the will (and money) to make this investment was not there, they closed the site and sold it all to property developers for housing and commercial use.
This scenery was made using old photos and personal memories, so is not 100% accurate. It incorporates both older and newer terminal areas, the Airspeed factory and has many detailed scenery objects, authentic period AI traffic.
This scenery was made using AIRPORT DESIGN EDITOR 9 X and INSTANT SCENERY. It is freeware and must not be used or copied for reward or uploaded to file sharing/hosting sites anywhere without my written approval.
Installing this scenery .
Step one .
It is essential that you download and install a range of 'Third Party' scenery libraries from Flight Sim.com File Libraries, click on the link below and go the search menu ..
http://www.SurClaro/
These downloads (in green) need to be installed AND activated within FSX (via the settings/Scenery Library/Add Scenery method) before they will appear.
Please Note If you have installed my previous sceneries for Hamble, Oxenhope, A Day at the Seaside, Weston on the Green or Eshott, please proceed to step 2 as you will already have the required files on your PC
Name: lens_ez_scenery.zip Size: 25,470,147 Date: 10-20-2009 Downloads: 549
FS2004 Lens EZ Scenery Volume 1. A collection of scenery objects. By Len Hickman.
Or From Tony Merediths website here .
http://www.arm-computers.co.uk/html/len.html
I have also used many items from the great collection of British scenery by the UK VFR group, if you have any of my previous sceneries, they will not be needed as you will already have them installed..
Name: ukvfr.zip Size: 44,781,123 Date: 02-28-2008 Downloads: 1,669
FSX Scenery--UK VFR Add-ons. A scenery set required by many add-on sceneries, made easy to download and set up for FSX. Some of the libraries don't work with FSX but the majority are okay. Uploaded with permission from Alan Fidler. By Neil Birch.
Step Two ..
Installing the Portsmouth Airport add-on scenery itself
Once you have installed the above files, copy the file included in this zip called Portsmouth Airport into your FSX add -on scenery file; it will be something like this .
C\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Addonscenery\ Portsmouth Airport \, depending on what letter drive you have your FSX installed. C drive is the most common.
You must then activate the scenery by selecting (within the menu of FSX) settings-scenery Library- Add Scenery. A box will be displayed showing your FSX folder. Click on add-on scenery to open this file and then highlight (with your mouse) the folder called Westonzoyland whilst high-lighted, click OK. The simulator will take a few minutes to build a new data base and will the return to the menu page.
One installed the airfields can be found in the Go to menu under either its code X2PM or by the name Portsmouth Airport and under the name of the city who owned the airport, Portsmouth.
Traffic Alert ..Please note
A default FSX DC-3 will be using the airfield from time to time, working the lucrative Channel Island service from the new terminal alongside the Eastern Road; to see these AI aircraft, please ensure that your traffic settings are set above 1%. To remove them, leave the airfield within FSX, delete the small file called Traffic_DC-3 and refresh your scenery library.
If you would like a super de Havilland DH-89a Rapide to replicate the service from the older terminal to Sandown on the Isle of Wight, please add the small file called Traffic_DH-89a (enclosed in the optional folder called Dave Garwood DH-89a AI traffic) into your Portsmouth Airport scenery folder along with the DC-3 file that is already there. You will of course have to have Daves great freeware DH-89a model installed in your FSX hangar to see this. Details of where to download the aircraft are contained within the folder mentioned above.
Step Three (All Optional)
Extra objects
As usual, I have included a lot of extra objects around the airfield, for those who like lots of eye candy and have a PC system that can handle it. Just add the file contained in the folder called Portsmouth extra details into your Portsmouth/scenery folder. It will need to be refreshed, by visiting the scenery library within FSX if you have already installed the rest of the airfield. This will be done by FSX automatically anyway, the next time you boot up the simulator. Please be aware that the airport perimeter has a huge amount of factories and warehouses, not all are modeled, to allow reasonable frame rates.
Optional Different Static Aircraft.
I have included some non-default static GA aircraft which gives the airfield a nice period feel. These are supplied by the static library made by kb, you can download the whole library here
http://www.kb-sim.com/screens_static_aircraft.html
You should install the files in the normal way, an enclosed read-me file should guide you, if you have problems. In general anything with a .bgl goes in scenery and all others go in texture!
Then add my small file Portsmouth_extra_KB_statics (the file only, not the whole folder) contained in the folder called kb_static aircraft into the main Portsmouth/scenery folder and refresh the scenery library via the FSX main menu.
You should now have a mix of different GA aircraft and a few MS default ones as well, to reflect the busy nature of Portsmouth in the 1970s.
If you chose not to use the above files, there will still be a couple of default MS aircraft to make the place look like an airfield!
Step Four. (Optional)
Autogen Trees Option .
I have made a set of autogen trees that add a bit of interest and help navigate around the airfield circuit at low level, to improve the performance on more modest PCs, I have made some (but not all) of the trees surrounding the airfield autogen as well.
To install these trees, place the entire contents of the file called Portsmouth trees into the drive where you keep your Horizon VFR Gen X folder, following the path below
*F:\VFR-Gen-X-2.0\Volume1\Area3\2.4m Photo\texture
*My scenery is on F drive (it is better if you have the option to install all the Horizon VFR X scenery on a DIFFERENT drive to FSX and your Windows operating system, but not essential.), yours may well be on C:\
Please Note
If FSX is running, you may need to re-start it to see the trees.Because I have used a photo tile (to remove the current housing estate), some autogen files have to be kept in the main Portsmouth texture folder to ne seen. These are already in place and should not be removed.
Because of the way autogen is created, the trees in the above file should have little impact on frame rates.
Performance Issues?
With just the standard airfield as set out in Step 2, most users should be able to run this scenery at reasonable frame rates. Reducing any auto gen trees to a normal setting may help. If you are reading this several years from now (early 2010), you should be able to use all the extra files I have provided.
The scenery has not been tested using default scenery, and will not work in any other simulator other than FSX. Not tested in DX10
More Information
http://daveg4otu.tripod.com/airfields/por.html
Known Problems with this scenery
The default MS road traffic that uses the M27 is prone to disappear at odd times for several hundred metres. The only way I know of stopping this, is set the road traffic to 100%. It seems the MS use this interrupted flow method, rather than a reduced amount of traffic flow, to adjust the settings. It is a problem within FSX, as far as I have been able to ascertain.
I have tried to build the airport as accurately as I can, but information is hard to come by, even with the wonderful resources of the internet. I have used the book Airfield Focus 77 Portsmouth by Clayton B Hartley as my main guide; although the changes that took place over the 50 years of operations make this scenery a little bit of a mish-mash of different periods. The sheer amount of original buildings required have also forced me to use a little more artistic licence than a modern airfield, but I hope you can still enjoy using it. The factory on the south of the airport was a known hazard for Rwy. 36/18, so take care!
Credits .
I would like to thank the team at UK VFR, Len Hickman and the other designers whose objects I use on my sceneries for the superb library objects used and also the designers at Scruffy Duck for ADE9X. A special mention to Ted Harrison for being able to guide me through each new add-on programme I am using to make these sceneries and for supplying the photo mask to rid the site of houses. Thanks again, Ted!
Contact Details ..
Please post any problems (or praise!!) you may have at the Horizon Simulation forum topic for this scenery, I (or another member) will do my best to respond within 24 hours.
http://www.horizonsimulation.co.uk/forums/
