Royal Air Force Thorney Island (EGYT)
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.
Royal Air Force Thorney Island was an important operational station from 1938 until 1974. It is located on the south coast of the United Kingdom between the cities of Chichester and Portsmouth. Because of the picturesque coastal setting and good transport links, it was always a popular posting for RAF servicemen and women. Since 1982 it has been known as Baker Barracks and is currently home to a Royal Artillery unit of the British Army.
This scenery (my third project) was made using AIRPORT DESIGN EDITOR 9 X and INSTANT SCENERY, plus encouragement and help by scenery guru Tony Meredith at www.arm-computers.co.uk be sure to visit his site for loads of great freeware scenery for FSX and Horizon VFR GenX.
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 .
It is essential that you download and install a range of 'Third Party' scenery libraries from either SurClaro.com or Flight Sim.com File Libraries ..
http://www.SurClaro.com/
http://www.SurClaro/
These downloads need to installed AND activated within FSX (via the settings/Scenery Library/Add Scenery method) before they will appear.
Step one .
No Royal Air Force airfield in MSFS is complete without the wonderful collection of buildings by Ted Andrews. As they make up 90% of this scenery and a great majority of my future releases please downlod and install.
Just search for 'Ted Andrews' and you will find all the following files!
Scenery files.....
to be unzipped and the contents put into a new folder called 'scenery'...
And also this one texture file....
tedsraft.zip
to be unzipped and the contents put into a new folder called 'texture'...
Put both your new 'scenery' and 'texture' files into another new folder (I suggest you call it something like 'Ted Andrews Scenery) that you will now create and place this into the 'Add-On Scenery' file within FSX. Activate as any new scenery, before use, via the add Scenery method.
I have also used items from the great collection of British scenery by the UK VFR group. Install and activate as with Ted's files above, but (unlike Ted's) all the files required are in a single download.
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 RAF Thorney Island add-on scenery itself
Once you have installed the above files, copy the file included in this zip called RAF Thorney Island 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\RAF Thorney Island, 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 RAF Thorney island. 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 airfield can be found in the Go to menu under either its code EGYT or by the name RAF Thorney Island.
Step Three .
Extra Autogen Trees Option .
I have made a set of autogen tress 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 many (but not all) of the airfield trees autogen as well.
To install these trees, place the entire contents of the file called Thorney Trees into the drive where you keep your Horizon VFR Gen X folder, following the path below
*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 of the way autogen is created, the trees in the above file should have little impact on frame rates.
Moving Boat and yachts
One of the beta testers, Andrew Ford has created a great little file that gives you moving marine craft around the Island. Just follow the small re-me contained in the Boat traffic around Thorney folder. Again, you may need to refresh your scenery library to see anything and have at least 2% traffic in your settings menu. Thanks Andy!
Performance Issues?
The entire scenery I have made represents about 80% of all the buildings on the island, today in 2009, I doubt if many users will have the hardware to run the full scenery at an acceptable speed.
Therefore, I have only included the basic airfield in the standard scenery file. I feel this will be perfectly adequate for most visitors to the airfield and should keep frame rates at a smooth level on most machines.
If you would like to see a full representation of the island (within the restrictions of FSX) please copy any or all of the files included in the folder called Thorney extras directly into the scenery file of the folder RAF Thorney Island. These will give you things like the AMQs (airmens married quarters), West Thorney village (the Officers married quarter area, situated rather oddly on the East side of the island) and a host of detailed cars, boats and a number of Easter Eggs and VFR navigational aids around the local area.
Each time you add or subtract any of these files, just visit the scenery library via the FSX menu and click OK; that will allow the library to re-build its database and add or subtract the additional scenery.
It is better not to do any changes whilst actually having the scenery on screen!
The scenery has not been tested using default scenery, and will not work in any other simulator other than FSX. Not tested in DX10
I have made Thorney island as it was the day after the station was closed in 1974, there is no fuel available, but there is a skeleton ATC service and all the stations navigational and landing aids are working normally.
Comms Frequencies (fictional)....
Tower 131.75
Approach 133.90
Navaids (factual)
NDB...269.5
ILS on RWY 01/19.....108.70
Thanks to the kindness of Pete P of the CBFS forum, I have included four RAF approach charts in this package. Remember, they are 36 years out of date and should not be used for real aviation purposes!!!!!
Known problem with this release.
Thorney Island is a very low lying place, to cater for the fact that certain parts of the island are at sea level (protected by a sea wall near the perimeter) and others at 3 m, I have decided to make the entire airfield have an altitude of 1m, this is a little lower than real life and caused a small step anomaly in some of the tidal
mudflat areas.
Runway lighting is also too high at close quarters, but this seems to be a defect of the airfield design program, as I have seen it in other peoples projects too.
The Helipad near the tower and grass apron at the threshold to Rwy 19 are fictional, they cover up modern army buildings, added since 1974.
Approaching Rwy. 01, the village and sailing club of West Thorney is visible on the right of the picture. West Thorney has an interesting medieval chapel and several RAF war graves. Vehicle access to this is by prior arrangement only.
More information on the history of Thorney Island can be found here .
http://daveg4otu.tripod.com/airfields/tis.html
Notes ..
This scenery was made by studying aerial and mapping photographs and Google Earth, as well as public information on the internet. I have not actually visited the airfield for many years and have interpreted the layout and buildings as best as I can, using the readily available scenery objects for FSX. Please be aware that airfields change, what I have created is a generic version of the field as it appears at sometime over the past 5 years.
Future Releases .
Thorney Island is the third in a planned series of freeware UK airfields for FSX and Horizon VFR GenX scenery all of which are currently missing from the flight simulation world! Currently underway are RAF Tangmere in West Sussex and Hamble airfield in Hampshire.
Credits .
I would like to thank Ted Andrews and the team at UK VFR for the superb library objects used and also the designers at Scruffy Duck for ADE9X. A special mention must be made to scenery guru Tony Meredith for answering my regular queries and my beta test team of Andrew, Ben and Jim of the Classic British Flight Sim forum, thanks guys!!!.
Contact Details ..
Please post any problems (or praise!!) you may have at the Horizon Simulation forum topic for this scenery,
