Introduction
Ross Airpark is a fictional municipal airport situated a few miles south of Ross, Tasmania, and 31nm south-east of Launceston. The design features hotel and villa complexes within a heavily treed landscape, plus a few dozen static aircraft. The airport has a terminal and control tower, plus co-sited VOR and NDB navaids. Simulated IFR approach plates using these navaids are included in this package.
Version
Ross Airpark v1.00, for MS Flight Simulator 2002.
RossPk10.zip CONTENTS:
ROSS FOLDER: This contains the entire package, as follows:
Ross Readme file: This document.
FILE_ID.DIZ: File description. A brief descriptive file used by web sites offering the package.
ROSS AIRPARK folder: This is your ROSS add-on scenery folder. It contains 2 major folders--scenery and textures. The ROSS AIRPARK folder goes into your FS2002 folder. See INSTALLATION, below.
EXTRAS folder: This contains all the extras you can archive, preferably on external media. CONTENTS: (1) Ross Information documents. The same item in 2 simple formats. Provides Airpark data, IFR arrival suggestions, etc.
(2) ROSS PIX folder, containing 2 jpgs of the airpark, and the IFR approach plates jpg.
(3) ROSS AI TRAFFIC folder, containing the ROSS AFCAD airport file, a Ross AFCAD map, a modified ROSSPARK_AFD.bgl, and the AI-TRAFFIC README.
(4) NovaLib1.bgl file. By Rafael Sanchez, this file is required by FS2002 when reading the Nova textures listed below. See INSTALLATION, below.
INSTALLATION
If you are new to add-on scenery installation, follow these simple directions:
You have already unzipped RossPk10.zip to a folder on your hard-drive. From here you can simply move--or copy-paste--the ROSS AIRPARK folder to your FS2002 folder. Most users prefer to place additional sceneries in the ADDON SCENERY folder, within the main FS2002 folder. You need only the ROSS AIRPARK folder in FS2002. It includes all the textures you need other than the 'Generic' textures listed below.
NOTE: After installing the NOVA textures listed below, check in your main FS SCENERY folder for the NovaLib.bgl file. If it is not there, find the copy in the EXTRAS folder. Simply move/copy it to the main FS scenery folder, where it will be available to all add-on sceneries using NOVA textures.
After installing the ROSS AIRPARK folder, open FS2002. It will pause while it creates a new scenery database and index, then offer the usual choices. Select your usual start situation. From the WORLD menu, select 'Scenery Library', then click on 'Add Area'. Browse to the ROSS AIRPARK folder in your ADDON folder.
Single click on the folder, which should instantly light-up. Then click OK. Close the scenery library dialog box by clicking on the "tick" or OK. You should now find ROSS AIRPARK in Added Areas in FS2002.
ADDITIONAL TEXTURES YOU WILL NEED
Many scenery designers use all or some of the following textures to enhance their creations. Hence it is advisable to treat them as 'Generic' texture files, and include them in FS2002's TEXTURE folder. After downloading and unzipping these files to a temporary folder, move or copy-paste them into your FS2002 TEXTURE folder.
1. Gerrish Grey's Trees Library, version 3. For FS2002 only. Gerrish's trees extensively feature throughout the Ross design. You can download his library of trees textures from major Flightsim websites, including:
http://www.SurClaro/
http://www.SurClaro.com/
http://oceaniasim.net/ [See 'Must Have Files']
2. Airport for Windows Textures (Apt = Airport 2.10 +). Obtainable from either: http://www.airportforwindows.com/
or
http://oceaniasim.net/
or the above-named FS websites under 'Must Have' Files.
3. VOD textures version 3, by Rafael Garcia Sanchez. As above, or
http://oceaniasim.net/.
The zip includes a simple installer.
4. Nova & Nova Gold textures. Rafael Garcia Sanchez requests that you download his Nova textures directly from his website: http://www.fsnova.com/files.htm
You should get:
NovaGt1.zip
NovaTxt3.zip
NovaTxt2.zip
NovaTxt1.zip
Again, ensure that the NovaLib1.bgl file is in your main FS SCENERY folder.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED EXTRAS
Ian Thatcher's Tassie Landclass Scenery. You should find that this relatively small addition (around 130Kb) greatly enhances your VFR flights within Tasmania. Ian has also created several Tasmanian airport sceneries, and additional LandClass scenery for Queensland, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Victoria and South Australia. Download from:
http://oceaniasim.net/
or
http://www.aussim.com/
Gerrish Grey's Autogen Trees. Not to be confused with the library above, this addition enhances the appearance of trees worldwide in FS2002. Download from the main FS websites.
Gerrish Grey's Autogen Buildings--Australia. Yet another contribution from Gerrish, this addon joins a series of regional building improvements for FS2002. Download from the main FS websites.
ROSS COMMS:
Ross Tower: 122.1
Ross Ground: 128.7
Ross AWOS: 120.6
ROSS NAVAIDS:
ROS VOR: 116.5 (90nm).
ROS NDB: 282 (50nm).
SCENERY COMPLEXITY SETTINGS & FRAME RATES
Ross Airpark contains many 3D objects, which will greatly tax your CPU's rendering capacity. To allow for this in the park's design, scenery elements have variously been set to 3 levels: Sparse--Normal--Dense.
Many factors affect the MS-FSim Frame Rate, including CPU capacity, video card capacity and settings, FSim frame-lock setting, screen resolution, scenery complexity, Menu-on vs full screen, active background programs, hard-drive speed, total RAM, active ATC, AI Traffic settings and movements, etc. Trial and error appears to be the best approach to finding the optima for your computer.
If you have a Scenery Complexity setting of Dense or higher, and low frame rates interfere with your approach and landing, you can simply type 'P' (Pause), reset scenery complexity to Normal, land, reset to Dense or greater, then either taxi slowly or use the Slewing function to view the park (see the Ross Information document for further discussion).
What shows at the 3 settings levels:
Under Menu--Options--Settings--Display, with 'Scenery Complexity' set to DENSE or greater, the entire airpark becomes visible. However, on the design platform (below), frame rates dropped to as low as 3/sec in flight. At the NORMAL setting, the hills with villas, some buildings, some static aircraft, and numerous tree groves, will not display. At the SPARSE or VERY SPARSE levels, only the most basic elements display, while frame rates are hightest.
Summary:
1. Use FULL-SCREEN view.
2. For all but the most powerful CPUs, use Scenery Complexity of NORMAL for approach and landing. Then inspect the park at DENSE setting by slowly slewing, preferably at 100ft AGL.
3. For night IFR approaches, or day IFR in IMC, NORMAL or SPARSE has provided a smooth approach on the design platform.
4. When flying circuits (patterns), choose NORMAL.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Ross Airpark was made possible by the generosity of the following contributors to the FS freeware domain. To all I extend my gratitude.
Pascal Meziat, Tom Hiscox and Brian McWilliams, for the design program, Airport for Windows.
Manfred Moldenhauer, for the remarkable SCASM.
Gerrish Grey, for his beautiful tree macros and textures.
John De Langristin, for his superb hotel, villa and carpark macros, and 10 static aircraft macros.
Ian Thatcher, for his airport signs, animated windsocks, and abundant invaluable advice. Without Ian, this project would have stalled.
Robert Palmer, for 10 static aircraft macros based on Jerry Arzdorf models, and another 10 based on models by Dana McGee, Eric Johnson and Bob Wening.
Rafael Garcia Sanchez, for his VOD, Nova and Nova Gold macros and textures.
Contributors to the Airport for Windows Support Forum--thanks for your help and advice.
Special thanks to Ian (again), Andrew Crawford, Neil Barnett, Malcolm Lloyd, Greg Archer and Brian Wilson for beta-testing Ross and suggesting improvements. Following their advice, around 50 changes were made to the original design.
If I have overlooked anyone here, please forgive a senior moment, know that your contribution has been appreciated and, if it is copyright material, that your copyright is respected.
DESIGN PLATFORM:
P3, 1Ghz.
Gigabyte 6VTXE Mbd.
256Mb SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200 GPU
Winfast 250A adaptor driver
SoundBaster Live 5.1 Sound card
Windows 98
FS2002 Pro
COPYRIGHT & DISCLAIMER
Copyright (c)2002 Adrian Shortall. All rights reserved. Mo claim is made to the copyrighted creations of other authors included in this scenery package.
In the extremely unlikely event that it happens, the author shall not be held responsible for any damage (real, perceived or otherwise) these files may cause to your PC. No untoward effects occurred during extensive testing of this scenery on the above-noted platform.
This scenery is FREEWARE and may be distributed freely and only for non-commercial purposes. It must not be sold for profit.
Unless the author grants permission to do so, no files may be added to, removed from, or modified in, this package.
Where appropriate, please credit the author when redistributing these files.
*** Visit the Downunder FlightSimmers at www.oceania.com/ and www.aussim.com/ ***
I hope you enjoy your tour of Ross Airpark.
Adrian Shortall (fastade@ihug.com.au)
