PORT PIRIE - SOUTH AUSTRALIA - VERSION 1 for FS2002
YPIR Port Pirie airport and town
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Copyright (c) Greg Coote October 2002
This scenery is the second covering a town in what is known as the Iron Triangle in South Australia. The first was a scenery for Whyalla, release as IronTv1.zip. My original idea was to release scenery for the entire region as a single file. However, to keep the file size down for updates I've decided to release the sceneries for Port Pirie, Whyalla and Port Augusta seperately. This is the Port Pirie release - a new version of Whyalla is days away and Port Augusta is still in the works.
What is the Iron Triangle? The area known as the Iron Triangle is bounded by 3 towns on the northern shores of Spencer Gulf - Port Pirie on the eastern shore, Whyalla on the western and Port Augusta sitting to the north at the head of the gulf.
Why the Iron Triangle? The Microsoft scenery makes this area look far more pleasantly rural than it is in real life. These are in fact small industrial cities on the edge of the huge expanse of sparsely settled land that forms the centre of Australia. Port Pirie is at the northern limit of agricultural land and has a major grain shipping terminal in addition to the world's largest lead smelter, Pt Augusta is the cross-roads of the national rail network and SA's electricity generation centre while Whyalla has a steelworks and once had a shipyard.
This scenery covers the area around Port Pire.
For those who just want to fly, here is the basic information:
YPIR Port Pirie Airport elevation 40' S33° 14.3' E137° 39.7'
Runways - 03/21 872m x 30m dirt
08/26 1043m x 30m gravel, central 18m sealed
17/35 1069m x 30m dirt, central 18m gravel*
Lighting - Low Intensity Runway Lighting on 08/26
There are no navigation aids based on the field other than a rotating beacon.
*gravel centre strip does not show on my system - it may on yours!
MENU ENTRIES
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You will find Port Pirie in the main fs2002 airport menus for Oceania/Australia/South Australia. If you access the addon-scenery menu you will find starting positions on the terminal and general aviation aprons (ramps).
The scenery works well with the default terrain and the mesh terrain available as freeware from SATPAC at http://www.satpac.pcsa.net.au/. The mesh scenery is well worth the download and highly recommended. It brings up the rugged escarpment to the east wonderfully.
I also recommend the SA landclass scenery available from http://oceaniasim.net or www.SurClaro (seach under "landclass").
INSTALLATION
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The usual way - if you're unsure see the fs2002 help menu for instructions.
Check that the new SCENERY AND TEXTURE folders are within the YPIR folder and move to wherever you keep your add-on scenery. If you wish you can manually add the following entry to your scenery .cfg file, using your own entry numbers and paths:
[Area.xxx]
Title=Port Pirie
Local=...\...\YPIR (or your own file name)\scenery
Active=TRUE
Layer=xxx
No flatten or exclude commands required.
You'll need the ASD2.1, Airport and VOD textures - all available from the essential files list at SurClaro.
For those who want to know more:
ABOUT THE SCENERY
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PORT PIRIE AIRPORT is a small country airport. Easy road access to Adelaide means that it is only served by a single RPT flight each day. My understanding is that this is an Aero Commander operated by Airlines of South Australia. I also believe that Port Pirie was a navigation training base during WWII - which probably accounts for its relatively complex runway layout.
The airport depicted here is a reasonably accurate protrayal of the real thing. Runway dimensions, lighting etc are from the official charts. Stan Grace, a Port Pirie local, was kind enough to send photos of the main hangar and the buildings alongside the carpark (as well as some diagrams) and I have used these to create the textures for the custom macros. I did not have any detailed information about the terminal or the small hangar so they are a guess. Yes, the radial engine memorial is really there.
I have included some features of the local area. You'll find the lead smelter with its 673' chimney, the silos, racecourse and shipping. They're a reasonable depiction of the real thing and I've worked hard to capture an industrial feel in the night lighting. Also included is the TV tower on The Bluff north-east of town and the long jetty at Port Germein a couple of miles to the north.
KNOWN ISSUES
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The Port Pirie River is very truncated in the default scenery. As this is the setting for the smelters and silos I had to extend it, with the result that I ended up with autogen trees and houses mixing it with the ships. I've solved this by placing a series of transparent macros as autogen 'blocks' - works fine on my antiquated system and I hope it works on yours.
I get a couple of strange red lights floating in the air above the field at certain altitudes and distances. They're associated with the airport beacon and I can't get rid of them. Just pretend they're reflections on your cockpit canopy.
CREDITS
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Most of scenery objects are custom macros.
Scenery created with ASD2.1 and FSDS
Custom textures created with Paint Shop Pro
Cessna 177 -original model Eric Johnson, updated Dana Mcgee, this repaint Chris Watt
A couple of industrial buildings are the work of John de Langristin, as is the large motor vessel.
The portacabin buildings at the airport and the small ship are from an excellent set of macros by Maxted.
Many thanks to Stan Grace for the photos, diagrams and encouragement
FINALLY
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This is my third South Australian airport for fs2002 using custom macros and textures. I am keen to build other small South Australian airports with accurate buildings etc.
I would be interested in hearing from anyone who can supply photographs (or drawings) showing the location and appearance (particularly from airside) of buildings, hangars etc at South Australian airports or ALA's (also Broken Hill, Mildura and Portland). I am currently working on Pt Augusta and have some photos but would welcome more. I am also particularly interested in having a go at Kingscote, Port Lincoln and Ceduna.
COPYRIGHT AND DISTRIBUTION
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This scenery addon is made available for the private use of Microsoft
Flight Simulator enthusiasts. Under no circumstances may this zip file
be modified or sold for profit.
This scenery is released as Freeware. Copyright (C) Greg Coote.
As freeware you are permitted to distribute this archive subject to the following conditions,
- The archive must be distributed without modification to the
contents of the archive. Redistributing this archive with any files
added, removed or modified is prohibited.
- The inclusion of any individual file from this archive in another
archive without the prior permission of the author is prohibited.
- No charge may be made for this archive other than that to cover the
cost of its distribution. If a fee is charged it must be made clear
to the purchaser that the archive is freeware and that the fee is to
cover the distributor's costs of providing the archive.
- The authors' rights and wishes concerning this archive must be
respected.
