This file lists some of the scenery in the New Orleans scenery with my comments. Not essential to use the scenery, just background info.
Stuff
First let me say I am originally from New Orleans. I have lived in Pensacola, Florida for 15 years so on my infrequent visits, it has changed. One bit of information in case you're unaware, in Louisiana counties are called parishes. Here are some general tidbits of info:
1.Jefferson Parrish Sheriff's Office(JPSO) 3RD District LASER Helipad - When I was a firefighter in the area 15 years ago, my department was located in the third district of JPSO. Most of my friends were Deputies. The two pilots for JPSO back then were Richard Lincoln and Jimmy Chatalain. They flew Bell 47s for SAR, aerial spotting, and suspect tracking. The scenery is as the district appeared back in 1978.
2.Marrero-Estelle area scenery- I was actually Fire Chief for the Marrero-Estelle Fire Department from 1977 to 1984. In the scenery, the fire trucks are accurately depicted as painted white. We were sitting in the old fire station(not shown) one afternoon after work talking about how the department had a bad reputation in the past. We were trying to come up with ideas on how we could change our image and came upon the idea of painting our trucks white(all others in the area were red). We only had two pumpers at the time and sent them out beginning the next day to be repainted. It cost $1450 to repaint a fire truck in 1976. I was a fire captain at the time and by the time the truck was finished, I had been elected Fire Chief. To this day, the trucks are still white.
3.Jefferson Fire Training Academy- For 1975, this was a great facility. The Director was George Martinsen and he brought in the biggest names in fire protection from 1975-1985. My training certificates are signed by the same folks who wrote all the books on fire protection. The academy is still there and still doing a great job.
4.PHI Harahan/New Orleans Base- This is a recent story. This scenery is a very accurate version of the base. The first article of interest is the Sikorsky s-76 you see in the scenery which accurately depicts an aircraft they have and use daily. If you downloaded the Arkansas Children's Hospital S-76 for FS98 a couple of years ago, you have this ship. PHI bought it from Children's Hospital and use it as a lease ship for Ochner and West Jefferson Hospitals. I removed the name from the ACH ship just as they did. The other item of inetrest is that when I visited the base to start doing this scenery, the folks there were very much into FS2002 and were very kind and helpful. Much of my scenery is "memory version". This scenery is very close to being accurate. Finally, the large towers just west of the base are high tension lines over the river. There are high lines as depicted over the levee(actually the Mississippi River has a levee(raised bank) on both sides from north of Baton Rouge all the way to the gulf. They are not allowed to approach over the ships you see in the scenery because people sleep on the during the day. These restrictions are typical and you'll have fun with your approaches just as the real pilots do.
5. Ochner Hospital- The textures were not available to do the buildings accurately, but the unique helipad approach and elivated helipad including the arrow on the ground and fence are accurate. A very interesting pad to get the S-76 in and out of I am told.
6. West Jefferson Hospital- This shows the hospital as it was in 1977. It is much larger now with the helipad on the roof. I have met the JPSO Bell 47 there a few times in the past and enjoyed the approach to the old grass pad. Hope you will too.
7. Oil Platforms- The Chevron oil platforms are not my APIs. The have a "fall through" bug that allows you to land on them but on some computers you will fall through to the water after 20 seconds or so. The other platforms are an older API and work ok.
8. Petrocom Offshore Communications- I worked for Petrocom 15 years ago when they were building their cellular system in the Gulf of Mexico. I flew out of the main office there next to the satelite dish many times going offshore to repair something that had stumped other techs for a few days. The two platforms are a fairly accurate rendition of how their offshore buildings look. I installed the earth station and cellular switch including the big Andrews dish.
9. Pontchatrain Beach- This was an old style amusement park located on the lake. It closed in the late 70s.
10. Westwego Airport also closed in the early 80s. It had that unique approach to the south where you actually flew through the hanger area before touchdown. The original had a big ditch filled with water parallel to the runway on the west side about 300 feet for seaplanes.
11. Venice, La.- Tony Broussard did an excellent scenery series for Venice for FS98. I did my version for you which includes the PHI base kinda close to what it was in 1976. I am told they have a big new base now. If I get down that way, I may add the new base later. Anyway, Venice is the gateway to the oil rigs in the gulf.
12. Leeville PHI base- This is a fictional recreation of the base I flew out of in 1976. My memory isn't what it used to be. It was actually the model for a helibase that appeared in the Colorado series. Same for "Heliservices", a fictional company in Lafayette Louisiana. I will be in Lafayette next year alot and plan to do a "real" base for both PHI and AirLogistics. I will do a more accurate Southern Helicopters in Baton Rouge too.
13. USCG Station in New Orleans- This base in real life has no helipad. When I saw it, the thought struck me that the little peninsula would be a great place for helipads. There is also an ILS approach to these fictional pads.
14. Jackson Barracks- This army facility dates back to pre-civil war. My rendition is only a guess based on one visit there 20 years ago and pictures on the net. The green area in the middle is the parade grounds, a feature of the original base.
15. Ship fire in the river- Around 1980ish, a tug pushing a barge colided with a crude oil tanker in the river. I was one of the first on the scene on the west bank of the river and was almost run down by the crew from the tug running away from their docked ship. The whole river was on fire as well as the ship. The New Orleans FD fire boat "Bourgeois" was out putting water on the ship.
16. Gretna Middle School Fire- Yep, it is from 1976. I was dispatched to go but was delayed because someone had broken into my car during the night and it would not start. Until recently it was a park area.
17. BP Tank fire in Gretna- I was there too in 1976.
18. Stennis Internation airport- Senator John Stennis of Mississippi had this 14,000 foot runway build in the 70s with the idea that it could be used as an emergency landing field for the Space Shuttle. A shuttle has never landed there but a 747 carrying the shuttle "piggy back" did land there in the 1980s. I landed a Piper Cherokee 140 there in 1982.
19. Woodland West Country Club- You're right, it closed in 1975. It was ultimately an 18 hold course but it could not be supported from the local residents. My father was a large stock holder and I played golf there form many years.
20. The large Mall in the Marrero-Estelle scenery area- This was a big grass field when I moved to Marrero in 1972. In the early 80s it was bought and a mall was constructed. By 1987, the bottom fell out of the oil industry and many people close to the mall defaulted on their home loans. When the government could not sell the homes, they made low income housing out of them. All of a sudden, everyone was afraid to go to this mall and it closed its doors in 1990. It is still there overgrown with trees and grass.
21. Gretna/Harvey area- I grew up here. It is a scaled down version of the actual but if you spotted something that interested you and decided to visit the area, you could find it. You'll notice a van parked on a side street in Gretna. That is my wife's where she worked as a legal secretary for an attorney. Next to The High School where the stadium is, there is an old church. The tree behind is where my friends and I used to sit(up in the tree) and smoke at 13 years old. Conoco used to use the open field to land a Bell 47 they had back then on floats. Boy, that was exciting to a young kid!
22. Ol'Muddy Seaplane is fictitional. The layout is based on Souther Seaplane which is actually depicted in FS2002 albeit not accurately. There was the long seaplane ditch and a small strip. Ol' Muddy uses the river as the seaplane ditch and the rest of the airport is like the old Southern Seaplane owned by Mr. Panapinto.
23. Ferrara Fire Apparatus is a real place in Holden, La. There is no helipad. Chris Ferrara was a welder at a shipyard I believe and got the idea to build fire trucks. Ferrara donated a truck called "the Spirit of Louisiana" to the FDNY after September 11th earlier this year.
24. Crash of PanAm FLight 759 is included near New Orleans International. It was a real event that happened on July 9,1982. My department was dispatched along with many more. The scenery is somewhat accurate within the ability of scenery generation. The airfraft broke up much more on hitting the ground. There is a picture included with the distribution which appeared in the area paper. On the left side of the picture, the side view of a tall person wearing a white Federal fire helmet is me. We are standing in the area in front of the house where the fuselage rests in the FS2002 scenery. The description of the accident in the paper read:
(At 16:07:57, Flight 759 began its takeoff roll toward the east of the airport, with gusty, variable and rain laden winds swirling directly at its nose. McCullers and crew held the Boeing on the ground until 158 knots indicated airspeed was reached; seven knots above the aircraft's V2 takeoff safety speed of 151kt. About three dozen witnesses, several of them qualified pilots, saw flight 759 lift off about 7,000ft down runway 10 in, to quote one airline pilot, a normal rotation, lift off and initial climb segment. But it reached a height of only 100-150 feet before beginning to descend in a steep nose up attitude. At approximately 16:09, it clipped trees while veering to the left, struck a powerline, and crashed into the the middle-class suburb of Kenner, fireballing and destroying six houses, damaging a further five, and killing eight people on the ground. All 145 on board were killed.
The crash was the second worst accident in the history of American aviation at the time. The NTSB found that windshear on the runway and environent during the critical liftoff period was responsible, and lamented the fact that no accurate windshear forecasting technology was available for ground controllers or pilots at the time.)
25. New Orleans pronunciations and trivia:
New Orleans - new-or-luns' (notice the accent on Orleans, not New. The easiest way to spot a damn yankee is when they say New' Or-leens. Some locals pronounce the city name "nawlins". Radion personalities say New or-lee-yuns).
Pronouncing other famous New Orleans items (get it right yankees or stay up north):
Mardi Gras- modi'-gra
Lagniappe- Lan'-yap(like a baker's dozen, lagniappe is "a little extra").
Darling- Dawlin
Audubon(Park)- odd'-o-bun Park
Tulane(University)- ta-lane'
Ochner(Hospital)- osh'-ner or ox'-ner
Pecan- pa-kahn' (another word yankees mispronounce as pee-can).
Pralines- praw'-leens
Crayfish- craw'-fish (yankees say cray-fish or even worse, craw-dads)
Jambalya- jum-ba-ly'-ya (mispronounced jam-bull-lye-uh by our northern friends.)
And while I am picking on yankees, please remember that to play a game of golf is referred to as " I am going to play golf", NOT "I am going golfing", just as you don't go footballing or basketballing or vollyballing or baseballing.
Now to pick on my own folks:
Some residents are fascinated with the "earl" sound as the local saying/verbal exercise goes, "oysters will spoil if you boil them in oil" becomes "Er-sters will sperl if you berl them in earl". These folks are called "yats" mainly because their greeting is usually, "where ya at?"
They call the median of a street the "neutral ground". This omes from the spanish and french occupation of New Orleans years ago. They fought all the time but met in the middle of the road on neutral ground to trade. The sidewalk is called a "banket". A sandwich is a "samwitch". So if you sit on the banket and eat your samwitch, chances are it's lunch time.
Another favorite when a local wants to ask how your family is doing they might ask, "How's ya momma an nem" (Translation: How's your momma and them). If they want to go to their mother's home, it usually is said, "Im gonna go by momma's". So "I went by your house yesterday" translates to I came to visit you yesterday.
Great personalities of yesterday in New Orleans were Uncle Henry(Henry Dupre), the Great MacNutt(Wayne Mack), Morgus the Magnificent(Sid Noel), Miss Jenny(Romper Room) (Jenny Hostettler). News personalities were Alec Gifford (news), Nash Roberts (weather), Buddy DiLiberto (sports), Happ Glaudi (sports), and Terry Fletritch (feature show: Midday). Oh yes, it would not be good to mention Morgus above without his side kick "Chopsley" played by Tommy George. Check out www.morgus.com
Radio Personalities of New Orleans past included Sid Noel, The "Real" Robert Mitchell(WTIX), "Skinny" Tommy Chaney (WTIX), Dan Diamond (WNOE), Nutt and Jeff(Roy Roberts and Jeff Hugg WSMB). Other personalities were Ketih Rush, Jerry Valence, "Poppa Stoppa", Brian Harrigan, Ted Green, Bob Walker, Bruce Kramer, Jerry Womack, and Larry Pine.
Sports history: Pro Baseball great Mel Ott was from New Orleans as was football great Jim Taylor. New Orleans had a pro baseball team years ago called the Pelicans. The Utah Jazz started as the New Orleans Jazz (now the name makes sense?)
New Orleans had an ABA team called the Buckaneers and the man who built the Superdome was Jim Dixon. The owner of Pontchatrain Beach were the Batts. And finnally, what is a rememberence of New Orleans without Al Scramuzza of Seafood City. "Buy from Al Scramuzza and you'll never be a loser".
There were many other scenery ideas I could have added, but alas, it was time to release the child! Maybe I'll do a New Orleans II if the response is good enough. Have fun!! Charlie
