Cal Classic Historical Scenery and FSX

[BendyFlyer]

For those interested in reverting back airport wise to the era of effectively between the 1940's to the mid 1960's, to give a more authentic feel so to speak to the quality aircraft now out, such as the Jahn Teams C-47, A2A Constellation, PMDG DC-6 etc not to mention other classics, I have been working through the Cal Classic Scenery library to find what works in FSX and what does not given they have now converted basically all their libraries into FSX.

The surprise is that a very large number of these scenery packages and or airports work just fine with FSX, which is quite surprising given the general view about 2004 stuff not being compatible with FSX etc etc. I am only working through the Asia-Pacific area at the moment (It is a huge package airport wise) and so far about 65-70% of the airports work in FSX with appropriate buildings etc being displayed and no funny floaters etc. Now there is not everything for everywhere but so far very good. For details you will need to visit the Cal Classic Forum and the topic about Cal Classic scenerys in FSX. There are underway a number of FSX conversions of the more complex airports such as in the USA. It is much more satisfying pulling up at La Guardia circa 1960 than JFK 2017, in the PMDG Dc-6 or at Honolulu 1959 in the Connie.

 

[rich12545]

The nice thing about using these airports in FS9 is that 100% of them work and, to enhance the experience, you can first install Silver Wings.

 

[Bjoern]

No ground poly issues?

Normally, you'd have to redraw the airport background polys in ADEX when trying to use a custom FS9 scenery in FSX.

 

[ian elliot]

No ground poly issues?

there are a few, and im handy enough to fix them with ADEX, but quite a lot will work out of the box . The Calclassic guys have also released a dedicated FSX version of their scenery librarys also.

cheers ian

 

[Bjoern]

there are a few, and im handy enough to fix them with ADEX, but quite a lot will work out of the box . The Calclassic guys have also released a dedicated FSX version of their scenery librarys also.

Do you also upload these once you're done?

It could be a bit of a benefit to the CC community.

 

[BendyFlyer]

Bjoern the biggest problem I have encountered is with misalignment of the whole airport so it is off by about 1500m longitudinally and about 500m laterally. It seems to be a lat/long cordinate issue or alternatively when the original scenery was done the MS world was not as accurate as say FSX that being said I use ORBX Global and Global Vector which seem about 90% accurate for shorelines etc. One could move the whole airport using ADE but then all the objects would stay, there is only one that I really wanted to use that had this problem and it would probably be easier to redo it using ADE.

I have only encountered one or two major ground poly issues, one at Lae in PNG which was plastered with trees and FTAA in the Pacific where the whole airport looked liked it need to be flipped to go where it was supposed but then I have other sceneries to revert to which are fine anyway. From the forum posts there have been some ground poly issues for some of the American airports, like SFO but I think it depends on the base scenery files that are used, FSX or whatever. Canton Island in the Pacific is a problem but it was in default FSX as well, as both the CC and FSX default place or extend the runway about 1500m into the Ocean on the northern side, that one I will have a go at moving because the scenery was great and featured as a major refuel during WW2 and later with Constellation and DC-6 flights across the Pacific, otherwise and very authentic for the period. I have had no problems with the upadated object libraries at all and any problems are minor and can be easily fixed using Instant Scenery or ADE. Tom posted a good tutorial about how to use ADE to address the ground poly issue using Sydney Australia as the example. Airport is fine but the second northsouth runway remains as ground in the bay, which of course is incorrect because it was not built until the 1980s.

Not sure about what to do about any changes I guess the CC people would not mind me reloading the Asia Pacific Package for example, minus the ones which were no good which I simply deleted the relevant files from. I will see what Tom has to say about that.

 

[Bjoern]

Bjoern the biggest problem I have encountered is with misalignment of the whole airport so it is off by about 1500m longitudinally and about 500m laterally. It seems to be a lat/long cordinate issue or alternatively when the original scenery was done the MS world was not as accurate as say FSX that being said I use ORBX Global and Global Vector which seem about 90% accurate for shorelines etc. One could move the whole airport using ADE but then all the objects would stay, there is only one that I really wanted to use that had this problem and it would probably be easier to redo it using ADE.

That's no surprise, considering FS9's world being a cylinder and FSX' world being a sphere. I, however, wonder why the sceneries weren't moved to their proper place during their initial creation.

Not sure about what to do about any changes I guess the CC people would not mind me reloading the Asia Pacific Package for example, minus the ones which were no good which I simply deleted the relevant files from. I will see what Tom has to say about that.

I'll eat my hat if he objects (provided you give proper credit to everyone involved in the original sceneries).

 

[BendyFlyer]

That's no surprise, considering FS9's world being a cylinder and FSX' world being a sphere. I, however, wonder why the sceneries weren't moved to their proper place during their initial creation.



I'll eat my hat if he objects (provided you give proper credit to everyone involved in the original sceneries).

The readme and credit note is going to be very long indeed then. As you are aware there are some hardcore 2004 users at Cal Classic, like a lot of sim versions. Me I am welded on to FSX for the foreseeable future simply because, well it works fine for me now and I would not be able to sim with half the aircraft I enjoy in a 64 bit sim system and they are not going to be rebuilt for the 64 bit world.

 

[awstub]

The readme and credit note is going to be very long indeed then. As you are aware there are some hardcore 2004 users at Cal Classic, like a lot of sim versions. Me I am welded on to FSX for the foreseeable future simply because, well it works fine for me now and I would not be able to sim with half the aircraft I enjoy in a 64 bit sim system and they are not going to be rebuilt for the 64 bit world.

You never know....

There is a lot of talk at MAIW about how impressed they are with P3d4. They are starting to convert their stuff over to it. Perhaps the same might happen with CC.

 

[Bjoern]

The readme and credit note is going to be very long indeed then. As you are aware there are some hardcore 2004 users at Cal Classic, like a lot of sim versions. Me I am welded on to FSX for the foreseeable future simply because, well it works fine for me now and I would not be able to sim with half the aircraft I enjoy in a 64 bit sim system and they are not going to be rebuilt for the 64 bit world.

Amen to that.

There is a lot of talk at MAIW about how impressed they are with P3d4. They are starting to convert their stuff over to it. Perhaps the same might happen with CC.

Converting 3D models, especially AI, is one thing, but the CC models sometimes use some very old C++-gauges which will require updating or replacing.