Mercer Airfield coming

[Condor61]

I have been working on Mercer Airfield for several years. It is located in New Zealand 65km south of Auckland. It has a long history as a small Airfield
In a farming area. In the last ten years a large ex airforce hangar has been built there. This has given it a whole new feel. I have built into it MSFS2024
Features like walking around inside the hanger including being able to go up stairs to the mezzanine floor. There is an old area of maintenance hangers and a Backpackers motel with a Cafe which you can enter. Mercer is centrally located so it is an excellent for Tiger moth flying.
I'm Greg Law
My history in flight sim creation goes back to CFS3 Groundcrew group and Regs hanger.

 

[Naki1]

Excellent...looking forward to it...must call into the real ine one day and have a look

 

[Condor61]

It's very quiet there these days. When I first measured it several years ago it had a busy aircaft maintenance firm located there.
Unfortunately things didn't work out for them. Now it's feels very quite. The big hanger is locked so it has a ghost town feel. However,
They still do flight training there.
Have a look at the sim version. It is really terrible. When I saw it I knew I had to get back to the build and finish it. I had to do a lot of terraforming and sort the stream out. I replaced the bridge, so now you can taxi over it. I have placed a starting point in the old hangar area which adds a lot of interest to the Airfield. You can only use smaller planes from that parking spot. In reality only a few plans use it. The road is a little steep, but unusable. I'm working on the access road and entry area at the moment. The roads are hard to deal with, it's a case of case of accepting a few wonky sections. I've made all the signage that is on the main road corner, so if you drive from Kelly Airfield you will be able to find the corner.
This week I will send the build to the owner to get approval for me to release it to the public.

 

[Whitehawk]

Epic! I'll be able to get my lot to practice their competition flying in the sim for the next regional competitions - I'm Gavin, CFI of Auckland Aero Club

 

[Condor61]

I should be making good progress over Easter. I have a few signs to do, A small issue with one of the Hanger LOD's and lighting needs a lot of work.
I can't seem to get Blender lights to work. In the end I might have to use the MSFS2024 lights. Once released I will still be working on improvements. I'm looking for someone to give me advise on texturing dirt into the hanger walls. I use Blender.
I see I had a typo in my earlier post. The road between the bridge and the old hanger area is a bit steep, but useable. I enjoy using the bridge.
The bridge is 90% accurate to the real thing. After Patch1 the stream shifted a bit fortunately the right way. now the link road works as it should.

 

[Wing_Z]

Greg, you wouldn't consider an FS20 version while you're tinkering maybe?
Many are still dwelling there...

 

[Dimus]

I can't seem to get Blender lights to work. In the end I might have to use the MSFS2024 lights. Once released I will still be working on improvements. I'm looking for someone to give me advise on texturing dirt into the hanger walls. I use Blender.

I could help on both issues. PM me what is your trouble.

 

[Condor61]

The is a progress report.
I have completed all the modeling of all gates and entry points. This means 99% of the modelling is done. The only thing I have to do
Is add dirt to the external hangar walls.
The lighting of the buildings are done. I'm thinking of adding some lights at the entry to the apron. These don't exist in reality but it will help you to find the Exist point in low light. Also on the bridge for obvious reasons.

 

[DennyA]

Excited to check it out!

 

[Condor61]

It's getting closer everyday. The big hangar now has dirt on the main external wall. It looks much better as a result. I spent a good part of the day rescuing the cafe building after it's blender file was twice corrupted by me adding an advanced spotlight. In the end I used the quick light version and it worked. I added the blue threshold lights this afternoon, but these will need some work tomorrow as they disappear to quickly.
The runway got attention as well. I found it was 17m wide when it should be 12m. The MSFS on is still there under my one. I will have to remove that.
I still need better people if anyone can help with that.

 

[Condor61]

Mercer Airfield is complete. It will go out to a few testers. Before it goes to the public.
It is freeware.

 

[Condor61]

I have just noticed that flightsim.to has a version of Mercer Airfield. I applaud the effort that person put into.
Unfortunately it isn't an accurate rendition of the Airfield. My new one is as it was in 2022 when I started the project. I was on site a month ago and not much has changed except for it being very quiet. It felt like a ghost town compared to the activity I saw in 2021 / 2022. As a result I'm setting the project period to 2022. I call them the happy days.
The only thing the other build has that mine doesn't is the Rocket lab testing site. The reason is it is a secret establishment and I'm told it is in the process of being moved. As a result I decided not to include it. I placed a few containers on the site.
I will be looking at putting it on Mathias's site all going well.

 

[Whitehawk]

Looking forward to it!

 

[Condor61]

You won't have to wait long now. I think I finished it an hour ago. I have sent it to Dimus for a final look over.
Dimus and Federico have been a great help to me getting this project over the line. I'm very grateful for their help.
I'm told I can put it up here for you guys to download. So I will do that first.
Once Dimus approves it I have to send it to the Airfield's owners for final approval. It's very realistic, so they need to
Check it for security reasons.

 

[Whitehawk]

You won't have to wait long now. I think I finished it an hour ago. I have sent it to Dimus for a final look over.
Dimus and Federico have been a great help to me getting this project over the line. I'm very grateful for their help.
I'm told I can put it up here for you guys to download. So I will do that first.
Once Dimus approves it I have to send it to the Airfield's owners for final approval. It's very realistic, so they need to
Check it for security reasons.

Interesting - Presuming that's who I think it is I expect they'll be happy for good representation of their airfield

 

[Condor61]

Interesting - Presuming that's who I think it is I expect they'll be happy for good representation of their airfield

Gavin I sent you a message.

 

[Condor61]

Mercer is finished thanks to Mamu, Dimus, and Whitehawk. They have been a great help getting it over the line.
This will now be a double Airfield package of the two Mercer area Airfields. The second one is Kelly Field.
This is a historic version of the private airfield because it no longer operates at all. If you try to land there in the real world
you will run into Cow water trough. Because it is a historic version taking it back at least twelve years, there is only one building.
The other one you see on google maps is a calf shed and was built long after the Airfield closed. The images are of Kelly Airfield.
The airfield is under testing by Gavin (Whitehawk)
Its a very basic Airfield with a real rural favor. It has Ant's Tiger moth parked up. You will need to get his Tiger moth addon to see it.
Like Mercer it also needs Dave's people addon to see the people.

 

[DennyA]

Excited to fly in to it!

 

[Whitehawk]

For reference this is Kelly Field yesterday, from about 2,500' and about a mile to the North West (runway is centre frame, just behind the wing strut and below the little lake, it's at a diagonal to the neighboring fields) - never did get to go in there when it was open, but see it most days! Mercer is just out of frame to the left.

 

[Whitehawk]

Condor61 has done a great job of these two neighboring fields in the training area my Club uses - Mercer is a sealed private strip with some neat features, the big Catalina hanger (built to house, well, take a guess!) is a conspicuous landmark and it's great to see it well represented in the sim. The buildings over the bridge look spot-on and include the unique Dome Cafe - great to watch the day go by from. Seriously it's been getting me a few double-takes with how close the models are, and can I also take a moment to say how gorgeous the lighting is in this sim??

Kelly Field is great fun! Only two miles from Mercer, and has a very small-town NZ airstrip vibe, bordering on an agricultural strip with the hill and trees at the NE end. I'm told by Club members who have been in there it was a challenging approach and they would usually slip to land, as you can see in the screenshot, it works well!

First three screenshots are Mercer:
Final 09
Crossing the bridge
Parked up at the Dome Cafe

Kelly Field:
Getting going at the hanger
Downwind
The fun bit!