FCLP markings

StingingCanine · Post by **StingingCanine** » 07 Jan 2007, 17:25

Has anyone had any luck making the simulated carrier deck markings that are on some navy airfields?

I'm working on AFCADS for NAS Whidbey Island and Coupeville OLF. They are coming along great except for the lack of the FCLP markings. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

-Dave

MIKE JG · Post by **MIKE JG** » 07 Jan 2007, 18:27

Dave I believe a couple guys had some success with this when we were over at the old fsgateway forums. Dan B and a couple others were working on this very thing. Hopefully they'll chime in. In the meantime you might try searching back through those old threads.

StingingCanine · Post by **StingingCanine** » 08 Jan 2007, 00:57

You are right in that there was a small discussion back on the old forum. I remembered seeing something and was able to find a post and a picture from Topcat66 :

"I have already created a practice carrier landing area using the textured polygon technique (the texture is nothing more than a crop from a TerraServer image), and I don’t think that there is any way to get around that with the current state of FS."

I was hoping someone had a little more to add. My problem is that I'm not sure how to get the image into AFCAD and onto a runway. I've been making detailed AFCADS and understand the inherent layering of textures, but I didn't know you could import a custom texture.

BadPvtDan · Post by **BadPvtDan** » 08 Jan 2007, 01:22

I have never heard of being able to import custom textures into afcad.

GrahamS · Post by **GrahamS** » 08 Jan 2007, 01:28

I don't think the textured polygon technique is anything to do with afcad, you would certainly need to use something like SBuilder.

StingingCanine · Post by **StingingCanine** » 08 Jan 2007, 03:45

Graham, Dan:
The textured polygon technique may be a bit out of my league. I was just taking a chance that someone may have had some success at accomplishing the feat in AFCAD. ( I check here almost every day, thought I may have missed something). I know we can sometimes work wonders with AI but AFCAD seems to be rather definite in what you can and cannot do.

Mike, I see that you are making military objects. Do you think it is possible to make a 2 dimensional object, put a FLCP texture on it, and place it on the runway a la EZ Scenery? Is that essentially the "textured polygon technique"?

GrahamS · Post by **GrahamS** » 08 Jan 2007, 07:01

That is, essentially what is required, but you cannot do it in the fashion you suggest, it's a little more complicated than that and does require a more complex program to achieve it, such as SBuilder.

Recommended reading here under tutorials:-

http://www.scruffyduckscenery.co.uk/

See the one marked Textured Polygons, it mentions runways.

StingingCanine · Post by **StingingCanine** » 08 Jan 2007, 08:00

Thanks Graham, that was a very informative link (and very well written and easy to understand as well). I don't think I'm quite at that level yet but I don't think it is out of the question either. I'm just getting into EZ Scenery and I'm sure I'll want to design my own objects in short order.

Thanks again for your help.

MIKE JG · Post by **MIKE JG** » 08 Jan 2007, 14:34

StingingCanine wrote:
Mike, I see that you are making military objects. Do you think it is possible to make a 2 dimensional object, put a FLCP texture on it, and place it on the runway a la EZ Scenery? Is that essentially the "textured polygon technique"?

Funny I was wondering that myself last night as I read your post. Sounds do-able but I am still learning how to add custom textures to objects in FSDS. I can add them in FSDS but getting them to show up in FS9 is still eluding me for the time being. I am also very familiar with SBuilder and that I think is your best bet as it is set up to work with custom textured polygons much better than FSDS is.

delta b · Post by **delta b** » 09 Jan 2007, 04:17

Dave,

My solution is a "poor man's fix" for default scenery that uses 4 runways created in AFCAD. It doesn't look great, but it gives you something to aim for if you're practicing. Here's an AFCAD screenie.

Dan

flyerkg · Post by **flyerkg** » 09 Jan 2007, 05:45

delta b wrote:Dave,

My solution is a "poor man's fix" for default scenery that uses 4 runways created in AFCAD. It doesn't look great, but it gives you something to aim for if you're practicing. Here's an AFCAD screenie.

Dan

I have been trying to do this very thing with NAS Lemoore KNLC, California. I sort of gave up several times on the texture. Does anyone have a solution for AI traffic to the FCLP strip while it is off center of the active runway?

StingingCanine · Post by **StingingCanine** » 09 Jan 2007, 06:46

Dan, While your technique seems complicated at first glance, I think that may be the ticket for Coupeville OLF since there is not much there except for the runway. I don't know about doing it for all 4 FCLP's at NAS Whidbey Island though. That would be 16 AFCADS!

I think this could also be easy to do at Fentress on the east coast.

If you flight plan it to one of the layered afcads they should land off centered, I would bet.

As always, thanks for your advice.

delta b · Post by **delta b** » 10 Jan 2007, 04:18

Flyer/Dave,

The only way I see to get the aircraft to land on the FCLP is to create a separate AFCAD. What I've got right now is just a single AFCAD with extra runways. You could try closing the main runway to landings and opening the FCLP center runway, but you may run into problems with jets not landing there because ATC thinks it's too short. If you've got the Southeast ANG AI package from a while back, there are some of these on the NAS New Orleans (KNBG) AFCAD you can experiment with.

Dan

flyerkg · Post by **flyerkg** » 10 Jan 2007, 06:53

delta b wrote:Flyer/Dave,

The only way I see to get the aircraft to land on the FCLP is to create a separate AFCAD. What I've got right now is just a single AFCAD with extra runways. You could try closing the main runway to landings and opening the FCLP center runway, but you may run into problems with jets not landing there because ATC thinks it's too short. If you've got the Southeast ANG AI package from a while back, there are some of these on the NAS New Orleans (KNBG) AFCAD you can experiment with.

Dan

Thanks all for the insight. I think we have enough brain power together to put these concepts into action. My other concern is with how to get AI planes to touchdown within the length of the FCLP.
Perhaps you can adjust the placement of the invisible runway in relation to the visible texture to get the touchdowns where they need to be? The length of the intended runway does appear to be an issue. Isn't the magic runway length 4500' and greater for AI jets to accept t/o and landings?

StingingCanine · Post by **StingingCanine** » 10 Jan 2007, 16:11

It seems you could do an invisible AFCAD to underlay your markings and try to have the touchdown points matchup in the overlaid markings. But that may only work for a specific airframe as different aircraft may touchdown at different points on the runway. I guess it wouldn't really be an issue though, because at Whidbey it would only be the Prowler doing FCLP. Out east you would have different aircraft but they shouldn't be that far apart.

It's a good thing I can't work on AFCADS at work or I would soon be out of a job!

flyerkg · Post by **flyerkg** » 11 Jan 2007, 01:22

StingingCanine wrote:It seems you could do an invisible AFCAD to underlay your markings and try to have the touchdown points matchup in the overlaid markings. But that may only work for a specific airframe as different aircraft may touchdown at different points on the runway. I guess it wouldn't really be an issue though, because at Whidbey it would only be the Prowler doing FCLP. Out east you would have different aircraft but they shouldn't be that far apart.

It's a good thing I can't work on AFCADS at work or I would soon be out of a job!

Good Point on the Prowlers at KNUW. I actually started working on the runways for this field a few months back when I thought I was going to get assigned there. I have since tossed the project and now might play with it again. I don't think it was the AFCAD itself that gave me heartburn, it was that I loaded in so many flightplans for the EA-6B Prowlers and P-3 Orions that my frame rates got gobbled up.

Everybody keep up the hard work but don't lose your job!

Mickey · Post by **Mickey** » 05 Apr 2007, 20:24

Hello

i made an assult carrierdeck in gmax for my KNHK scenery i´ll post some pix soon

Greetz

MJ

flyerkg · Post by **flyerkg** » 05 Jun 2007, 02:54

I thought I would revisit this idea again and last night captured a screen shot of an AI T-45C performing a FCLP at NAS Kingsville KNQI.

I overlayed the multiple runways in the fashion described on this thread and voila! This depiction is acceptable for me at the present time.

Instead of using a closed taxiway for yellow centerline, I used an actual runway link, (black line) so that I could actually flighplan the AI to this as an active runway on a separate ICAO, "FNQI" The flightplan started with departure from KNQI. On schedule, the T-45 returned but flew down to FCLP strip overlayed on Rwy 31L. The touchdown looked great but the subsequent takeoff looked absolutely nothing like a FCLP bounce but looked more like a fully loaded C-5 by the time it returned to the sky.

This would always look funny but the long takeoff roll probably would not influence a go-around call from tower because the first jet would not be on the active runway but for about 500 feet then off again. I ran this test the same time as another T-45 was planned for return to KNQI. The second jet was cleared to Rwy 35L the same time as the first jet was clearing the FCLP on Rwy 31L. So far it looks pretty good. I will post a couple of screen shots to the screenshots threads.

Keith

FCLP markings

FCLP markings

Carrierdeck