Minot AFB North Dakota

[Jorgen]

Phantomfreak, by "Launch Control Facility" I assume you mean missile launching facilities.

Now, if that is correct, then the flights out there would be by USAF, and the helos would then be UH-1F's... or am I completely off my rocker?

Jorgen

[John Young]

Yes indeed Jorgen, I think we are all on the same wave-length.

John

[Jon]

One thing to keep in mind is that the helipad is outside the fence of the LCF.

[John Young]

That makes it much easier then, particularly when the helipad is on the access road, as in this case:



John

[Jon]

For flight planning purposes, at Malmstrom the 12 would not have helicopter support for Missile Crews unless the sites were snowed in for more than 48 hours. In the 10 Delta and Echo you have one helicopter dropping a crew at Delta, flying on to Echo, shutting down for 20 minutes then heading back to Delta to pick up the off going crew then back to base. Regarding the 490 November and Oscar would fly out together dropping a crew at November shutting down at Oscar then heading back to November. Lima and Kilo would follow the same pattern, but closer to 30 minutes at Kilo.

Crews were only flown out if the helicopter pilots needed to make hours, and the missile crews doing the outbound were less than thrilled because it makes for a longer alert since your relief crew was going to have to drive 2 to 3 hours to the site.

The other bases would follow a similar pattern, but since I wasn't assigned there the planner will have to use your best judgement.

[John Young]

Thanks for that, so no regular crew transfer flights. I have however watched videos of security force training exercises to protect the sites. I could schedule a few of those.

John

[Jon]

Correct, convoy security/overwatch support, security drills would be the primary focus for the helicopters.

[phantomfreak]

I placed a grass runway either on the same side as the helipad or across the access road depending on the surrounding landscape.

Now, if that is correct, then the flights out there would be by USAF, and the helos would then be UH-1F's... or am I completely off my rocker?

Jorgen

The helos would be UH-1H or N's, the F's were retired in 1987.

[John Young]

I don't see the need for grass runways Jorgen. I'm just trying out a sample MAF (Missile Alert Facility - Minot B-01) to see if the real-world position fits with the highway in both FSX and P3D and indeed it does:



My intention is to place an invisible 300ft helicopter runway where the red marker is. I'll close the left hand end for take-off and the right hand for landing. That should prevent U-turns and give the shortest taxi distances from the helipad. I'll be sending the occasional UH-1N from Minot on a security exercise.

My next job is to set up the runway and test it. I'll then make the MAF buildings. I may just include 3 of the MAFs in the package. There are a lot of them and they are all different in shape and layout, so potentially a lot of work. I'll see how it goes. Minot airfield is all done and ready for packaging so I don't want to extend the upload date more than a week or two.

John

[Jorgen]

Er, John - my nick is not Phantomfreak... I think he quoted me.

Jorgen

[John Young]

So, placing the helicopter runway over the access road wasn't a good idea - there wasn't enough room to manoeuvre. The better option was to place it at right angles over the grass and make it invisible (1ft width). With that done, along with the custom scenery, the visiting Huey is now working fine in both FSX and P3D.

This particular MAF (Missile Alert Facility) is Bravo-01, about 35 miles south east of Minot AFB:









Bravo-01 is one of 15 similar launch sites, spread around Minot. It's too big a job to make all 15, but I am intending to add Kilo-01 to the west and one more to the north. With all the models made that's quite doable in a short time span. That should allow me to move on and get the whole Minot package assembled and uploaded shortly.

John

[TheFoufure]

Perhaps can you add a launching site, with a Silo. (in a object library)

Free to everyone to place other

Regards