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Minot AFB North Dakota

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Jorgen
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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by 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? :D

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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by John Young »

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

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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by Jon »

One thing to keep in mind is that the helipad is outside the fence of the LCF.
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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by John Young »

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

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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by 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.
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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by 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.

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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by Jon »

Correct, convoy security/overwatch support, security drills would be the primary focus for the helicopters.
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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by 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? :D

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The helos would be UH-1H or N's, the F's were retired in 1987.
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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by 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:

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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.

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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by Jorgen »

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

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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

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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:

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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.

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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by TheFoufure »

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

Free to everyone to place other

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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by TheFoufure »

Hello John,

To complete this wonderfull scenery, and your great Huey, did you envisage to make a model for the Boeing MH-139 Grey Wolf (as a bonus to the scenery) (and from your already builded AW139) ?

This MH-139 will remplace the Huey soon (some are already in service)

Thanks.

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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by John Young »

Yes, but in due course. At the moment, the only MH-139A's that are of interest are the two at Malmstrom that are being used for training and conversion for Global Strike Command. Apart from those two, Maxwell has one with the 703rd HS for training and Shaw has one with the 582nd HS. I assume that's for Reaper support or similar.

I'll continue to monitor Scramble to see when others come into service.

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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by John Young »

I’m just writing the manual for the Minot project and I wonder if someone with P3Dv4 could help me please? I am designing with P3Dv5.4 and that necessitates a completely different approach to adding night lighting compared to the FSX version because of the dynamic lighting in the former. P3Dv5 lighting won’t work in FSX and FSX lighting will cause the light splashes to rotate 90 degrees into a vertical plane in P3Dv5.4.

The lights are working fine in both my sims with the different design methods, but I have kept them in their own .bgl files so they can be removed easily if anyone has a problem.

Could anyone tell me please, which version (FSX or P3Dv5.4) works best for P3Dv4 so that I can add some guidance to the Minot manual. A good test will be my Embraer Factory scenery for the Brazil project.

Which version did P3Dv4 users install please?

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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by Victory103 »

Thanks for helping me troubleshoot that lighting issue I'm seeing in P3Dv5.3 recently, so I guess I let some FSX lights slip in.
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Re: Minot AFB North Dakota

Post by shaggy22 »

John Young wrote: Yesterday, 07:25 I’m just writing the manual for the Minot project and I wonder if someone with P3Dv4 could help me please? I am designing with P3Dv5.4 and that necessitates a completely different approach to adding night lighting compared to the FSX version because of the dynamic lighting in the former. P3Dv5 lighting won’t work in FSX and FSX lighting will cause the light splashes to rotate 90 degrees into a vertical plane in P3Dv5.4.

The lights are working fine in both my sims with the different design methods, but I have kept them in their own .bgl files so they can be removed easily if anyone has a problem.

Could anyone tell me please, which version (FSX or P3Dv5.4) works best for P3Dv4 so that I can add some guidance to the Minot manual. A good test will be my Embraer Factory scenery for the Brazil project.

Which version did P3Dv4 users install please?

John
I had to install the FSX version for this, the 5.4 version did not work at all in v4.
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