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Moffett Field KNUQ 1963-1993 (The P-3 Days) (+ Crows Landing)

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chasensfo
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Moffett Field KNUQ 1963-1993 (The P-3 Days) (+ Crows Landing)

Post by chasensfo »

Ahoy guys,

I'm finishing up a basic P3Dv5 scenery (should probably work in v4 and FSX too with modifications) of NUQ back in the post-fighter jet days when from 1963-1993 a big chunk of the P-3s in the country were based there. Monday through Friday it was common to see 3-6 planes in the pattern all the time until the closure of the Naval Air Station at Moffett in 93 (1 or 2 squadrons had also left by then, most stayed and sadly were deactivated with the closure).

Using a mid 80s high rest air to ground photo and google earth's 1991 photo, I made this the best I could without custom objects trying to match the layout and surfaces, include all the proper parking (squardons in the right place as far as I can tell), and added generic buildings and hangars as needed, especially around the NASA ramp.

In addition to the more than 60 parking spots for P-3s, there were 6 NAVY C-130s with VR-55, NASA with a bunch of cool stuff either based there or frequenting Moffett such as U-2s, F-104s, F-5s, several experimental planes and even a C-141, and I also brought the closed Crows Landing Auxilary Landing Field (NRC) to life. NRC post-WWII was mostly used for flight testing and Navy/NASA planes doing pattern work. Several aircraft were tested extensively at NRC, and Douglas actually did a lot of DC-9 and MD-80 testing there too a long with flying LGB-NRC for pattern work during pre-delivery testing through the early 1990s. By the late 80s, dozens of aircraft from NUQ were coming over for touch and goes each week along with F-18s from NLC and Learjets and other aircraft from MCC which was still an active airbase. I have brought the runways back with the proper markings, made the realistic limited signage and surface markings the best that I could tell, the real Tower and ATIS frequencies, an airport beacon in the right place along with the most similar looking generic tower, and parking for various planes to rest between touch and goes.

Crows Landing was handed over from The Navy to NASA after the closure of Moffet in 1993, but NASA quickly gave the airport to the federal government, thus electing to allow other government agencies to use it rather than pay to keep the airfield private. Then NASA pulled out in 1999 and the airfield was closed. The city has tried to re-open it, even removed the X's from the runways at some point, but there is little interest for an FBO to start up.

As the retro P-3 plans don't seem to have these guys in and out of Moffett as much as they usually were unless undeployed, I've made my own plans with aircraft mostly flying 2-3 times per week doing combos of touch and goes at NUQ, NRC, and various other airports they used at the time less often like MER, MCC, MRY, NGZ, etc. Other aircraft simulate going to/returning from 1989 deployments, as for now I focused on that year. I have the NASA Ames fleet in progress (many repaints needed), and I am also going to add the large number of piston props that were either part of the Moffett Aeroclub or owned by Navy/NASA/Lockheed employees who commuted to work by air.

Here are some screenshots, decided to test it out along with my almost finished 89 SJC scenery with a mock A320 sales demo in the area to test out these airports.

This is my first time seeing it in the sim, there will be a lot of tweaking including masking the ORBX satellite imagery with layers of grass. Not ideal, but looks a lot better than...this. Also noticed that ORBX went ahead and decorated Crow's Landing themselves with some planes and even a-non stock tower even though its been closed since 1999 LOL! Welp, guess I'll have to delete the ORBX version.


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I'll post some updates in the near future and then release it along with several other NorCal airports backdated to various periods in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Eventually, I'll do NGZ, SRF, and MCC also.
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TimC340
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Re: Moffett Field KNUQ 1963-1993 (The P-3 Days) (+ Crows Landing)

Post by TimC340 »

I came close to Moffet many times on the way into SFO, particularly on the southern pattern to the 28s, and always wondered about the airship sheds there. I believe these are the Orbx ones, which are a bit basic - but at least they exist! I intend to build the remaining shed at Weeksville (near KECG), so look out for at least one replacement in the near(ish) future!
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John Young
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Re: Moffett Field KNUQ 1963-1993 (The P-3 Days) (+ Crows Landing)

Post by John Young »

Tim, do any modern airships (Blimps) operate from those hangars at KNUQ?

John
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Re: Moffett Field KNUQ 1963-1993 (The P-3 Days) (+ Crows Landing)

Post by TimC340 »

I don’t think so, John. I believe there were a couple of Goodyear blimps there some years ago, however. Hangar 1 (the shiny one) was stripped of its sheathing a few years ago because of PCB leaking into the subsoil, but I understand it’s now leased to Google and they are going to restore it. For what use, I have no idea!
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Re: Moffett Field KNUQ 1963-1993 (The P-3 Days) (+ Crows Landing)

Post by John Young »

Thanks Tim, I was just thinking about Martin's suggestion for an AI Zeppelin, or something similar in principle.

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Re: Moffett Field KNUQ 1963-1993 (The P-3 Days) (+ Crows Landing)

Post by TimC340 »

That would be fun!
chasensfo
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Re: Moffett Field KNUQ 1963-1993 (The P-3 Days) (+ Crows Landing)

Post by chasensfo »

I don't recall Goodyear ever using them, I think they've been solely based in the LA area for a long time. Since the airship days, Hangar One served as the world's largest wind tunnel used to develop various skunk works projects, the space shuttle, and airliners like the 777. VP-31 did work on their P3s inside for a few decades also.

The only post WWII Airship activity I know of was the short-lived company Airventures offering Zeplin tours of the Bay Area at low altitude for maybe 2 years or so in the early or mid 2010s. I think they stored the Zeplin in one of the twin hangars. The livery changed a few times with ads, flew a "bay tour" via highway 101 up to SF then across to Oakland and down the East Bay back to NUQ.

I found some good blast fence and GSE objects I'll try and incorporate into this.

I think I have a 2nd hangar one bleeding in, should be open hangar doors but a closed door version is blocking it.
chasensfo
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Re: Moffett Field KNUQ 1963-1993 (The P-3 Days) (+ Crows Landing)

Post by chasensfo »

I recently uninstalled P3D as I wasn't using it much anyway. MSFS gives me smooth FPS with live traffic and tons of 3rd party scenery while P3D's performance is just so crappy (and the graphics outside of 3rd party airports as my PC "melts" terrain and what not for FPS to keep aircraft/airport detail high) that it wasn't worth the space on my hard drive. I kept all the AI aircraft for future MSFS conversion and dumped all my "in progress" P3D scenery into Google Drive to be community projects.

Feel free to edit any of these airports to finish them up and make them better, just credit me as the original author along with yourself please and that is all that I ask.

So, here are Moffett Field (KNUQ) and Crow's Landing (KNRC) as I had modified them. I used ORBX Northern California so those libraries may be required for all objects to show up properly. The wonderful P-3 repaints are all on MAIW in a big package, and since existing P-3 plans for the NUQ squadrons seemed to be all post-closure of Moffett, I made up my own based on historical data. As parking was scarce for the huge number of P-3s, I chose to focus around 1989 and have 2 squadrons deployed on real-life deployments (but squeezed into a week-long schedule to remain FS9 friendly). I also made plans for the US Navy C-130s based at NUQ and some other aircraft. NASA plan were in progress, and I did create a complete aircraft list at least of what I found in the inventory to be based or stored at NUQ in the last years of Moffett's heyday. However, only a few of them have flightplans for now. Feel free to complete those as well.

It was very common to have 10+ planes in the pattern at Moffett in those days, but NRC was also often used for touch-and-go traffic and I've used it as such so you will usually see a few P-3s and NASA planes in that area on weekdays. It was also used by Douglas test flights from time to time flying up from LGB, and I have late 1980s plans for the Douglas Aircraft test flights if you wish to see MD-80s and MD-11s bouncing around there with the P-3s in the colors of real customers of the era.

It's not perfect, but both airports are mostly done, just need a little bit of fine-tuning. Moffett is coded so that the proper squadron parks in the proper area.

KNUQ: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... drive_link

KNRC: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... drive_link

I will find and add the flightplans in a new post later, hopefully, today. Let me know what you guys think. I can upload them to the main library if you all find them finished enough.
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