Eglin AFB - reprise

Some months ago, my computer experienced an hard disk failure which cause the loss of some FSX-related work-in-progress experiments, including the Eglin AFB scenery I used for my F-35 screenshots. As you may be aware of, the Eglin AFB in Florida, US will be the main training facility in the world for pilots and ground crews of all the F-35 variants.
Now in Italy we have a saying "non tutto il male viene per nuocere" (not all evil comes to harm) meaning that sometimes bad things bring positive outcomes. In this case, I took a break from the F-14D cockpit (I am in the very tedious process of coding the advisory/caution lights...) and I have redone the Eglin AFB scenery from scratch. Now, I am happy to say that the new version is better, both in terms of colors and blending.
It is still a day only, no autogen, no 3D objects scenery - and I've just aligned the runways and got rid of all the airport structures... but looks pretty good in screenshots!
It is a 1m/pixel scenery, with some areas at 50cm/pixel...so it is quite a large file - about 5.50Gb. With all these limitations I am not sure if it worth to share it...but if it makes sense, I'll try to do it.


Freeware Genova and Liguria scenery for FSX!

Finally a good, FSX native scenery of my hometown...and it is freeware!!!!

Some guys at blogfsx.forumfree.it have created a wonderful scenery of Genova my beloved hometown, as well as a complete 2m/pixel photoreal scenery of the whole Ligurian region (which extends from the French border to Tuscany).

The default FSX rendition is extremely poor and while Utimate Terrain does improve the rendering, the final result is far from being realistic - it is a kind of landscape that it is very hard to render realistically without photoreal textures.

The scenery includes a highly detailed and accurate Genova Sestri Airport (LIMJ), which is where I took my real-life PPL almost 18 years ago, a 1m/pixel photoreal scenery of (most of) the city including autogen and custom models for several landmarks and monuments.

As a further bonus, the whole city of Sestri Levante, including Riva Trigoso and its shipyard, is also rendered with custom buildings.

The scenery is a great addition to FSX. Hopefully the designers will improve it by adding more autogen and possibly making custom sceneries for Albenga and Luni airports,

The scenery can be dowloaded at OZx website.

The authors' forum is here (and in this forum you will also find several other interesting sceneries) and a youtube video is here.

By the way, the Scenery Italy Real X project team has posted a video on youtube about their rendition if Genova some time ago... and it looks even more incredible *BUT* it seems they are having some difficulties, and it is unlikely we will be able to fly it anytime soon. Anyway, here is the link.

Above the Aeroclub parking lot. Note the custom buildings with photoreal texture and the hangars of Piaggio Aero Industries on the background (that is where the Piaggio P-180 is manufactured)

Flying over Genova towards Portofino (note the extensive Autogen coverage).

Flying short final on runway 29 brings back memories of my first solo flight (in truth it was not my best landing...). The area in front of the runway was a major steel mill - nowadays it is almost closed and the area is being converted to other purposes.

The Albenga airport (LIMG) is within the photoreal coverage - it is just the default airport, but it is aligned quite well to the textures. No autogen in this area, however.

The town of Sestri Levante is completely modeled in 3d with custom object (probably the hometown of one the authors) and is a nice bonus. Note the Fincantieri Shipyards of Riva Trigoso in the background (this is one of the major shipyards in Italy - mostly used for military ships)