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Welcome to Sedona: America's Most Scenic Airport!


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I have to be honest and say I have not been ably to afford most of the recent releases in the USA, but this one is a "must have"  and thanks for the RL video and photos of the airport and landing Vbazillio.... Teecee.


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Thanks for the kind words guys, appreciate the big response :)


 




Another beautiful piece of work Jarrad. Nice to see these airports jump around just outside of full regions and that we are not confined only to development within them. Open LC NA will also be another "plus" to GA flyers like me to improve the overall experience in flying from a "full region" to one of these other fully developed airports. Bring them all on! 




 


As was the case with Palm Springs and Tim & Ken's PNG projects, I was conscious of the fact that the area outside the PR coverage zone wasn't of the same fidelity as one of our region packs, so I spent quite a bit of time editing the road, vector and landclass nearby to "soften" the transition back to the default surrounds. For example, the nearby cities of Flagstaff and Cottonwood have been totally reworked, and Eddy Boyte and I spent a bit of time sprucing up Cottonwood airport to give a semi-detailed destination to land at. This vector work isn't quite the same quality as what you'd expect in a region, but hopefully it will help :)


 




This is a great news. KSEZ is one of my (real) favorite field when flying Arizona. Nor only, the approach make you fly around a outstanding scenic aera (mostly on left hand runway 21) but I'm always too low on final, afraid of being too long ;-) It's also surprising to make left hand runway 21 to avoid the urban area, but makes you fly close to MESA ;-) Airport in the sky ! 


 




 


Vincent, thank you for the pictures and information - I'm very jealous of your flying experiences around Sedona! As a happy coincidence, I actually watched your video several times during development to cross-check a couple of references; a couple of my own pictures from the airport didn't capture the taxi signs clearly, fortunately your video confirmed the correct labels for me :)


 




 When I worked at Davis-Monthan AB inear Tucson we used to go up regularly to Flagstaff on business, and we always came back to Phoenix via the "scenic route"  through Sedona.  Your detail is fantastic, and I've stopped several times outside Sedona at the metal span bridge you feature in your screen shots above.  




 


Kev I hope I'm able to capture the area as you remember it - I too made sure that I took the "scenic route" up to Flagstaff when we visited the area - a highlight for me was the view from the switchbacks at the top of Sterling Canyon. 


 




WOW! These textures remind me of Broome.


 


Is mesh included with this scenery?




 


I had exactly the same thoughts when I was working on the ground textures - the colour palette is very similar to Broome. In answer to your question, yes a 10m mesh is included for the entire coverage area.


 




Excellent work Jarrad and spot on. I reside in the area and cannot believe how accurate you were able to make Sedona. 


 


Hope to see Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon Airports in the future.




 


Thanks Boss, I hope I can do it justice :) I did consider doing a "lite" version of Flagstaff Airport, but figured due to it's size that it may be suited to a full-fledged project for someone later on. As mentioned above though, I did heavily modify the landclass around Flagstaff to be an improvement on the default. Also, if you are looking for a good quality version of Grand Canyon Airport, I can strongly recommend Maurizio and Holgers' freeware offering from OzX.org


 




We're going to be flying under that bridge!




 


I can assure you that there has been quite a lot of "testing" going on under the bridge over the past couple of weeks!


 


Thanks again everyone, I'll have some more information soon. 


 


Cheers,


Jarrad


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Looks great !


 


Can anyone confirm if big iron actually operates there (Gulfstream, etc)?  I used to live not far away from Sedona and heard there were weight restrictions imposed to keep the locals (and their crystals) happy . . .  


 


I have seen 30,000 lbs as one restiction (http://sedonaairport.org/), curious . . .


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Love it, but look at the photos. The rocks are really red. The mountains need work, they are just not quite the right color. They call it  "red rock country" for a reason. The color is a deal breaker for me.  it's nice, but...


 Sue


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Love it, but look at the photos. The rocks are really red. The mountains need work, they are just not quite the right color. They call it  "red rock country" for a reason. The color is a deal breaker for me.  it's nice, but...

 Sue

Ooer! ???

 

:D

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Love it, but look at the photos. The rocks are really red. The mountains need work, they are just not quite the right color. They call it  "red rock country" for a reason. The color is a deal breaker for me.  it's nice, but...

 Sue

 

My guess is that there needs to be a saturation/hue compromise so the scenery doesn't stand out like a sore thumb against the Global textures.

 

A deal breaker though?  :-

 

I would not miss out on this scenery.

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Love it, but look at the photos. The rocks are really red. The mountains need work, they are just not quite the right color. They call it  "red rock country" for a reason. The color is a deal breaker for me.  it's nice, but...

 Sue

Love it but its a deal breaker ?

 

Your never going to find and exact replica of any scenery. What about photo scenery? well you only need to look at MSE for example,  Im pretty sure none of New York state is blue in color, but...

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Looks great Jarred, a must buy.

I hope you will continue with your theme of the southwest and give Albuquerque, NM some love, an area that's never had any proper treatment from a developer. Or, if not KABQ, maybe Santa Fe, NM. KABQ would be better though since you can fly anything there and is a relatively small airport.

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Thanks again guys :)


 




Can anyone confirm if big iron actually operates there (Gulfstream, etc)?  I used to live not far away from Sedona and heard there were weight restrictions imposed to keep the locals (and their crystals) happy . . .  




 


G'day Joe,


 


The majority of information I have on this is anecdotal, but when I was out there (June 2013) there were a couple of heavier corporates parked next to the Mesa Grill. Perhaps they have special approval (charter flights to ship in the crystals perhaps?), but the usual aircraft spotters websites also indicate these seem to be fairly regular occurrences. 


 


[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1x3YJDwtkQ


 




Love it, but look at the photos. The rocks are really red.




 


A very valid point Sue.. as you know the rocks display different colours at different times of the day, and of course any considerations of colour are going to be subjective. I spent a great deal of thought and time considering the best approach, and in the end I decided on a fair balance between daytime and dusk colours, whilst still retaining a degree of realism (over saturation can make the sim look like a cartoon). The end result was these textures - a blended mosaic comprised of source orthoimagery from three USGS sources, heavily edited in photoshop to balance colour, saturation and levels as well as the usual clean-up such as removed cliff shadows etc. I tested a bunch of different colour combinations in the sim; these were the best balanced - for reference many sections (including the red rocks) are 50-90% stronger saturation than the source material they are derived from.


 


To give an example of some other red rock sections of the coverage area not included in my opening post, I've attached a couple of sneak-peek shots that will be part of my second preview batch later in the week. 


 


134a572b3fb7f27f32f924dfdb7c7f8b.jpg


 


dab47e010ca7302536dd5444c2133902.jpg


 




My guess is that there needs to be a saturation/hue compromise so the scenery doesn't stand out like a sore thumb against the Global textures.




 


This was most problematic around the edges of the scenery - a similar problem I had with Palm Springs was getting the balance between genuine colours (or the perception) and matching the palette to the limited numbers of default landclass types available. The end result is that the centre 85% of the scenery is colourised to match the real-world location, and the outer edges have soft colour transitions to the corresponding landclass tiles. 


 




Awesome...  looks great.  Anyone know what's the story behind that cross?




 


G'day Ryan, this was a source I came across when researching it, an interesting read on both the Shrine of the Red Rocks and the Chapel of the Holy Cross.


 


Cheers,


Jarrad


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That is awesome, great work,Jarrad!!! Am really happy to see HD AZ airports grow. Now i have a question, do you plan KGYR or even  Buckeye Municipal in the future ;) ?


My flight school (ATCA) is based there and @ Buckeye i had my first solo :) I would love to see these fields aswell some day.


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G'day Joe,

 

The majority of information I have on this is anecdotal, but when I was out there (June 2013) there were a couple of heavier corporates parked next to the Mesa Grill. Perhaps they have special approval (charter flights to ship in the crystals perhaps?), but the usual aircraft spotters websites also indicate these seem to be fairly regular occurrences. 

 

Thanks for that info - always wondered about that, esp with the "published limits" of the airfield site, etc.  I thought I had read somewhere else about a 60,000 lb limit but couldn't find it.  That would fit a G-IV as long as it wasn't maxed out.

 

Looking forward to this - KPRC to KSEZ (in FSX) was a regular "got a little time to burn" flight when I lived in the area .

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That is awesome, great work,Jarrad!!! Am really happy to see HD AZ airports grow. Now i have a question, do you plan KGYR or even  Buckeye Municipal in the future ;) ?

My flight school (ATCA) is based there and @ Buckeye i had my first solo :) I would love to see these fields aswell some day.

Mickey lets add Luke AFB,  Goodyear, and Sun City in the mix too. would love to see Scottsdale and KPHX mature too. I think Vegas will be included in the upcoming So Cal. region pack. 

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Enjoy, a real landing, I shot in 2011, on board a Cessna 182 G1000 on runway 21 :

 

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZczJNY2Hbo

 

 

 

Dang, you are very low on final. Really drug it in. 

 

I tend to stay above the glideslope when I'm flying a single engine piston. It's so easy to forward slip them down if you end up too high and you keep a better glide distance in case of an engine out. I wouldn't want an engine out on short final in your video :)

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Dang, you are very low on final. Really drug it in.

I tend to stay above the glideslope when I'm flying a single engine piston. It's so easy to forward slip them down if you end up too high and you keep a better glide distance in case of an engine out. I wouldn't want an engine out on short final in your video :)

That was exactly my thinking. Couple power off 180 will change this habit

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Vincent, thank you for the pictures and information - I'm very jealous of your flying experiences around Sedona! As a happy coincidence, I actually watched your video several times during development to cross-check a couple of references; a couple of my own pictures from the airport didn't capture the taxi signs clearly, fortunately your video confirmed the correct labels for me :)

 

Oups, just discovered your answer Jarrad ! I'm pretty proud to be a tiny part of your work ;-)

 

16840613560_72da5ef1a1_b_d.jpg

My first time in 2008 ;-)

 

4319082304_06a5584477_b_d.jpg

Need more signs ? ;-)

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...
On 25.3.2015 at 7:13 AM, GordonGekko said:

Looks great Jarred, a must buy.

 

I hope you will continue with your theme of the southwest and give Albuquerque, NM some love, an area that's never had any proper treatment from a developer. Or, if not KABQ, maybe Santa Fe, NM. KABQ would be better though since you can fly anything there and is a relatively small airport.

 

I fully agree, NM has never seen any good scenery coverage, unfortunately.

And I'd like to add KAEG and KLAM to the list. :)

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