Mystery Island

The island of Anatam, in Vanuatu, has an airport, Which is located on the nearby island of Inyeug.  I want this airport installed on my Flight Simulator, but Microsoft omitted this small island from their scenery map.  This requires a serious construction job.

I have mapped out the island from Google Earth and made a scenery base using Google SketchUp.  The baseline of the model is set at runway level and the runway is shown in the initial ground texture.  The beaches go down 7.2 feet and a landing pier is included.

A simple models of the terminus was difficult to make as it has louvred glass open windows and a fence with ropes.  The airport is known commercially as Mystery island Airport.

The main building behind the airport terminus is a cafe for visitors.

Images of market stalls were also needed so I have created a dummy set of stalls which can be rotated to be seen in the background from different angles.

With the addition of a few palm trees and some airport bits and pieces, the basic island airport is complete, and working well.  It does need a bit of refinement to make it a more convincing airport.

The technical stuff had to be learnt from scratch.  For the FSX scenery enthusiasts -  the base is a large runway set at 7.2 feet above sea level.  Terrain polygons and airport aprons cannot be used as they will import sea texture from the base mesh set.  The active runway is 300 feet wide and 2500 feet long and the island base is set at 7.2 feet above sea level and the scenery runway ( which is 75 feet wide and 2001 feet long on the island model) is placed over the side of the active runway.  The hard standing on the base also needs to be over the active runway.  If the aircraft strays from the active runway area, it will fall through the scenery to sea level.  Looks good, but you cannot beach a seaplane on this easy option scenery model.
Of course, there is always a down side - each individual scenery item is set to float at 7.2 feet above sea level - tedious, but worth the effort.