North Ronaldsay

The weather forecast for today was cold with possibilities of snow.  True to its word, the temperature fell to 1.5 degrees C and we have had our first flurries of snow.  After a quick trip to the shops I decided to bake bread and check out my latest simulator project.

North Ronaldsay in the Orkneys has a custom built airport to support its local community. The terminus is a small hut in a farmyard and the runways are made of compacted hardcore or grass.

The simulation I am working on is for X-Plane 11.  I already have a model of this airport made for Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX), but all of the elements need remaking for this new simulator.

The main elements of the airfield are made and working well.  I have had to exclude the resident airfield as it was far more sophisticated than the real thing.

The Ald Kirk, which is just off of one of the runway approaches was modelled using the windows from Langer Hall Church in Nottinghamshire.  The window elements of both churches are very similar.

The scenery mask for the church is quite simple.  It incorporates a large off white square on each side of the tower to make it more visible to aircraft on approach and takeoff.  

The Church model was created using SketchUp 2015 and saved as an X-Plane .obj file ready to load into the flight simulator.
I just need to add a few more local houses and the old light tower on the north shore before I put the finished airport on line.