Lake Hood LHD and Z41 in Anchorage, Alaska, for Ultimate Terrain

Made using SceneryGenX (hoorah for that programme! downloadable for free  by Roger Wensley and Jim Turner. For FS9 only. (Get SceneryGenX at "www.scenery.org/graphical-editors_b.htm")


WHERE AND WHAT IS IT?


Lake Hood is actually two lakes joined together by man and a dredger; the second lake was called Lake Spenard. Lake Hood is right next door and to the north of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, and there is a second airfield on the north side of the lake called Lake Hood Airstrip. The airstrip is coded Z41, the International is PANC, and Lake Hood itself is either LHD (acording to the FAA) or PALH (if you are from IATA). LHD seems to be the winner by popular vote. In real life the lake is at 71 feet AMSL, but in FS9 it is, for some reason, at 152 feet, as is the International Airport. Until you install Ultimate Terrain, which is when you discover the lake to now be the right size and shape but sitting in a large hole, as all the lakes in UT are pretty much levelled off at their real-life level. So this scenery drags the lake back up to the 152 feet level, this being technically much easier to achieve than lowering the International Airport.

To see Lake Hood from the north shore go to http://www.alaskaairmen.org.cam/ and take a look, accompanied by the Lake Hood ATC broadcast on 126.8. When you fly to the lake you talk first to Anchorage approach, then to Lake Hood Tower, though the person you speak to is actually sitting in the International Airport tower.

The same difficult decisions came up here, again, like where do you stop once you start? Or do you try for total realism and model each and every building? Once again I compromised, or it would have taken months to do instead of weeks. I have not modelled any buildings specifically for this, but if there is a warehouse on a dock that is blue with a red roof, or if there is a long shed that is steel coloured, then that's what is there in this scenery, plus a large proportion of the 780 float planes that are based there, which make Lake Hood the largest and busiest float plane base in the world, averaging 190 flights per day, and a lot more than that during the summer months.
 
There is fuel at two places on the lake, and a lot of maintenance help available! And as I write this I just noticed that at 6:22pm in August the temperature is 9C/47F with light rain. Plus I just noticed a new building on the web cam. Ah well, maybe an update later.

In this download there are a landclass folder, a Lake Hood Airstrip folder, and a Lake Hood float base folder.



NEEDED


What do you need? Well apart from FS9 you need the (free) Runway12 scenery programme, because that is what I use for some of the representational buildings, cars, fork lifts, AND THE TREES; you can download it from Avsim or Flightsim. You will also need some scenery libraries which are also downloadable, and these are listed below. Actually you don't need all of them for this scenery, but if you install them all just once then you never have to worry about it again for any future scenery.

ag_tree_lib, dwag_hangers, ESDG HangerKit, FED EX Trucks, GA-Hangers, General Aviation Aircraft, Humans, JonPatch_objects_1, JonPatch_objects_2, Lens Hanger 1, Lens Hanger 2, Objects01_lib by S.Legg, Ships_winfred Orthmann, Static Helipcopters, Trees_Seev Kahn. And two new ones, called "FinneyGround VERT GSE" and "FinneyGround VERT logistics". And now there are even newer ones, called "dwag objects", "jetways", "JRB chassis", "JRB Containers", and "Lars extra objects".

Note that the titles when you download them may not be exactly the same, but this is enough to identify them; I have omitted some author names as in "ag_tree_lib-Arno Gerretsen" for instance. Not all of these are used here as I mentioned above (at this point I normally write "eg. there is no Fed Ex truck") but I use them in other sceneries that I have or will be posting. Please do not email me and tell me that you can't find them all, as one irate fellow did. RWY12 have bundled some of them together into library zips, so if you download and install and THEN check the names you will find that out and not have to blame me.

ULTIMATE TERRAIN Alaska/Canada would be a definite plus as I am pretty darn sure the scenery does not work without it, on account of the default FS lake being the wrong shape and size! 

You should also download and install the latest version of Anchorage International (verson 4, as of this date of writing) by William Morgan of FRFStudio, as it is an improvement over default FS. It also includes some of the lake side buildings which I have left in place.




INSTALLATION


To install unzip to a temporary folder, then move the Lake HoodLHD folder with its scenery and texture folders to wherever you keep your additional scenery. I use:

c:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\Addon Scenery\USFields\WhateverXXX

but then I have a lot of fields and I like to keep track of everything. After that activate in the FS Library in the normal way. Note that it is only for FS9. It should be above (smaller number than) UT, as should all your other airfields.

There is a "landclass" file to change the land in the area to the correct usage (there is no texture folder, that's how it should be). Install it exactly as the Lake Hood scenery, but make sure it is at a lower priority (larger number) than Lake Hood LHD. There is also a Lake Hood Airstrip folder, and again install this in the same way. Make sure this one is at a higher priority (smaller number) than Lake Hood LHD. All three of them should be at a higher priority than the PANCv4, presuming you download it. This is because I have included a flatten which deals with a conflict between PANC and UT, as UT puts the coastline in a slightly different alignment and the result is undesirable watery hills along the shoreline.


LEGAL STUFF


Note that this is free at no expense spared and not to be sold. You can do whatever else you like with it so long as you ask me first and don't make money from it!

rogwen@rogers.com

Criticism and praise equally welcome. 20th September 2008