Silverstone 99 Version 1.0

by Barry Perfect

e-mail: bp.lgw@dial.pipex.com

Web Page: http://ds.dial.pipex.com/barryp/silverstone99/silverstone99.htm

1) Introduction

This project has been a long time coming, Silverstone was my first scenery project about two years ago but it kept been put off dues to other things that came along. Having learnt a lot from designing Gatwick 99 I decided I should go back and try and finish it off. In the end I re-started the project from scratch about a month ago and have been hard at work getting it to a level I thought it could be let loose on the general public.

Silverstone has been home to the British Grand Prix for quite a few years now (though this may change to Brands Hatch after next year) and to my knowledge is the only Formula One Race track that has a runway inside the circuit!

Silverstone, on race day, is the busiest airport in the country, with hundred's of helicopter flights to and from the circuit, ferrying spectators, Formula One Crews and Drivers etc. Silverstone was an airport before it became a race track with the two crossed runways easily spottable with one of them still active although not used often these days except for a few light aircraft (Stowe racing track runs over the top of the runway so I assume they don't take flights when this is in use!). On race day some of the the temporary stands get very close to the runway approach so if you plan flying in by plane on race day you had better make a good approach!

For those of you not familiar with the UK Silverstone is in the "Midlands" almost half way between London and Birmingham, the nearest city being Northampton.

Well enough of my waffle, hope you like the scenery, experience the thrill of flying and Grand Prix Race Day at the same time!

2) The Scenery

The Scenery consists of the following features: -

• Main Runway (not used much these days), no navaids or lights here I am afraid, just like in the real world
• Two Helicopter areas consisting of 24 heli pads in total
• ATC Tower and Fuel available
• All local roads and villages (Silverstone and Whittlebury), tree's and rivers.
• Full accurate race track with pit lane, runover points and gravel traps
• All Stands both permanent and race day are modelled
• Pit Lane, buildings, complexes and tent villages are shown
• Starting line, grid and lights
• Hospitality Suites and Video walls

3) Installation

1. Create a directory off of your main Flight Simulator Scenery Directory (default is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator\Scenery and call it something like Silver99
2. Create two subdirectories called SCENERY and TEXTURE
3. Unzip the file you have downloaded using Winzip or similar and in SCENERY.ZIP into the SCENERY directory and all the files in TEXTURE.ZIP into the TEXTURE directory, this readme.htm and any other files can go in the Silver99 directory itself.
4. Enable the scenery in FS98 as follows :-

• Go to 'World\Scenery Library'
• Click the "OK" button in the warning dialog box (it appears only the first time in a session)
• Click "Files..." in the Scenery Library dialog box
• Click "Add..."
• Type "=:\=\scenery\Silver99\scenery\*.bgl" in the Scenery Area Path textbox (without the quotes)
• Type "Silverstone 99" in the Scenery Area Title textbox (no quotes here either)
• Select "Local" as Scenery Area Type
• Check "Scenery Area Active"
• Click "OK" twice to close the dialogs. FS98 will update the Facilities Database.

You should also layer Silverstone 99 at least one layer above (lower number) than any other UK Scenery you may have that covers the Silverstone Area, i.e. the UKDT South East, Perfect Flight GB, FS98 Default Europe or Europe 3

4) Grand Prix Day

The scenery has been arranged so that you can switch the scenery between Grand Prix day and a normal day. Silverstone looks totally different on race day from a normal day with 10+ temporary stands, tents, car parks etc being built just for the Grand Prix.

There are two ways of switching.

1. Setting the Scenery Complexity to Dense or Very Dense will add the race day features, but will also add the non race day features that have been left out of lower complexity settings to keep the frame rates up.
2. Disable the file silvgp99.bgl file in the Silverstone 99 SCENERY directory. This file contains all the race day features. This can be disabled by renaming it something like silvgp99.ogl or moving it to another directory or zipping it up and deleting the original.

5) Airport Information

The airport is accurate to the published charts when it was released, Silverstone has one runway, Runway 06/24 which is 882 meters long and 23 meters wide, it has no lighting or navaids.

The airport also has a Helicopter Runway running parallel with the main asphalt one just to the north. The runway has markings for 16 landing points and parking points just behind. There are also landing points on the old unused runway that crosses the active runway almost north south, this has a further 8 landing points. All the landing points are marked with a 'T'.

The nearest navaids to the airport are Daventry DTY (116.40 Mhz, 8nm at 157 deg) and Cranfield CFD (116.50 Mhz, 15nm at 274 deg).

Silverstone has no ATIS.

6) Credits

• Pascal Meziat, Brian McWilliams and Tom Hiscox for the Airport 2.10 program - Manfred Moldenhauer for the SCASM compiler
• Rafael Sanchez for the VOD 2.7 program
• Luis Vieira de Sa for the TexBmp program
• Microsoft (and before them BAO) for the Flight Simulator program without which none of this is possible

During this project I have had contact with a number of people who have given invaluable help!

• All the UK Design Team for their help during the design and testing of the scenery
• Jo Martin for sending me an excellent aerial photo of the circuit all the way from New Zealand!

7) And Finally

Copyright and Distribution

This airport is released as Freeware.

Copyright (C) Barry Perfect.

As freeware you are permitted to distribute this archive subject to the following conditions :-

• The archive must be distributed without modification to the contents of the archive. Redistributing this archive with any files added, removed or modified is prohibited.
• The inclusion of any individual file from this archive in another archive without the prior permission of the author is prohibited.
• No charge may be made for this archive other than that to cover the cost of its distribution. If a fee is charged it must be made clear to the purchaser that the archive is freeware and that the fee is to cover the distributor's costs of providing the archive.
• The authors' rights and wishes concerning this archive must be respected.

Barry Perfect (bp.lgw@dial.pipex.com)