Who am I?
If you’ve spent even a minute or two reading my blog posts, you might get the idea that I have a bit of an obsession with aviation and computer-based flight simulation. I’ve been designing and developing addons for Microsoft’s marvelous Flight Simulator series for a few years now, and the experience has only heightened my interest in the arena.
In fact, as a direct consequence of my simulated flying, I began training a couple of years ago for my real world pilot’s license. So far, I’ve racked up about 50 hours in a Cessna 172, and were it not for the fickle fall/winter weather in Portland, would probably have my slip of plastic by now. It’s my hope to climb back into the cockpit soon and get ‘er done.
In addition to winged pursuits, I’m also a writer. My second novel, Last Thursday, is in development. Now if I could just find an extra 12 hours in every day...
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Hi Bill, I bought the Plum Island scenery and I was very pleased with it! I had to get a new computer, so I don’t have the the installer package, and the code to activate it. Could you help me out? Thanks, Ben.
Ben, the publisher you bought Plum Island from handles the re-downloads. Did you purchase from FSAddon, or Simmarket (or elsewhere?) – whichever one, I’d suggest you get in touch with them and see if they can remind you of your serial number and provide you with a link to download if available.
thanks,
Bill
Hey Bill,
I absolutely LOVE your plumb island scenery. my grandparents live on Plum Island and i drive by 2B2 all the time. your scenery is an exact replica of the real world scenery! and i love it because it doesn’t imact frame rates! i dont know if you have ever been down to North Andover, Mass to KLWM or Lawrence Municipal Airport, but i would love if you could make a scenery of the airport, using the same kinda program so it doesnt impact frame rates! thank you very very much for your awesome sceneries! good luck on the license, maybe i’ll see you up in the skies!
-Nick
Thanks, Nick! I love New England, and I have plans for lots more scenery up that way. In fact, I’m working on Nantucket right now, and it’s looking good. Expect more soon!
Bill
Hi Bill,
Really enjoy your work and delighted to hear you’re looking at more New England destinations. As a Brit I’ve felt right at home there on my two visits. As a GA/Bush flying fan Plumb Island was an instant choice for me and the fact that you’re looking at other airfields/strips in the region is really good news. You mentioned Martha’s Vineyard earlier too? Can I suggest a field near NYC and one up Bar Harbor way? That way we could enjoy some quality destinations in the region. Keep up the good work!
Hi Bill,
Do you know where I could locate a copy of you FS2002 Antelope Trail Ranch scenery?
QW
It’s available on Avsim. Do a search of their library on the term “Antelope Trail Ranch”.
Dear Bill, I am one who grew up under the Battle of Britain, later flew some of those war-birds, now reduced to FS flying but enjoying it. For a foreigner from a different age I think you did a great job with West Malling, congratulations. What us oldies need is for someone to produce a program of WW II airfields but doubtless it would have to be a labour of love. I still fly occasionally, a friend has a Miles Messenger and a Bf 109E. I too write fiction, mostly ghost stories, send me an email address and I will send you a short story that to some extent is semi- biographical. WW-II of course.
With Kind Regards, Bob Lomas.
Thank you for sharing your hard work. I downloaded all of your freeware Carenado C208 liverys. I live north of Seattle close to the San Juans so the San Juan Airlines as well as the Kenmore Air will be loging some flight hours. Thanks again for sharing your tallents with us folk that can not do repaints on our own.
Dave T.
no problem, I’ll have to check out the FS9 scrneey, I just got it a few months ago. Do you know where I can buy it? Also to bad you didn’t want the Your Scenery stuff, we have 4 packages now
Hello Mr. Womack,
i am searching hard for a tutorial that you made obviously. Its about Ground Poly creation and such stuff. Can you point me on a source please?
Many Thanks!
The site that used to host the tutorial is down now, but I’ve found the original source files for it. Hopefully in the next few days I can put them together into a PDF to be hosted here.
Bill
That would be really great!
Thanks in Advance
Hi Bill,
will kindly ask for the progress on the ground poly tutorial. did you had time already?
regards, henry
Hi Bill,
Hope you are well. I am trying to find your update to Plum Island. The link on the old FS Addon forum no longer works and there is no link for the update on the new forum. I have also checked the publishers I have accounts with and no one has the update. Any chance you could update the link or perhaps send me the update?? I love these small airfield scenery’s. Are you going to be doing any more at some point or are you sticking with Orbx these days. Thanks.
Regards,
Rob
Rob, I’ll have to ask Francois what happened to the installer and see that he posts it again. Sorry for that.
I have some more New England sceneries in the pipeline, probably to be sold under the Orbx banner. Stand by…
thanks,
Bill
Hi Bill,
Thanks for getting back to me. Just for your info, the link for the update on the old FSAddon forums still works. But it takes you to the” Womack Workshops.” Which I am assuming is your wife’s art website??
Needless to say, I didn’t send her an email asking where the update is…lol Here is the link for your update posting on the old website: http://forums.fsaddon.eu/viewtopic.php?t=1242 Glad to hear you are still working on the smaller stuff. Plum Island is one of my favorites.
Regards,
Rob
Hi Bill,
Something I forgot to mention. Francois does have an info page on his website for the update here: http://fsaddon.eu/wpfsaddon/?p=431 However, the link he has listed also takes you to the “Womack Workshops” website.
Regards,
Rob
Ah, I see what happened. It seems to have been deleted from my server. Let me see if I can find the proper file and I’ll restore it.
Update: I just found and replaced the file. The update should work fine from Francois’s link now:
http://www.spottedantelope.com/Bill/files/plum_island_update_1.1.zip
Hi Bill,
Thanks!!! Can’t tell you how much I appreciate the help. I am looking forward to your other sceneries coming out.
Regards,
Rob
Hi Bill,
I heard about you through a friend of mine in Bristol, England, Bob Sidwick, who runs RC Simulations. I had asked him a question and he suggested watching your short tutorial on adding scenery manually in FSX when operating Windows7. I did so but am a bit stumped. I ordered, downloaded and installed Newport Scenery Photoreal Washington DC X, mostly due to the screenshots in the latest issue of PC Pilot magazine, which look great, much better than the default DC scenery and a freeware that I had previously downloaded. (By the way, I am a recently retired American Eagle Embraer RJ captain and have done the River Visual 19 in KDCA for real hundreds of times and it is indeed a challenging approach!) I ran the installer from the zip file after reading the readme file and following the instructions. I also ran the Vox ATC Indexer so that my VoxATC program would be up to date, as specified in the manual. However, when I went back and tried the simulation, I found that the scenery I was seeing didn’t appear to be much different than what I had been previously using, so I was not sure which program FSX was running. I went to the Scenery Library to make sure the new program was enabled, but I couldn’t find it anywhere after clicking on the Add Arera button. I tried looking under multiple listings under the root FSX file, but no luck. After watching your video I tried to follow your steps, but after clicking on the Add Area button and clicking on the FSX root folder, I can’t find a subfolder that says FSAddon. The closest I come is FSWeb, which of course is not correct. There is currently a DCA X program enabled in the Scenery Library, but this is an older freeware program. By the way, maybe you can straighten something out for me since I am not a computer literate sort. When you click on the location tab on the main screen it takes you to a second screen where you can make choices as to country, state, and city. This comes up initially with the default scenery. Below, in the lower right corner, there are two circles in which you can place a dot to select either dafault or add on scenery, with the former being checked automatically. I have added many scenery programs to FSX over the years, both commercial and freeware, yet when I check the addon scenery box, the main selection fields above remain blank, even when I select a country, state, and city before changing the dot from default to addon. When I do this shouldn’t the addon programs be displayed, to differentiate them from the default displays? Otherwise, how would the computer know whether to bring up the scenery program from the default list or the addon list, especially as I have many cities, such as New York and DCA with multiple programs. I hope that you can help me and explain what I am doing wrong. Also would it be okay if I wrote again with some other virtual flying issues? Thanks for your help.
Wayne Hinton
Hi Wayne,
You might be taking the video too literally when it comes to adding scenery. I’m not suggesting that you have a folder called “FSAddon”. That’s a specific scenery publisher, and not relevant to your DC addon. Newport sceneries are payware, yes? If so, they should have an installer that does all this for you. If not, shame on them. With photo-scenery, which is what they produce, I believe, you should definitely see a difference when it’s installed.
I’m not familiar with that particular producer’s methods, so it might be best to either ask them (if you have contact info) or head over to a well-traveled FS forum like avsim.com and see if one of the users there has an answer. I’m only one guy, and my experience with other people’s scenery is far from comprehensive.
thanks,
Bill
Hi Bill,
I wish you would consider making a Santa Paula airport for FSX. It is right in your wheelhouse. A quintessential, grass-roots GA airport. It exists in a valley populated by citrus ranches just over a ridge from the cluttered suburbs of Los Angeles and the suburban sprawl of the San Fernando Valley. Surely an oasis for GA aviators. It’s so removed that Steve McQueen sought refuge there from Hollywood in his last years to live among his Stearman and Indian motorcycles.
I have done a version that captures the “feel” of this special place but not the accuracy of one of your dedicated projects. If this interests you in any way, do not hesitate to contact me.
Thanks again for your fantastic work and dedication to the flight sim world.
http://santapaulaairport.com/history
Regards,
D. Smith
financially grounded aviator
Whenever you get around to finishing your novel, I will stand in line to buy it, now having read your two published short stories, Blind Date and Joyride. Last year when my wife and I were vacationing on the Oregon coast, I read them aloud to her and she was delighted with them, as was I.
I recently went to the Screenshot Artist website in order to send the links of your stories to a friend, who also appreciates good writing, and was dismayed to find that the site had shut down. Have you published these anywhere else?
BTW, I was sorry to have missed out on your get-together with ORBX customers who live in your area. Somehow I missed the date. If you ever decide to have one again, please count me in. Or anytime you’d like to join me in a cup of coffee, I would be delighted. I live down in Salem and have a friend who is a fellow flightsim enthusiast as well. I know he would also be thrilled to meet with you.
Best regards,
Tom
Hi Bill, I know this is a bit off topic, but I’m thinking of purchasing Cushman Meadows, but wanted to ask one question. Is the scenery outside the airports fictitious, or is it based on what is actually there in reality?
I’ve got most of your other scenery (since FS2004) and truly love it. It’s the nearest thing I can find to my home of Scotland as it is quite similar. Scotland’s just a lot smaller, LOL.
Thank you for all the wonderful work you’ve done!
Your scenery is like fresh air!!
Cheers
Dom
Hi Dom,
While Cushman Meadows airport is fictional, the surrounding area is very much real. I used actual aerial imagery from Lake Cushman to create the photo-terrain. It’s a really stunning area, and was just crying out for an airport!
Thanks for the kind words about my scenery. I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying it!
Bill
Hi, i have downloaded los roques fsx scenery,island scenery there installed but no runway tried many things like run administer to levels of detail and such still no runway help please thanks
Hi Vince,
I didn’t create the Los Roques FSX scenery, so I don’t have any insight into what might be causing the problem. My advice is to contact the developer and see if they can help.
Bill
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