Early Progress on Ardmore Airport, south of Auckland. Home to numerous flight schools, such as Southern Wings, and the Armore flying School, along with a handful of flight clubs, Armore is a great base for sceninc flying around Auckland, and North Island.
Current Progres:
- V1.0 full release is out. Future updates temprarily suspended due to limited hardware, and developer complications intoruduced in new updates.
- Still compatible as of SU9
Notes:
- Made with the Orbx NZ mesh, untested with the base world.
- Will make sure its compatable with the base versioin after v1.0
- To install, just unzip and drag the contents into the community folder
Special Thanks to the following:
- Ruck66 for directing me to the Vintage Aircraft Collector Library
- RHODI3 for linking me to some useful video tutorials
- Goochie, STR1KEStudioz, and starflexthe2nd for their support and interest in the project
Just Wondering how you got the grass to be so green & lush? In my game it looks bleak and brown with little to no 3d grass at all.?
2 years ago
flycatNZ
Any plans to do some more work on this project? Would love to see more from you!
2 years ago
Possibly! Currently I'm fighting too many performance issues with my aging computer, and it's not worth fighting through the crashes and freeze right now. I hope to get a more capable computer by the end of the year, and I may do more on this project or start others then. Thanks for the support!
2 years ago
TheTexanKiwi
zkd0s
Nice job mate. I fly at Ardmore regularly so this was always going to be a must-have for me. Great work!
3 years ago
chiporca
Already looking a boat load better than default- thanks for stepping up to the challenge. Learnt to fly at this airfield so enjoy visiting it in the sim!
3 years ago
Glad to be catching the eye of folks who have actually flown there!
Also, is that ZK-DAK in your profile photo?
3 years ago
TheTexanKiwi
zkd0s
Great upgrade! We love to see new scenery developers come into action in this community. Cant wait to see what this project turns into but it's already much better than what was there IRL.
3 years ago
starflexthe2nd
Excited to see where this goes. Thanks for doing this one
3 years ago
STR1KEStudioz
Ah.....been waiting for this since day 1 of MSFS! I regularly fly from Ardmore and the default MS buildings and other inaccuracies (eg missing tower) were hurting my eyes! Thanks for your efforts, looking forward to seeing how the project develops.
😉
3 years ago
With as popular an airport as it is in New Zealand, I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone else try to fix it up in MSFS. Having never been to Ardmore myself, do feel free to call me out on any inaccuracies, or point out any changes I should make to better represent Ardmore.
I do plan on editing the default buildings eventually, but that's going to be a very large undertaking. Its not something I plan on doing with the v1.0 release, but it's something I hope to get to eventually. All I have left to do before I'm satisfied for a v1.0 is trying to liven the place up with some simple scenery pieces, complete parking, and add correct taxiway signs. That said, I'm not ending the project at v1.0
Thanks for your feedback, and I hope this helps make your sim experience more enjoyable!
3 years ago
TheTexanKiwi
ratherbegliding
Can you tell us a bit about yourself? TheTexanKiwi is an intreresting name. I am assuming you are a Kiwi living in Texas. If that's right and you are modding Auckland locations I figure this is your home.
3 years ago
Not quite. I do live in Texas, but have never been to NZ. However I do hope to move down there in a few years. A close friend of mine has done a lot of flying from Ardmore, and plans on attending Southern Wings next year, and so I've turned Ardmore into my 'home' airport in the sim world.
Ardmore is such a popular airport that's so poorly represented in MSFS that I'm quite surprised that nobody else has tried touching it up yet. After turning it into my home airport in the sim, I quickly grew tired of how much of an eye sore it was, so I decided I might as well try my hand with modding. I experimented with a scenery project with Mount Eden a few months back, but haven't done anything since. Ardmore is definitely my first large scale project I've worked on.
3 years ago
TheTexanKiwi
Goochie
Just a small tip. For airports if you put the ICAO in the title it makes it very easy for people to find it in searches - NZAR | Ardmore Airport
3 years ago
Goochie
You have really got people excited with this. Unfortunately for you, as soon as you upload something the community laps it up and demands more. 😊 We're not a very gracious bunch but we are keen. The DC3 and warbirds that live there would be a wonderful addition. My wife works at Flight Interiors, right at the top. I use Ardmore all the time and your efforts will add to my enjoyment. Thank you very much.
PS: We want more 😊
3 years ago
I'm glad people are taking notice! This is still my first airport mod, and I've never even visited the place. I'm experimenting with this while still figuring it out, but have full intent on continuously making it better. I hope to find a DC-3 model to add, and I'd love to have one custom designed for ZK-DAK, but no such luck for that yet. I have added a Stearman outside NZ Warbirds (which will be present in the next update), simply because its the only warbird asset I've found thus far.
Any feedback about airport layout, or any small detail, would certainly be appreciated. Like I said, I've never been to Ardmore, so I've only got low resolution satellite data to go off of.
PS: You will get more. Plenty more, hopefully.
3 years ago
TheTexanKiwi
Goochie
You can revamp the ground textures very easily with the SDK tool so it removes the ugly satellite impressions of the aircraft parked. Plenty of YT videos showing how to do it.
3 years ago
I'll have to take a look at that. Thanks for the feedback!
3 years ago
TheTexanKiwi
NZedder
where is the Tower ? Where is the DC3 ? Where is the war-bird ?
3 years ago
I hope to find a DC-3/C-47 static model that I can dress up as ZK-DAK, but that'll come at a later date. Might part a Harvard outside of NZ Warbirds too. Though I do appreciate you pointing out the tower. I've never flown from Ardmore, so I was unaware that it still had a tower. I'll see about adding one in soon.
This is still very early on in the project, and its my first time building an airport, so it wont be perfect.
3 years ago
TheTexanKiwi
cdv0007
Excellent start. Looking forward to your future enhancements with interest.
Spent many a weekend at Ardmore back 25-odd years ago learning to fly on C152s and 172s with Flightline. One of the widest runways in NZ at that stage - great for student pilots like me - who still made 26 meters look not wide enough one particular day (only 2nd solo)... 'going around' at 7 feet forgetting rudder, torque and flap withdrawal procedures and 'appropriate' calls to the then manned tower all at the same time! Somehow I made it but have never forgotten the event. I put it all down to the very old but reliable 152 I was in (ZK-EKM). Ah... good times!
Many thanks for your good work.
3 years ago
I wont be perfect, by any means, as this is my first attempt at creating an airport scenery. I've never personally flown from Ardmore, but a close friend of mine does a lot of flight training out of there, so I've turned it into my 'home' airport in the sim world. Never having been there myself, I've had to base everything off of satellite imagery, and unfortunately, even Google's data is pretty low res. I personally was getting annoyed with how awful the default airport looked, so I took it upon myself to try to make it look better. This first step is little more than correcting the pavement colour, and adding the grass strip. Next I'll probably try to get proper markings on the taxiways.
Certainly is nice to hear from some pilots who've actually flown there though. A lot can change in 25 years, but I'm assuming, after your flight training, you've probably visited more recently? Either way, any feed back or suggestions would certainly be appreciated!
3 years ago
TheTexanKiwi
RHODI3