Happy New Year 2020!! Since being inspired by Doug's excellent "Hawaii" getaway adventure scenery, I wanted to escape from the great white north so much that I spent time flying there a lot recently. I love all of the little touches that Doug's done on the Hawaiian Island chain. So much so that it made me want to find a spot I could also help bring some of the beauty of the islands to life.
But Doug pretty much covered those fantastic islands so i needed to look elsewhere. Well it took me awhile but I found the place I want to take a break at. The Bahamas.
Gregory Goodwin has given the freeware world an unbelievable scenery package. You can search for and find it on AVSIM and Flightsim.com. Just Look for "Bahama's P3D" or "Gregory Goodwin Bahamas". It's free and works with FSX or P3D v4 just fine. You'll see what I mean. It's fantastic. See for yourself with a few pictures I took on a flight around the Exuma Chain.
Note that Greg did all of the Vector, Landclass and Waterclass creation. Object placement, shoreline enhancements, etc. everything. Just stellar work from one developer and it's all free. Also, included in this archive package is 24 custom object enhanced airports that were created by Art Poole. His objects really look fantastic and are based on real world airport buildings and designs. Great looking all around.
Now where does RTMM come into this equation? Well I reached out to Greg and we talked. He is interested in letting others help develop on top of his Bahamas package so, I'm recruiting some of the team here at RTMM to hopefully join in on my idea for a new project that will allow users to visit some warm locations in the islands when they might want to also get away from Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. It is a nice way to experience some of our enhancements along the way by stopping in new locations like Hawaii which has been at RTMM for us before and now the Caribbean is open for business too!!!
I'm going to enjoy this and hope that it's not one last project for the RTMM team. I don't believe that the upcoming FS2020 will take all sim enthusiast's away. There could be challenges that are at this point unforeseen but entirely possible. So, I'm not throwing in the towel on RTMM just yet. My creative juices are flowing so, I needed to get away and get busy again. Life's too short and then,.... well.. you know. Get busy living or get busy dying.
Right now, Dex Thomas and I are currently just beginning to develop some ideas for AI Float plane traffic that can help give the islands and shorelines some active ops. Also going to add some AI land based traffic too. We're going to also work on some scenery locations that will have sound files embedded around so you can pull up, shut down and get a little sense of the islands. (Can you hear the Steel drums anybody? No not yet? Well give us some time and you will)
I'm looking into some ideas for creating some custom repaints that could be done by our excellent aircraft paint meister, Mr. Klaus Troeppner. Maybe have some flyable models with a cool tropical "Misty" livery. Like Klaus did for us on the Blue Wave Energy Partners aircraft, this would be very nice to have to sell the theme of the project.
It sure would be great to have Norm and the MFC club pilots island hopping in the Caribbean someday soon. The potential for flight plans down here are endless. Maybe a flight to TNCM and Princess Juliana airport? Sure. Why not? It's out there. We don't have to always fly in the cold, rainy, climates I say.
I've asked Doug to consider doing some small areas like he did in Hawaii if he has the time and energy after organizing the website which is his first priority, but when he want's to do some island hopping and finds a nice cove to work his magic, that would be nice to see again.
Maybe Rod might like to work in some scenery that's looking for something with his excellent eye for details like Chugach, or Hollis Harbor or Ketchikan Harbor.
How about if Steve came up with some island style objects and signs? His work has been a must have for me in locations I want to enhance. So, If he's not to busy that is. (He's always busy that guy)
Doc Thomas Menzel put together one of the coolest packages recently when he took on the entire island of Kodiak and created a lot of fine looking spots to land at on the island. Hey Doc! How'd you like to take on the Pirates of the Caribbean?
I can see Robert coming up with island scenery videos that would be beautiful to check out for sure. Jeff and Dieter helping along the way with waypoints, testing, collaboration.
And I'm open for more ideas and so is Greg who's given us the green light to put something together that can help make this scenery stand out even more. I know we can easily make that happen. And for me, it's something to look forward to because over the last nine plus years, my hobby has been working with this team at RTMM and they've been happy to play along with some of my crazy ideas. (CIRP, Halibut Cove, BWEP to name a few)
That's been my proudest accomplishment. Helping build this team into the group it is. I missed interacting with each of you the last four 1/2 years really since I was busy with work and laying pipe on BWEP. I did feel kind of on my own with that project. Yes there was a lot of creative ideas that we did early in the BWEP Project but for the last few years, it was really me, alone with pipe after pipe to line-up. Nope, I'm done. Over that. I need some salt, sand and seaside Pina' Colada's ASAP!!!
So, get ready for something different and something new. Misty's Caribbean Adventures "The Bahamas" is coming.
Staniel Cay
Great Exuma Island
Andros Island (My first scenery enhancement for the Misty's Caribbean Air Adventures)
Water Class and Vector Detail by Greg.
Color me impressed
More to come soon.