Microsoft Flight Simulator Offshore Landmarks-: North Sea (released)

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

As you will by now have gathered this project consists of three main parts:

1. Aerosoft buying the models
2. Christian Bahr getting them into the sim, adding animations etc
3. Me doing the research on what to place where.

I really wanted to get the wind parks done as I felt it might be the hardest part. Called dozens of companies to find the databases needed. And you can buy them, no problem. Fork over $15.000 and you have it. I decided to get my own data and while it has been an adventure, with the help of some very kind users here, I got the locations of every single turbine that is operational. Down to half a meter in precision.  As we have the data I decided to add the wind parks in the Irish Sea. 

 

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Small detail of the parks near Harwich:

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So today I started in researching the windfarms that are in development. A lot of this product is about that because that is where you see the action and where most traffic is. The first thing you need to understand is that the North Sea wil be one HUGE wind park. Sorry for the crummy image but these areas will all be full with turbines within the next 20 years. Over 40 times more than now. 

 

Now a lot of this development is going on now and that means a lot of ships. 

 

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Every blue dot on this image is a ship that working for oil, gas or wind. Ferrying supplies, people, doing surveys, drilling for oil or gas, standing by for emergencies, keeping other ships away, placing wind turbines, dragging massive structures to when they will need to be placed. I did not save the image but at 11:00 GMT I saw 68 helicopters flying in this area. There were 21 more shown as parked on rigs, ships and other platforms.

 

It is extremely hard to gather the total investment that is done on the North Sea, but if you gather that a rather basic oil rig costs around $600 million, every blue dot on the image above at least 30 million and a single wind turbine around 2 million (add 750k to place it) a electrical connect a million a kilometer and oil/gas pipe triple that and you get some idea. 

 

THAT is why we felt this area deserved coverage. Just as the Arabian Gulf or the Gulf of Mexico. And personally, I am having a blast exploring this. I do a lot of projects, but sometimes one just grows on you. This is one of those. Objects of 1.2 million polygons, very weird ships, no problems with framerates.

 

And I have not even started on the oil and gas platforms. You know 69% of oil/gas rigs in the North Sea is abandoned? Just rusting away? 

[JasonmCork 121]

Seeing as North Sea Industry is a working title, can i Suggest "Operation North Sea"  

[Flavio1 64]

@Mathijs Kokyou are doing a great job and i am sure we will buy a great product.

[Gstove 10]

It all looks awesome!

 

Will the N sea rigs that have helli decks with NDBs have those navaids working in the release?
 

and will the rigs etc appear as point of interest or airports? 
 

 

[SimWare 729]

3 hours ago, JasonmCork said:

Seeing as North Sea Industry is a working title, can i Suggest "Operation North Sea"  

Sounds like an action movie from the '80th...☺☺ 

[Trevor Hannant 126]

2 hours ago, SimWare said:

Sounds like an action movie from the '80th...☺☺ 

 

We need an Easter Egg - Roger Moore on one of the rigs....

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

4 hours ago, Gstove said:

Will the N sea rigs that have helli decks with NDBs have those navaids working in the release?
and will the rigs etc appear as point of interest or airports? 

 

As far as I know these platforms do not have navaids (but I love tot be corrected on that), but what will do is add a small database with all points you can land on.  For certain the Danish platforms all have ICAO codes. 

 

And yes, we do intend to show them as POI's. Makes it easy to find them!

[SimWare 729]

12 minutes ago, Trevor Hannant said:

 

We need an Easter Egg - Roger Moore on one of the rigs....

Indeed !

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

12 minutes ago, Trevor Hannant said:

We need an Easter Egg - Roger Moore on one of the rigs....

 

 

ALL my projects have easter eggs. About 75% have not been found yet.

 

[Herman 1591]

15 minutes ago, Mathijs Kok said:

ALL my projects have easter eggs. About 75% have not been found yet.

 I didn't know ALL did. I'll guess they vary beyond your smiling mugshot on the CRJ flight deck entry cam.

 

I'll have to start looking once I know what I'm looking for. I love Easter Egg hunts.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Christian is placing the first windfarms. Of course they are all animated in rotation and wind direction. What you see is the windfarm on the Belgium/Dutch coast that has over 400 turbines. We still need to add the transformer platforms and the meteorological stations. You will lso see some vessels with maintenance people etc.

 

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[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Ohhh, today I added four lightships. It seems on the UK still uses them.

 

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Image from Wikipedia.

[ru9 6]

1 hour ago, Mathijs Kok said:

As far as I know these platforms do not have navaids (but I love tot be corrected on that), but what will do is add a small database with all points you can land on.  For certain the Danish platforms all have ICAO codes. 

 

 

Many of the major oil platforms have ndb or vor dme. Turn on navaids on the map in msfs and you will find them. Maybe it's an idea to have a list of them or where to turn it on since it is not on by default.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

1 minute ago, ru9 said:

 

Many of the major oil platforms have ndp or vor dme. Turn on navaids on the map in msfs and you will find them. Maybe it's an idea to have a list of them or where to turn it on since it is not on by default.

 

Thanks, will investigate that!

[ru9 6]

317 helicopter decks from norway, denmark, netherlands and uk. There are ICAO codes on those from Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands.

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Helideck North Sea.csv

[SK10 42]

Am 28.4.2022 um 19:30 schrieb Mathijs Kok:

Christian is placing the first windfarms. Of course they are all animated in rotation and wind direction. What you see is the windfarm on the Belgium/Dutch coast that has over 400 turbines. We still need to add the transformer platforms and the meteorological stations. You will lso see some vessels with maintenance people etc.

 

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Please don’t make the same mistake as Asobo and placing static red lights on it. windturbines have red beacons…

[Christian Bahr 221]

vor 13 Minuten schrieb SK10:

Please don’t make the same mistake as Asobo and placing static red lights on it. windturbines have red beacons…

Don't worry

 

The wind turbines are already flashing:

 

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If you have precise information about the frequency at which the obstacle lights are flashing in reality, then this can be implemented very easily:

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[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

13 hours ago, ru9 said:

317 helicopter decks from norway, denmark, netherlands and uk. There are ICAO codes on those from Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands.

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Helideck North Sea.csv 15.22 kB · 0 downloads

 

Thanks!

 

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Weekend? Who cares.

 

To find the objects we are adding POI's of course.  Here you see Danish wind parks.

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The wind parks are also starting to take shape. Over 2500 turbines have been placed. I think they are a bit high in the water, anybody any comment on that? These turbines are the smaller, slightly older type btw.

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As we explained a few times the construction going on is  a major part of the project. Here you see a vessel that brings the foundations to the site. 

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A lot of work has been done on the night lighting and it now looks a lot better. On a clear night you can see hundreds of lights flying over the North Sea (a pilot told me last week that there are more lights visible on the North Sea then at the region where I live in France).

 

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[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Some images of the Belgium wind park. Every turbine is placed to within 10 meters of the real position.

 

While the positions of all these objects HAS to be public domain because they are navigation hazards it is incredibly hard to get the information. When you find databases that have them they ask thousands of euro's to access them.  I find that fundamentally incorrect and have decided to share the data I gathered (with the help of many people) with OpenStreetMap. Every location is at least confirmed by two sources, however that does not say a lot. 

 

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And CaptOle had some fun using the HPG Airbus H145 action pack that was recently released:

 

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Highly recommended software! 

 

 

[Hugo_J 40]

2 hours ago, Mathijs Kok said:

The wind parks are also starting to take shape. Over 2500 turbines have been placed. I think they are a bit high in the water, anybody any comment on that? These turbines are the smaller, slightly older type btw.

 

 

To be honest, It looks kinda good in my opinion! I don't think they're that high in the water, looks real

[ronald13 5]

I do find the NDB/VOR topic for rigs quite interesting. I just searched quickly, and it looks like operators can register at the UK-CAA for both dedicated and common channels.

 

I noticed in a list of NDB frequencies from ICAO a few mobile NDBs (without frequency?). Perhaps scanning for the coordinates can give you some matches for fixed stations in the north sea? I guess there will be similar lists for VORs. 

 

Nautel seems to be 1 of the companies supplying them. I've also attached a presentation, showing some of their systems, including photos and typical ranges. Of course no list of their stations/clients...

 

I'm pretty new to all this and assume you have already found similar stuff, but better to share unnecessary than not at all...

 

UK-CAA: https://www.caa.co.uk/Commercial-industry/Airspace/Communication-navigation-and-surveillance/Offshore-VHF-and-NDB-assigments/

 

Nautel-offshore-NDB-systems-Dec2014.pdf Doc 7754 EUR eANP P3 - CNS Supp - COM4, Frequency Order.pdf

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Did not have those Ronald, thanks!

 

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

One of the more whacky ships.

 

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This is a ship that does surveys, finding the best places to dril or to place objects. Let me tell you one thing, I would NOT like to be on that ship when the North Sea is rough.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

That whacky ship is now in the sim:

 

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A MUCH large ship is also ready now.

 

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