Recreating A Scene From "the Aviator"

[dswo 0]

Last night I watched "The Aviator" again; liked it better the second time, even on the small screen. On the Sim-Outhouse forum, there's been some discussion of making scenery for Hollywood movies, and it got me thinking about what could be done in FSX to recreate the speed record scene.

The real record was set nearer to the coast, at what is now John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. In the movie, the setting is more dramatic: Mystery Mesa in Velasquez Canyon, which is inland, on the other side of the San Gabriel Mountains. Using Gunnar Daehling's Maps2bgl program, I was able to generate a photoscenery for the Canyon area in about ten minutes.

One screenshot attached, more screenshot here: http://picasaweb.google.com/dokwok/VelasquezCanyon

For viewing, I recommend clicking the "Slideshow" button after the page loads. Flight begins at the nearest airport, which is Agua Dulce ("Sweet Water"). The area covered by photoscenery is visible right away, and I'm able to identify Mystery Mesa without much trouble. (Eventually, I create a little red tag for it using FSDiscover!, but that doesn't show up until later.) I fly around, look at the scenery, buzz the mesa a few times, and look at my airspeed. The record set that day was 352 miles per hour; to get up there, I find that I need to dive (which is what Hughes actually did, only he was climbing over the ocean). Close to the ground, the scenery starts to look crude, but with even a thousand feet of altitude, it's pretty good. After a few laps, I head back to Agua Dulce.

Before anyone asks: I haven't figured out yet how to distribute a legal version of the scenery, since the images used belong to Google Earth.

Credits: photoscenery generated using Gunnar Daehling's Maps2bgl using images from Google Earth, airplane model by Aerosoft, clouds and sky by FEX ("Blue Angels"), weather by ActiveSky X.