This is just a simple scenery mostly for the purpose of adding a spawnable location at Howland Island and a destination for navigation databases like "Little Nav Map"--especially for anyone who wishes to recreate the flight of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan (other than going missing). Two of the three planned coral runways had been built--(the longest was still under construction) when Amelia and Fred departed Lae. The shortest runway one was the most ideal based on the prevailing easterly wind. Despite being virtually on the equator, there is a pretty steady breeze from the east at this island; which I also find intriguing.
The airport was named Kamakaiwi Field after one of the Hawaiin Colonists who had spent the most time there doing hard labor (without heavy machinery) to make the runways solid enough to support large aircraft. The plan was to use Howland Island as a regular refueling stop for trans-Pacific travel. However, it seems after the tragedy of Amelia and Fred's disapearance, and the rapid technological improvement in aviation during and soon after WW2; the airport and island were abandonded... apparently not offering any strategic advantage during WW2 (like Midway and Wake Island provided).
The runways are each 150 feet wide, and their varying lengths and orientation are based on what little information I was able to find that were specified in the original plans. I know there were some buildings for the dozen or so "colonists", but only saw photos of one of them... so much of what you see here is both very simple with some guessing and mixed in with some rather fictional objects like a cruise ship and jetty.
Ship models are from the fabulous Global AI Ship Traffic are referenced with permission from Henrik Nielsen. For the models to display please install https://flightsim.to/file/9529/global-ai-ship-traffic-msfs-v1
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Thanks to Koschi for sending me the model for the Amelia Earhart Light created by Manfred Siedler ("Fischkopp" who also created scenery for the port of Hamburg at forum.simdocks.de), which I've now included in this scenery.
Koschi has also created a Bush Trip which guides you along the route that Amelia Earhart took around the world. You can find that here: https://flightsim.to/file/46168/amelia-erhart-s-circumnavigation-of-the-world-in-1937
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I also made use of some flags thanks to trfsto's WindyThings: https://flightsim.to/file/14024/windy-things
Howland Island is so tiny and FLAT and in the middle of nowhere that it makes a great challenge for using Celestial Navigation. ElectronVolt has made some great addons for navigating during Aviation's Golden Age, including a virtual aviation averaging sextant with a detailed tutorial on how to use it for navigating with the Sun or Stars (hard to do both at once it seems). https://flightsim.to/file/17738/celnav-for-msfs-celestial-navigation-sextant
Ginete
Ty!
SepticSchizo78
Great mod😊 Only thing I don't like is that the colour of the runway is extremely bright, especially with clear skies. Not very plesant for the eyes.. Could you make it darker, please?
SkyborneVisions author
Ha... Thanks. Well, these were historically coral runways. If you've ever driven on a road made of coral, it's VERY bright! However, it's very nice on a moonlit night, as you can see the road long distances ahead of you without headlights! So, you could try moonlit operations when it's not so bright (or turn your monitor brightness down). :P But thanks for the input.
2 years ago
Koschi
Thank you very much.
One request: Maybe you can get the Amelia Earhart Light as it looks today, then it would be perfect.
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Howland_Island#/media/File:Earhart_Light.jpg
Contributor
SkyborneVisions author
Thanks for the suggestion... I did add a little Asobo lighthouse in the approximate location (see the last screen shot)... obviously this is not the same thing but my modelling skills are pretty poor to attempt something that looks more amorphous. If anyone wants to send me a model of Amelia's Light, I'd happily insert it in this scenery.
2 years ago