Air California 727-200

[biggiraffe]

Hi,

A typical afternoon at Orange County Airport (KSNA).  Hardly a day goes by without the HJG 737 making a trip within California.

(Orange County was the hub for Air California.  They used to advertise they got you the closest to Disneyland -- Meaning closer than PSA's LAX service.)

Best regards,

Kurt

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

Virtual scene "Behind The Orange Curtain" .... which I think was a term used by those in LAX in regard to Orange County

All you need there now is add some L-188's and DC-9's "of the same livery era too" .... and that scene would look like "a million bucks".

Not sure but I think AIR CALIFORNIA also flew the B731 for a time as well.

During the early to mid 1980's we/AIR NEW ZEALAND sold 2 of of our oldest early productions B732's to AIR CALIFORNIA .... by then renamed AIR CAL ....

Both ZK-NAE (named "Puroutou"/Saddleback) and ZK-NAL (unnamed) were sold to AIR CAL and became became N453AC and N460AC respectively between April 1981 and March 1986; [/quote

Mark C
AKL/NZ

[Herman]

Nice image of the Air California 737's.

Herman

[biggiraffe]

Thank you!

Air California (prior to Air Cal) primarily operated the 737-200 but did have a 737-100 for quite awhile, too. They also flew the L-188 for their Lake Tahoe service, as did PSA -- Jets were too noisy to get in. The DC-9's were only operated very early in their history, replaced by the 737's.

I have a large chunk of airlines loaded into my FS2004 which I obtained from mid-1970's timetables. So..... Change the time of day, and we get other traffic along with the 737's:


A pair of Hughes Airwest DC-9's along with us at Orange County. I'm not sure of the exact placement of gates, but the one photo I found showed Hughes Airwest to that side of the Air California gates.

I kind of chuckled because I hadn't done too many screenshots and I found that trying to get a good angle on the subjects (light angle, no buildings blocking, etc) took some trail-and-error. (But for me, all I had to do was reset the time when one of my subjects drove away!).


Also Orange County. You can pick out the HJG 737 because my AI are brighter, not being weathered at all. But I  still think the blend is pretty good...


San Jose (KSJC), where I grew up. Far left is a Continental 727-200 (in actuality, I think they actually used one of the PSA gates, but it's been a long time), a Swift Aire Heron (I don't think they actually used the main terminal), and of course us in our 737, next to the two PSA 727's.


One more of San Jose... Far left is a Western 737-200, a Hughes Airwest DC-9, and then an Aspen CV-580. Aspen had their aircraft painted in four different color variations of that same scheme, similar to what Braniff Interational did with theirs.

Best regards,
Kurt

[Herman]

Nice images (screen shots) Of Orange County and San Hose Airports.

Herman

[biggiraffe]

Thanks Herman! I've made lots of flights out of both of these airports since the HJG 737-200 came out.
Best regards,
Kurt

[joscyriacv2]

How did you set up these AI? It came as a whole package or you set up using AIFP?

[biggiraffe]

Hello!

I coded the AI schedules from timetables I bought on ebay (the same type of timetables I used to get for free from the airports but did not save over the years!). Then I used TTools to complile the flightplans. The timetables I used all came from the mid-1970's.

All of the aircraft repaints were done by me (except for the HJG 737 in each photo, of course). Most of those are Aardvark AI patterns; the Heron and CV-580 models are Dee Waldon's.

Best regards,
Kurt

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

Just a very minor (but still important) detail ....

the HJG 737

As per our forum manual and release notes Best to always refer to them as "the HJG offered CANTU B737-200's".

I'm sure that's what you meant anyway

The reality is although HJG has refined parts of these models they do remain "the property of Erik CANTU" rather than HJG.

It's just that there are some elements of the community out there whom tend to seize the opportunity/have a field day if they're under the (often erroneous) impression that we're taking credit/making proprietary claim/s in relation to such models .... and which is precisely what we're not doing nor have we ever done of course


On the subject of AI models: You might actually be able to use (some of) the HJG offered B737-200 UI models (and other models we offer too) as AI .... since these are older/lighter model compositions. This likely wouldn't have been possible back in the early 2000's .... at least not without a major FS performance handicap, but, most PC's today are "enormously more powerful/capable and can probably achieve such relatively easily and without too much FS performance degradation .... if any at all. I understand Benoit's already been doing this .... as is evident per this (some of his many) following FS videos and within which more than one virtual/UI aircraft are observed to be on the go and at close proximity to one-another as AI Traffic ....

youtu.be/Kcbt_FP6_Rw?t=233

youtu.be/XaAZzl0qmeg?t=482

Seems to work OK.

ALSO ....

Be aware Paul's also produced a lot of his own AI TRAFFIC based on current UI HJG DC-8 models too (and we also host the DMFS produced AI Traffic relating to the BAC ONE-ELEVEN, COMET, TRIDENT, and VC10) as well .... all of which can be accessed from the very bottom of our following-linked (official) DOWNLOADS page ....

simviation.com/hjg/downloads.htm

Give a try too

Mark C
AKL/NZ