Lutong Abandoned Old Runway - Phoenix R/C simulator - SupermotoXL Designs

Details: Published: 25 December 2021

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About

This is the place where it all begins; the beginning and the end...for some. Nostalgic, exciting, adventurous, also where friendship and togetherness bonds among our local R/C flying hobbyist started here. This place is called 'LUTONG' abandoned old runway. Back in the early 80's it used to be an airstrip belong to Royal Dutch Shell for light fixed winged aircraft and helicopter to land for oil and gas related industry however its was decommissioned and its terminal and hangars dev site xl lutong 57 have been demolished. By the year 2000 its has become a popular place for activities such as motorsports drag racing, paragliding, ultralight flights, R/C model flying hobbyist and also fishing enthusiast due to large pond nearby. The soil surrounding runway was also converted into general plantation from corn to normal consumer vegetables. Few tall grasses and trees also surrounded the places including a narrow pond parallel to the runway.

Its a perfect site for general public recreation and also major site for R/C model flying with no fuss and worries to fly. For locals folks living here if anyone or foreigner ask about where to fly R/C planes models the first word pops up in their mind would be 'LUTONG', is no stranger even for those who are not into such hobbies. From morning at 6.00am till 6.00pm evening the sound of gas engine models, loud miniature kerosene turbine jets, whirling electric EDF jets, high rpm blades of 600~700 size helicopters and also electric scale props emanating in the air are very commonly heard audibly daily. The activity gets more intense on weekend as everyone will flock together in dozen or more on the runway to fly over the green crops. For me flying with these groups has been like a festival of airshow everyday. For non-hobbyist and general public they will also come and watch to spectate free airshow performed by us and others with various level of skills and variety of models to parade on the ground.

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The LUTONG old runway have generated lots of attention including formal activities like annual state and international motorsport events particularly drag racing and also motorized paragliding events too...i think dev site xl lutong 51 i do recall kite flying festival was included as well. As for our R/C flying club we also organized state and international level of R/C flying activities on the same venue too. Since the year 2000 it has helps to generate micro industry such as motorsport and paragliding tourism. As for R/C flying hobby many opened business sell R/C planes and helicopter and parts. Others have opened commercial drone company and have used LUTONG area as test site since there's a huge demands in oil, gas and agriculture industry which requires drone/UAV services for aerial mapping, civil and infrastructure inspection. Further more the local authority have established drone industry site and flying zone located to the north to expand development drone tech development decades ago. Overall Lutong site has spark lots of opportunities both in sports tourism and micro industry related to recreational and hobbyist.

My days with Lutong runway venue was always a blast of fun everyday. Working days from morning at 6.00am before work and 5.00pm after work its always about flying all my cool scale flight models; WWII warbirds, electric jets, hand made DIY planes, aerobatics, helicopters and even home made experimental drone i flew with heart full content. It never failed to make a huge smile on me whenever i return home as any flight will always give new experience on the field. Plus fellow friends who still in their formal working attire would also flock by to join and fly tandemly and some fun dog fights. Of course everyday the back seat of my old black sedan dev site xl lutong 47 car always full with R/C planes crammed together at least 2x up to 4x max.....ironically its always been a single passenger car throughout my entire life as a R/C hobbyist!, lol! On weekends Saturday and Sunday its gets better and crowded; from beginners to pros pilot people would setup tents and camping gear just to stay whole day on the runway just to fly and brought family along..... hobbyist are living for their plane models, that's hardcore flying for life! My uncle and cousins from the across border would drive to this venue half day just to be with the crowds. That's how to describe our level of enthusiasm for our hobby as long we have a proper place to fly; LUTONG! The air space always tense and exciting, total live air show, everyone try to fly skill fully and do tricks to impress. Crash is normal and everyone manage to keep smiling rather than sobbing. The best part about tem crashing is i always get freebies from their debris. Sometimes planes gone MIA in tall grassy field or trees awaiting for someone's 'finders keeper' and that's how i accumulated lots of free planes...hehehehehe! Most importantly on the Lutong runway i met lots of people from all walks of life making permanent friendship and learning each others skills and knowledge of our common hobbies. Between early 2000 till 2017 it was definitely a golden year for local R/C flying hobbyist at Lutong abandoned old runway. Sadly nothing lasts forever......everyone moved on.

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Between 2017 ~2018 the old runway access was limited or closed from the public. It was acquired by commercial entity for land development. The land and green forest surrounding the runway was trimmed flat and the runway surface started to overgrown with grass getting narrower. Floods and tides from from the beaches started to crept inland. The area totally deserted. The locals whose recreational activity depends most on such venue are very divided and going into separate ways....so too with our local R/C flying enthusiast especially the established formal clubs and organization especially owner of bigger flight models. Some give up move on, some struggle while others manage to find places to fly. Those who give up i manage to buy their planes for second chances of life in the air which explained why my hangars are full of these. By the end of 2021 i've return back outside the perimeter of the LUTONG runway. In my hand a small DJI MINI 2 drone ready to fly over and capture 360 degree sphere panorama photo of the last legacy of our beloved flying site before it fade away into the past. The site will be revived 'virtually' in PHOENIX R/C SIMULATOR.

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The build

By 2021 the Lutong runway site not as pristine or as good as it was back in 2017. Useable runways for R/C flying was cut short and narrower due to overgrown bushes however still usable for my site site simulator conversion work.... dev site xl lutong 66 better late than not doing anything to preserved the site legacy. The process of creating this virtual Lutong old runway site is pretty much the same procedure as the Miri town center open field but less complicated collision structure to dealt with. Again i'm using my DJI MINI 2 drone for majority of complicated on the field work for sphere photography. DJI MINI 2 drone takes 26 photo shots of RAW (*.DNG) 360 degree sphere tiles which will be manually stitch inside MICROSOFT IMAGE COMPOSITE EDITOR. But before stitching together RAW photos it needed to be edit to adjust the ambient color, BW factor and few filter setting inside the RAW THERAPEE program to get the color right since i've taken the photo in the afternoon with average lighting condition. The output after the RAW adjustment will be tiles of *.JPG at 3992px x 2992px resolution. After stitching process it produces on piece of full panaromic 19968px x 7367px resolution high resolution *.PNG files which will then needed to be resize according to 2:1 ratio (where width is size is twice the height) at 14968px x 7484px resolution before turning into 'cube map' layout via 'Panorama to Cubemap' online generator tools (here) which required to fill the 'boxed' environment in PHOENIX R/C SIMULATOR. Before cube mapping process the stiches have to go through intensive photo editing in COREL dev site xl lutong 70 PHOTOPAINT. This time not much photo editing 'tricks' or correction patch to eliminated visual 'obstruction' unlike previous field build except for resizing and adding the 'missing' skies. Since the sphere pano photo taken from DJI MINI 2 drone the gimbal camera have its limit taking photo on the upper part of the sky ceiling which was compensated by adding blank and auto matching sky color, so i've manually added composite cloud to fill in the gap. Once done its ready to be cube map which will produce 6x tiles (Boxed) at 3742px x 3742px resolution in *.JPG format. Finally all the cube map tiles in *.JPG format are to be compiled into PHOENIX BUILDER tools rendered in 'box' where its then will be layout with solid base foundation, object collision, lightings, weather elements and other items required to make the flying site more realistic to fly. Everything is done for under half a day tasks....time for virtual test flight in the simulator!

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Tools used to create these custom site:

Photography tool: DJI MINI 2 drone
RAW file editing tool: RAW Therapee
Photo editing program: Corel Photopaint
Sphere 360 panorama compiler: Microsoft Image Composite Editor
Cubemap tool: https://jaxry.github.io/panorama-to-cubemap/
Site builder tool: Phoenix Builder

Actual real life flying site in pano mode:

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Sphere panoramic construction in Phoenix Builder tool:

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Virtual flying site in Phoenix R/C simulator:

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Flying site characteristic

This is a huge place to fly, for VLOS (Visual Line Of Sight) flight its has approximately 800m x 300m airspace size enough for large size gas powered balsa plane to fly with ease and good visibility in all 360 degree direction. Before private entity have taken over the runway for full closure the area has quite handful amount of tall trees dodge at dev site xl lutong 21 distances but now the trees and tall shrubs have been trimmed ready for land development in the future. Originally before nature takes over the runway was well maintained and have a good clean flat approximately 800 meter of usable runway but now in 2021 is only has 640m length and only 200m distance of safe clearance for fixed wing to take-off and flare during landing. Unlike other local places we've flown this is the best fly to fly any unlimited classes of R/C flight models from heavy to light, gas to electric powered models all are welcome! Any R/C flying skill level from totally starter, beginners, intermediate, advance to professional level could easily fly on this runway. In real world it has soft bushes on both side to dampen and save any bad 'thumb stick' crashes.

Flying site specification:

Area type: Abandoned old runway
VLOS airspace size:: Approximately 800m x 300m
R/C model flight suitability: Any R/C flying models.
Runway surface length: 640m
Safe take-off & landing runway length: 200m
Hazards & obstacles: Buildings, trees, tall grass and bushes
Flight skills required: Beginners

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Both in real world and in simulator the wind can be both silently calm to extremely windy at max because its an open flat land exposed to the beach line coming from the left hand side of R/C pilot where it stand but also can be in all direction due to the nature of our tropical weather. Landing in cross wind is quite a norm. As for the environment spec and stats; since the panoramic photography was taken at around the afternoon the sun is quite high so the shadow cast direct to the ground meaning there won't be any shadowy silhouette issue to cause visual mis-orientation when flying around. Bushes are quite tall by around 3m tall now in 2021 potential for low by pass collision but still much better than it used to be where there were lots of trees as tall as 20 meters in the distances and close proximity behind the pilot. Overall its still safe and ample to fly at distance in simulator, before it hits distance trees or concrete structure like houses and other buildings the models should be a tiny dot on the screen before it hits. So VLOS flight limits on models should be within your visual judgment on this open field.

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Summary

Ahhh!! how long it has been...15, 20 years?..i almost forgot..all i knew i did fly to my heart content all around random places but mostly a lot Lutong runway. So far i've never felt part of my hobby missing after the runway ' dev site xl lutong 04 taken' over because i always have that '101' ways to enjoy my flying hobby. Thankfully i max out all my utilization opportunity on this field from flying all my model collection to development level like building FPV and UAV/Drones....mission accomplished. Thank you LUTONG! For my fellow local R/C flying hobbyist it is indeed sad to see the LUTONG runway fading away into the future through land development. LUTONG; a large recreational field to cater all local professional level sports such as motorsport, paragliding, kites and even annual major event on R/C activities organized local club have remained dormant over time awaiting for potential place to come by in the future...unfortunately years passed still unseen but mostly gone rogue.

I've very glad i'm still able to fly and enjoy my R/C flight models because most of my planes are park sized models with wingspans size under 1600mm could be flown on limited space which is why most of my recent flight videos and documented flight have been always located at random places locally. On flip side of the coin most serious local dev site xl lutong 42 flyer that owned bigger and heavier models can be daunting task to find proper places to fly. Although we do have alternative of bigger open VLOS airspace venue to fly our R/C models which located to the far north of the district however the take-off ground not so suitable for fast jets and bigger planes. Dusts, rock pebbles debris, grasses, narrow and short lanes has always been a factor. Here the land is premium and undeveloped. Fortunately all my planes are STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) capable which is why i able to continue to enjoy my flying hobby. Well we have to accept the fact not everything lasts forever but i'm glad i still able to fly with 100% of my models from my hangar due to its 'all-terrain' capability.

Overall i have no qualms missing out the old Lutong runways, it has served me well a good happy moments for almost 2 decades. Had a great time, fun, adventures, experiences and most importantly making friends along the way. I'm glad i've took many pictures and video of happy moments and knew one day we will miss it. Forever my nostalgia flying on this legendary runway will be floating on in internet via digitized media so that young generation may remember its existence. Time to move on and keep on flying!

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