Miri Outdoor Stadium - Phoenix R/C simulator - SupermotoXL Designs

Details: Published: 01 August 2022

dev site xl miri outdoor stadium
About

This is one of my favorite local flying site 'to be in' but was unable to be frequent at. This site always crowded during early morning and late evening full of people doing recreational activities such as joggers, footballers, school events, formal and informal sports activities. The only moments we could get in was when we had an official club event demo'ing our R/C flying activities in front of the public during special day, dev site xl miri outdoor stadium but that was just once and was around 10 years ago. Thankfully on the eventful day we spent flying almost whole day at the field flying to our fullest brim from sunrise till sunset! Among all the field we went through this 'Miri OutdoorStadium' was the only perfect place to fly our park size R/C flying models including rotored models such as helicopters and FPV racing drone because the air flow is more stable to fly since the whole site is 'enclosed well protected from turbulent wind from outside the perimeter. I wish we could race our R/C cars too since the track have full loop circuit, clean and well maintained.....however we do not wish to be public annoyance with fast brushless critters zipping and slalom passes joggers and runner.

On the other hand outside the stadium perimeter there are plentiful of interesting site where we always enjoy playing our R/C models both air and on the ground. Its has handful amount of spacious open air parking lots where we always fly our 3D profile planes especially flying them at nights with LED and also we did race our R/C cars and also FPV'ed a lot too. About 200 meters from the south side of the stadium there's a big garden dev site xl miri outdoor stadium where i used to slalom and race around my drone through park obstacles and also 100 meter to the north also an Indoor stadium with closed roof where i used to fly inside to fly our 3D planes too...you can scanned through my past videos on my Youtube channel. Overall this area is very strategic and plentiful place to enjoy various type of R/C models to roam about. This is why most of the time before and after work especially before reaching home during rush hours i would visit around this place to play my R/C car or 3D profile planes to pass the time while waiting town traffic jam cleared off. Also around this place is a popular spot for drone enthusiast to take off and enjoy some scenic aerial photography activities since the stadium area is located 1 kilometer from town center and less than 500 meters from main town river with beautiful sunset...i got bunch of beautiful visual of the city scape from my DJI MINI 2 galleries. Although i have lots of memorable R/C events outside the Miri Outdoor Stadium perimeter however had little moments to be inside the stadium field which is why i decided to create a virtual version of this outdoor stadium so i could fly more inside PHOENIX R/C SIMULATOR to my heart content. And so i've launched my dear DJI MINI 2 drone to map the area and begin create a virtual site!
dev site xl miri outdoor stadium

The build

Again just like my previous build the process of creating the virtual Miri Outdoor Stadium for Phoenix R/C simulator is exactly the same like before. 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. The output after the RAW adjustment will be tiles of *.JPG at 3992px x 2992px resolution. After stitching process it will produced a full panoramic 19968px x 7367px dev site xl miri outdoor stadium 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 images have to go through intensive photo editing in COREL PHOTOPAINT to correct some 'mis-aligned' tiles that was stitched in composite editor program. Also i need to remove the drone shadow cast on the grass taken on afternoon 12.00pm from sun rays. The top skies ceiling also need some 'filler' since DJI MINI 2 drone's camera gimbal can't pitch upwards to capture the ceiling part of the skies. So there for i compensated by adding blank and auto matching sky color. 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 and functional to fly around. Collision element around inner stadium are very simple to work on due to most elements are radial shaped wall of the stadium, few bits of goal posts, fences, trees and stadium equipment on the ground. Surprising it took me about 3 hours of work to compile the whole site into workable flying site inside the simulator and seems more enjoyable to fly than my previous flying site project of the similar size.

dev site xl miri outdoor stadium

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:

Sphere panoramic construction in Phoenix Builder tool:

Virtual flying site in Phoenix R/C simulator:

Flying site characteristic

Inside the stadium its a very soothing place to fly because the air flow is less turbulent, smooth and calm as the area is encapsulated by the solid round perimeters of high walls and trees. Most of harsh winds coming from the north-east side of the beach and dev site xl miri outdoor stadium river are completely blocked. The ground 'runway' area is very 'clean' both on the red colored running track and on the short green grassy field because its constantly well maintained by stadium workers. This means rolling off on flat ground is flawless for fixed wing models with wheeled landing gears. Visually with such clean long red and white stripe running track makes it easy to navigate the plane straight into landing path and also take-off.

The inner stadium ground has usable roaming space of approximately length: 124 meters and width: 95 meters for R/C plane to roll about on its wheels. When it comes to take-off and landing space it has about approximately length: 90 meters and width: 70 meters across the stadium. For an electric size park flyer planes with wingspan of 1200mm below with wheeled landing gear and weighted under 1300grams this is enough space to take-off safely without hitting any of the obstacles or walled perimeters. Once in the dev site xl miri outdoor stadium air it has average flyable air space size of approximately length: 205 meters and width: 131 meters measured at highest height of the stadium roofing level. For a propeller driven R/C plane models this is ample size to fly around the stadium but for fast EDF plane models this can be quite challenging to fly as it can cover easily in 2 seconds because it take slot of 'bank n yank' to avoid the end of corners especially for 4s powered 64mm EDF models. Ideally the best type of park flyer sized planes (under 1200mm wingspan) to flay are slow 3D profile, F3P/F3A models, VTOL crafts, rotored such as helicopter and multi-rotor FPV drones. Any pilot skill from Beginners, Intermediate to Advance level can easily fly at this enclosed space.

Taking off on running track should start from left hand side then full throttle toward the right hand side on 90 meter distance of usable take-off length before the track bend. The same if you wanted to take off from grassy field which has about 100 meter from the field center. This is because if the weather option is turned on from the simulator menu the head wind will approached from the right side towards the left first default.

Flying site specification:

Area type: Field and track outdoor stadium
Safe VLOS airspace size:: Approximately 174m x 120m
R/C model flight suitability: Lightweight 'park flyer' size models.
Runway surface length: 100m
Safe take-off & landing runway length (before tack bend): 90m
Hazards & obstacles: Buildings Stadium perimeter wall, fences and goal posts.
Flight skills required: Intermediate

Once in the air its very easy to fly in VLOS (Visual Line of Sight) because the skies (afternoon at 12pm ambient) is bright clear and less hazardous of tall poles to dodge around other than outer limit of the stadium infrastructure as long its flown same dev site xl miri outdoor stadium level as the stadium highest roof top. Even though the area is 'enclosed' in circular shape visually it looks more spacious and less cluttered compared to similar flying field of similar size that i created, the site seems to have 'less visual noise' which makes it easy to concentrate looking at the plane without distraction from obstacles and cluttering structures on the horizon. This makes flying more visually relaxed, less stressful and easy to navigate. While standing in the center in front of the 'runway' the VLOS distances between R/C pilot and the flight model in the air also much equal in all direction. which makes it easy to predict the distance of the R?C models before hitting the stadium barrier limit. I find myself more enjoying flying at this newly created site on my Hobby King Pitts Special, 3D profiles planes and any aerobatic/VTOL capable models including helicopters very often....its just very tempting to be on that spot to fly anything under the sun.

Summary

Although i had small memories being inside the stadium just one time 10 years ago by participating official R/C flying event, this was enough to trigger my interest to create this site in virtual form so i would get back and 'experience the moments' once dev site xl miri outdoor stadium again through computer screen via Phoenix R/C Simulator. Surprisingly i do enjoy more flying this site more often almost everyday than other site i made for Phoenix R/C simulator previously probably because it felt more calm and the ambient inside the stadium felt more like 'a proper place to be in' to fly all my park flyer models. "It felt just right to be here!" The afternoon 12pm skies as clear and blue, the field and track are clean and radiant, the stadium perimeter size is just right and predictable to navigate VLOS flying.....everything was in the right place! Overall its just a right place to be an R/C pilot with high motivation to fly any R/C models virtually. Honestly speaking this is the best 'enclosed space' local flying site that i enjoyed the most...i flew almost everyday on the screen! I can't guarantee my next flying site project will be better than this unless i have to travel out of town to find better ones. Let's hope so. ;)