About
I'm back to my oldies! I felt very old now after discovering my old nostalgic site online. This place is very significant to me...it is where my enthusiasm for everything was born here. From R/C hobby, education, cycling to being chased around by my mom getting whooped in the ass was all started at this very town; BINTULU. 30 years ago i live here as a little grunt with huge adventure. Not my original home town but as 3rd home since my parents move about a lot due to being transferred multiple times to various towns being government servant. Not so modern place to be honest but pleasant to live in with nice breezy town water front along the river, nature park and beautiful beaches whe
re people can relax without the hustle and bustle of modern cities. Of course there are shops stocks with lots of R/C vintages, model kits and great place to ride bicycles too....all this things becomes what i am and this place is awesome in the 80's. Most importantly i was a smart ass students too thanks to competitive 'A' rank students around me..i hate to lose to others ya know!. Plus you know my tiger mom, she doesn't like me getting 'B'...anything below 90% i'll get my ass whopped... that's very typical for asian culture, lol! Before i was transferred my life was like Martin Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" book with Huckleberry Finn...too much wild adventures in previous town cause my ex-neighbor was a hyper drive jumpy kids. In this new town i felt like Harry Potter going to Hogwarth... have to deal with smart people and my new neighbors was a smart ass book warm. The results; smart educated guy and still have my wild side. Overall i my childhood was awesome here. However i haven't started R/C flying back then cause i was just around 8 years old with a few pennies in my pocket. So i just observe my uncle with his R/C plane only and free bits of goodies from him. The only R/C i had was ground models like cheap buggy and 1/14 monster truck running on some AA batteries operated R/C from very 'OK' brands like TAIYO and NIKKO. Mini 4WD was a thing too from MARUI and KYOSHO (Man! what happened to MARUI these days?). Not far from where i live was the supermarket that sells line control plane kit made from balsa presented in various replica such as the P-51D, Spitfire and also some CESSNA plastic models too...not to mention some MACROSS kits! Guess where my pocket money goes. The only closest flying thing i flew was $2 rubber band stick flyer that landed a lot on someone's roof until my dad started to reasoning; "If you stop flying that i'll get you a BMX".....a year later i got mountain bike just to make sure i 
stop wasting my pocket money throwing stick planes. My dad was supportive, my late mom wasn't. Anything he bought i have to hide from her.....but the bike can't. Man she hate's R/Cs. Well let's leave all those nostalgic details behind and i'll tell you guys more maybe on my next future article probably on my DavidXL.com blog.
So it was about time for to relive my nostalgia by creating a 'this' virtual place to fly even i've never flown there in real life. Bintulu town was quite young and under develop and recreational R/C hobby wasn't much of a thing yet. The only place if my dad would bring me for recreation other than the beach is at this place; the public Civic Center or in local tongue called 'Dewan Suarah' Bintulu. It's the only place where locals would go for recreational activities such as exercise, swimming, running, jogging or playing at kids playground nearby. My dad always bring us there to keep us fit and happy. We had good times! 30 years later seeing this place online in Google Street 2019 there not much changes apart from tall trees, new building extension on the left and right wing of the white rectangular shaped civic center building. The field still the same, green and open as always. I used to run 100 laps around that field as my way of throwing tantrum cause my dad doesn't want to bring me for a Monster Truck show at nearby stadium back then. I was young and stupid but we had good times! This field bring those nostalgic memories for me! Its time to fly over it!
The build
Unlike two previous virtual flying site that i build this time i'll be using 360 panoramic photos from Google Street View to sources my current build and then uses third party online extractor to extract the panoramic photos out. That's a good excuse to use such method not because i don't want to use my own tools its because i'm not able to travel there to take panorama shots of this location. So travelling virtually is the best thing to do right now.....air ticket is expensive and we're now during Covid-19 pandemic season at the time of writing this documentation. This panorama taken from 2019 Google Street view which was taken somewhere at 3.30pm in the afternoon....because since i used to live there i know a lot from the position of the sun and shadow cast on the ground itself. That can be a bit problematic to fly R/C model since the sun is cast behind the flying model causes it to look shadowy and disoriented during flight.....it looks like R/C pilot have to dealt like it like Pro.
To extract the panorama photos from Google Street View i'm using 'Street View Download 360' software which you can download it for free at this website:
https://svd360.istreetview.com. The extracted photos is not as high resolution nor sharp detailed as the one manually photographed version like i used to do on my previous site project via my 13MP, f/1.8 camera lens on HUAWEI Y9 however the task of stitching the tiles and pano correction works save me much time and less effort to complete overall work. The annoying part of the task is to remove Google watermarks which consume much time on Photopaint program.. After that on the same Photopaint program i did some extra tricks to remove some unwanted elements on field like removing some native birds the white Storks off the field and then added layer of enhancement to sharpen the details of the environment so it looks a bit higher resolution than default. Next process as usual working on Phoenix Builder tools i have to line up the panorama tiles into Cubemap layout for a complete 360 sphere pano. Then put ground platform like grasses, adding elements such as lightings, object collisions, starting points and other attributes to make the virtual site works. The best part was it only took a day work to complete this site project and flyable straight away in simulator. My previous work took almost a week to complete including a very sweaty outdoor photography task under the sun. This new method using Google Street View to obtained pano 360 is a deal breaker, unfortunately not all places are accessible on Google car. So the previous two site project i did was justify enough to do some manual photography work on the site....hopefully for the last time unless i purchased a proper 360 camera in the future cause sunburn is bad.
Tools used to create these custom site:
- Source of panorama photos: Google Street View
- Conversion tool for Google street view: Street View Download 360
- Site builder tool: Phoenix Builder
- Sphere 360 panorama compiler: Microsoft Image Composite Editor
- Photo editing program: Corel Photopaint
Actual real life flying site:
VR panoramic construction:
Virtual flying site in Phoenix R/C simulator:
Flying site characteristic
Unlike previous virtual flying site i build this one is an ideal site to fly as long you stick yourself above the green field and don't fly behind your since you're going to hit that big white building. With a good safe 134m length runway clearance facing from east to west in front of the pilot and usable approximately 200m x 202m of airspace above the green its enough to fly any R/C models in the simulator inventory as long its not going too fast overshooting the boundary on a turbine powered jets. If windy weather is activated by default the wind should blow from the west side to east exactly starting from where the sun is glaring. Since the default panoramic scenery taken around 3.30pm in the afternoon the sun set quite low between west and north bearing, this makes flying a bit challenging because flying in front pass the sunlight will causes the model become a dark silhouette and will cause temporary disorientation....you'll need to 'up' your skill to fly this place.
Flying site specification:
- Area type: Recreational sports field
- Field size: Approximately 200m x 202m of usable flying air space
- R/C model flight suitability: Large scale propeller driven nitro/gas engine plane, electrics, helicopter and EDF planes.
- Safe take-off & landing runway length: 134m clearance
- Hazards & obstacles: Buildings, trees, roads, goal posts and poles.
- Flight skills required: Beginner to Intermediate
Overall this is a great place for 'Beginners' to 'Intermediate' level R/C pilot to fly over short grass field and can be landed on any direction due to big open field layout. However R/C pilot have to be caution about hazard hitting some obstacles around the field such as field fencing poles, lighting poles, trees, buildings especially behind the pilot and most importantly those soccer goal post scattered on the field.
Summary
Its good to be back home again. Being there even virtually on the field where i used to run and exercise 30 years ago make me feel young and appreciate the life i've been through with my faimly. I
t recalled me the great days where all my valuable life started to bloom from little grunt to blossom teenager. Life was so good back then....running wild under the sun without intervention of technology and internet. Walkman cassette was our iPhone back then. Only when i went off for college its was time to say goodbye to this place and never step on this town for 30 years. Anyway i'll be back some day to this place and blog about it in the future.
Although the green field in front of the civic center not on par with standard size R/C flying field as expected from seasonal R/C pilot but for me it good enough to enjoy some non fast flying models just enough to be there 'virtually' to compensate the missing days when i never had chance to experience flying over it when i was just a kid. The nostalgia was all matters to me right now. If you want to be in my shoes then you can try out this place for some thrilling moments in my 3rd home town. Enjoy!
General info | site model: Public Civic Center Bintulu | platform: PC | simulator version: Phoenix R/C v5.5 | type: Flying site | avg ZIP file size: 16.7MB | date released: 16-March-2021 | Revision: v1.0
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Download this Phoenix R/C flying site
*Installation instruction: How to install custom site in Phoenix R/C
*Note: This virtual flying site are available for free distribution and for non-commercial purposes.
