About
Unlike many places i've flown the public sports field that's located between a church and St Columba school is one of my favorite spot to fly aerobatic planes, 
helicopter and any small lightweight R/C models since late 90's. Before i started to earn my stripe with winged model my first venture into flight models was with some helicopter's; from fixed pitch to collective pitch heli (fly bar rotored). Back then in late 90's life as an R/C hobbyist was a bit of a struggle especially when going into flying because there's not much resources and simulator on PC to train myself how to fly. The only safe place where i could train myself how to fly is at this very field; the 'St Columba area sports field' located in Miri, Sarawak. The field actually own by local government council known as 'Center of Sports & Urban Development Miri' venue or in local malay language called as 'Pusat Pembangunan Sukan Dan Urbanisasi Miri' in early days. However us local community casually called this place as 'St Columba field' for short.
This field along with its buildings have been around since 1980's and there's not much changes happens at the time of writing this article in 2022. Thus i can say this definitely the oldest and moderately well maintained field facility throughout the entire township and still 
remain open for public sports activity daily. I still remember when i was a young kid this place used to be a place where they held lots of family related events both indoor in those 'red brick' buildings and outdoors; a family day events organized by government office where my parents work at. Me, mom and dad used to have great times and lots of prizes and gift to received at the events. Most importantly we as family had great fun! As time goes by this place gets lesser attention as modern places grows surrounding the area get more attention from this field. As for me i still constantly visit this place for a quick round of aerobatic flights with my lightweight models especially flying my 3D profile planes. I used to have lots of R/C hobbyist friends and club member always hangout from morning till evening flying their models especially slow flyer 3D profiles planes and also helicopters showing off our flying skills, some laugh and chats at the end of the session. Now from 2017 till 2022 most of us got old and busy with their new families the flying activity gets lesser around the field but never none, at least few of us still visit the field from time to time especially during holidays. Still whenever we're feel in the mood to fly we'll always hit this field for some good air under the the fixed wings! Because its my favorite frequent flying field so i've decided to create a virtual version of this venue and add it to Phoenix R/C Simulator so i could enjoy more air time flying R/C on my computer without being there physically especially during raining season. Let's do this!
The build
Just like my previous build the process of creating the virtual site for Phoenix R/C simulator is exactly the same like before. Once 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 PHOTOPAINT. Not much photo editing 'tricks' or correction patch to eliminated visual 'obstruction' for this sports field except for resizing and adding the 'missing' skies 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, 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. Unfortunately this site have lots of collision element to work on unlike previous site build so it took me almost 24 hours to complete the virtual site build. Honestly at the end of the project completion and testing i pretty much like the St Columba area sport field site better than other virtual site build in 2021 and before because the lighting and the surrounding ambient looks more soft and natural yet relaxing to view around. It has more relaxing vibe around as i fly about the site.
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
This is a moderate size field designed to host sporting activities but majority of the open field size revolve around the center which serve as soccer fields while outer surrounded by 
fenced tennis and cemented badminton like court. So basically the green short grass soccer field is the place where we would take-off and land our planes, helicopters and other models including VTOL/rotored. On the ground horizontal length from R/C pilot's view point it has 107 meters to roll around as runway for wheeled fixed wings but the usable full take-off and landing approach length is around 80 meters with good amount of flaring angle during landing. With such 'approach length' any model having wingspan of under 1100mm park flyer size scaler planes including warbirds 
or any small propeller driven planes should have no problem to clear of the ground as long the pilot are proficient to handle their models or at least having intermediate level of R/C piloting. Once in the air the model can maneuver around the tight airspace which is approximately 180m x 120m square area before hitting the surrounding pine trees or the bushy hill side. For fast electric EDF jets even small ones i don't think it perform well on such a compact size field, you could fly but the tall surrounding tropical trees aren't forgiving and will give you debris of foam, lol!. Ideally this place is well suited for those who wish to learn how to fly, training to execute aerobatic maneuver, 3D or F3P/F3A flying and other stunts due to the nature of the place being compact and mild wind condition while helps the pilot to be more aware of their flight movement limitation and also able to handle the flight model away from turbulent winds.
Flying site specification:
- Area type: Public recreational sports field
- VLOS airspace size:: Approximately 180m x 120m
- R/C model flight suitability: Lightweight 'park flyer' size models.
- Runway surface length: 107m
- Safe take-off & landing runway length: 80m
- Hazards & obstacles: Buildings, trees and fences
- Flight skills required: Intermediate
For me even the site is virtual form in simulator its actually a very fun place to fly especially when doing slow flying 3D and aerobatic flight. I don't feel distracted 
by anything outside the field; the 'visual' are calm and all green ambient since its surrounded mostly by trees, grass and everything green. Even the buildings itself blend well with the green surrounding from afar which makes R/C flying more subtle and less disorientated by external influence such as traffic and the presence of living being on the field which is very important when concentrating to learn new tricks and maneuver on aerobatics, 3D, f3P/F3A style flying. Helicopter R/C pilot will love to train at this spot because it feels very spacious and enough size to move around with lots of pyro flipping maneuver on top of the greens. After i've completed this St Columba area sports field it seems i spent more time flying at this place in simulator than my other site projects almost on daily basis especially during lunchtime on my gaming spec notebook. Honestly speaking both in real world and virtual form this site really hit all the good hot spot for slow flying and also on helicopter flying too. Suddenly i feel like i want to fly my 450 and 600 size helicopter back again! hahaha! This site promotes a good feeling of encouraging me to get more airtime!
Summary
People come and people go in R/C flying hobby, generation have passed over the years but this field still around to keep the R/C flying spirit alive. This field remains my most favorite 
place to fly almost anything under the sun till this day. From the early 80's to present day the St Columba field is still well visited by many local R/C flying enthusiast especially for lightweight 3D/aerobatic flyers, helicopters, VTOL models and also including drone enthusiast practicing their first flight. Its has a very ample airspace to practice flying new maneuvers, well maintained area, good cozy ambient to stand around, moderate wind condition and very convenient to access the field any anytime. It is the place where i started to learn how to fly, meet lots of friend and also experimenting new things with hobbies, without this place i don't think i would have dip my feet into aerobatic flight and 
FPV flight technology. Its a place that have so many happenings related to my flying hobbies with my fellow friends. By now most of my friends have moved on with their new family, busy with working life and also get older over years. Regardless the field will always gets new faces every season still green with their flying skills waiting to discover what R/C flying is all about and i'll be around to watch over them to keep the hobby lit.
Unlike other places i've flown this field amazed me because from my childhood days of the 80's to year 2022 nothing much have changed around the field. It still looks and feel almost the same as it is more than 35 years ago. For me it feels like i'm revisiting my past with future me on this field, used to have great family days and also social activities with my parents back then in the early 80's especially great times with my late mother. I'm still glad this field still around and well to serve its local a good place to enjoy recreational and sports activities. Kudos to our local council for keeping up the field alive! Now i'll have to wait for the raining season to get over it, lol!
Video
Video (actual site in real life):
General info | site model: St Columba area sports field Miri | platform: PC | simulator version: Phoenix R/C v5.5 | type: Flying site | avg ZIP file size: 31.4MB | date released: 28-January-2022 | Revision: v1.0
Full gallery preview | Video preview | 
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.
