2020 LTS Keflavik news post draft

This is the draft for a (potential!) news post announcing Keflavik as the default airport with screenshots. Similar to the 2018.3 LTS Honolulu announcement post. A more detailed overview of features with associated screenshots could be done as a later post.

Since Thorsten is busy this one can be crowdsourced a bit :).

The points are the most important things, someone can go through and reword the language later. Just click edit and type using plain text. Wikimarkup knowledge isn't needed :).

A preview of new features in the 2020.3 LTS "Keflavik"

This screenshot by Thorsten is probably a good headline image

Intro?

[Add intro mentioning: - lots updates over the last 2 years? maybe add project info: - the new release format? - mention the person who normally does the updates got busy and a lot of progress missed receiving updates? - project status with areas of ongoing core work?]

[This turned into a intro for announcing LTS/Keflavik/Iceland, and also a piece on settings to enjoy Iceland which is also something that should be written. It's possible to focus just on these two things, and leave the features for a followup article after release.]

Welcome to Keflavik and Iceland

FG's 2020 LTS will move to the world's newest country, geologically speaking, Iceland. Keflavík International Airport (BIKF) is the featured airport, serving as the international gateway to Iceland and it's 3 km runway is a Shuttle emergency landing site.

[Screenshot of shuttle landing here, preferably with current keep]

Keflavik Airport is modeled in detail, including the art installations at the airport [names?]. For Iceland, there are also buildings, roads, and objects like pylons for the whole country generated by the OSM2City project available as a separate download [which will be added to TerraSync a later date?]. OSM2City buildings compatible with 2020 LTS have improved visuals and render faster.

[Kelfavik art screenshot, Iceland OSM2City pictures]

A land of fire, as well as ice, parts of Iceland are still being formed under the dancing Northern lights (remember to turn Auroras on and watch!). An example is the Island of Surtsey formed in 1963 - and Surtsey's volcanic vents are now modeled in the LTS.

[Screenshot of Surtsey, screenshot of Aurora in Iceland]

Flightgear models several Icelandic volcanoes at multiple activity levels, Eyjafjallajökull, Surtsey, and Katla. Eyjafjallajökull caused severe disruption to aviation in 2010, and Katla is a far bigger volcano located nearby. Past eruptions at Katla have ranged from a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 4 like Eyjafjallajökull, to a VEI of 6 like Mount Pinturbo or Krakatoa. Scarily Katla is somewhat overdue for a eruption. Screenshots don't do the boiling turblence of a volcanic plume like Katla, so I won't spoil it and leave you to discover appreciate the scale of the forces involved [unless someone has a particularly nice screenshot?]. FG's Advanced Weather engine now models the increased turbulence in wind-fields associated with volcanic activity, so beware!.

Iceland has rugged volcanic terrain with glaciers, fjords, and a cool wet climate. There is plenty to discover. The island has only been colonised recently by both nature and people. There are almost no trees, the young forests having been cleared by early colonists. To re-create the stark subpolar setting, remember to turn on overlays which add high resolution 3d detail, and set transparency Anti-Aliasing to MSAA in the GPU control panel (or supersampling on powerful cards). People with older GPUs may find they have spare performance for overlays in Iceland as there are fewer trees.

[Screenshots: this one of Iceland terrain, maybe screenshot of overlays with transparency AA turned up high like this ]

A place needs 4 dimensions to describe it, 3 in space and 1 in time. Any default setting can only be moment in time, and in FG the ever changing scenery is simulated from the Environment > Environment Settings menu. In FG's environment sliders, Iceland is often suited being towards the autumn season with wet ground and moss. Look under Enviroment > > Detailed Weather > Advanced Weather settings to simulate ground haze and structure. The temperature offset can be lowered to adjust the weather scenarios used in FG's terrain-driven, evolving, AW simulation - lower temperatures can mean stunning halos and scattering by ice crystals in clouds.

[Screenshots of varying sliders]

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Add more things here..maybe - mention a few major improvements and the space shuttle (backed by high settings screenshots), or leave it for later? - Add a mention that a more detailed article about features mentioned in the changelog is underway