ARNHEM 2000

Scenery add-on to Microsoft's Flight Simulator software.

My choice of trying to do Arnhem, The Netherlands, came almost naturally, as I was born and raised in Arnhem. I lived and worked there for 29 years, before moving to Chicago.

A settlement of Batavians around the Castra Herculis - in the year 20 - on the Southern border of the river Rhine was mentioned in Roman times. In the year 893 it was described as Arneym mainly consisting of a monastery, church and a few farms. On July 13, 1233 it was given city rights and carried the name Arnhem. Known in Holland as the "the city with green lungs" and in the world due to WWII actions in September 1944, under the name of "Market garden".  Arnhems bridge across the river Rhine was the last of five to be captured. The American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions successfully captured the first four. The British 1st Airborne Division ran into an overwhelming German presence and resistance at Arnhem. In spite of that they managed to capture and hold the bridge for six long days, but had to surrender, after running out on everything, but heroism and spirit. A self sacrificing, heroic rescue attempt in the last days by the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade Group didn't change the outcome, but they helped in the escape of some 2 thousand English troops across the Rhine. The war for the Dutch, living above the river Rhine, was going to last eight months longer. Thousands of  British Commonwealth and Polish paratroopers, Arnhemmers and Germans lost their life; the city centre was destroyed and the entire population was driven from their homes for 8 months. After an exceptionally cruel, cold Winter (that became known as the "Hunger Winter") and months of looting, Arnhem was liberated by the Canadian Army in April, 1945. This "Second battle", hardly remembered, actually caused the greatest damage to the city. Many returning Arnhemmers found that they had lost everything. The movie "A Bridge Too Far" tells the tale of Arnhems bridge across the river Rhine. It took all my growing up time through my teens and early twenties for the city to close its wounds and only now it started to cosmetically remove its scars by means of three ambitious plans that will be finished in 2020.

Arnhem2000 has been in the making for about three years.  The first year, using FS98, I used the scenery for myself.  With FS2000 and the release of NL2000, a master piece covering the entire Netherlands in great detail, I was able to recognize Arnhem from the "air" for the first time in Microsoft's Flight Simulator history.  I was forced to discard about half of my scenery.  Still a lot was missing from one of Hollands most diverse landscapes.  Rolling hills, extensive forests, heath fields, sand dunes and the flat fertile lands between the big rivers as the Rhine, Waal and IJssel.  Arnhem is situated at the edges of them all.  Deelen AB is just North of Arnhem and next to it, just off to the East, is Terlet a center for gliders.  Since 1995 Deelen AB was put on non active status and is not an active air base, but merely an exercise terrain for the transport helicopter groups of the Royal Dutch Air Force and the Air Mobile Brigade.  I remember from my youth the roars of jet engines on its runways in the distance, as I do remember my father taking me out at age 15 to learn to drive a car on its abandoned extensive taxiways. Arnhem2000 was released.

NL2000V2 included most of above, but roads, railroads and rivers had changed, hills, forests and static scenery objects were added.  So, again I had to make adaptations to a lot of my existing scenery.  I definitely gave up on my version of Deelen AB and left this to the NL2000 team short of some little static scenery objects, add-ons and corrections.  I was not to happy with some textures used to recreate the extensive heath fields and gave mine as an alternative in the  Arnhem2000 version 2 release.

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