Surprised the VLA is still 2-D after the USA update. Hope some talented free 3rd party designers has a go.
I haven’t been there yet, but don’t the release notes say that they did NRAO (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) as a POI? I thought that would have been the VLA.
Maybe by NRAO they mean the 100m telescope in Green Bank, WV?
When I first downloaded, the VLA was one of the first flights. I too, thought the patch notes meant the VLA.
Something to try now.
Airport WV52 Nrao Green Bank
Let’s just say… it is not Green Banks being updated
To the west a bit is a nice ‘error in the map’.
This could be a fun flight and stop over in real life.
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two distinctly different places, but I’ll have to check out this NRAO…
Understood. I’ve been to the VLA in real life. I actually have a mouse pad that says “NRAO” with a big picture of the VLA on it. I thought that NRAO was solely comprised of the VLA, but apparently it is not:
- The VLA – Socorro, NM
- ALMA – Atacama desert, Chile
- The VLBA (an array of telescopes spread over a large geographic distance):
- St. Croix – U.S. Virgin Islands
- Hancock – New Hampshire
- North Liberty – Iowa
- Fort Davis – Texas
- Los Alamos – New Mexico
- Pie Town – New Mexico
- Kitt Peak – Arizona
- Owens Valley – California
- Brewster – Washington
- Mauna Kea – Hawaii
Looks like the Green Bank telescope is no longer on the list. So if not the VLA, I wonder if it refers to another one of these telescopes. (Mauna Kea is separately called out, so it’s not that one.)
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So, NRAO is a prefix like USS or NCC, then comes the location? I’m learning.
NRAO refers to a collection of facilities around the world (well, really the US and Chile) that gather and analyze cosmic radio frequency signals for various scientific projects. The combination of data from many dishes can be interpolated to give you a higher fidelity observation than you would with the one dish alone.
The Very Large Array, by itself, can actually be “tuned” by moving their own dishes along railroad tracks to either expand or contract. That can make a virtual dish several km in diameter. However, by adding data from all of those above facilities can make a virtual dish thousands of km in diameter.
Each one of these observatories is also an independent facility in its own right, and I’m sure that most of the time, that’s what they’re doing. (ALMA in Chile is also part of the Event Horizon Telescope that took a picture of the black hole in M87 last year.)
Anyway, back to Flight Simulator. The release notes said they made NRAO in the United States, but clearly there’s no way they did all of those telescopes. Next time I login to MSFS, I’ll have to figure out what they actually built! (Unless someone here knows!)
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I chatted with the chap doing the observatories in Chile about NM and he told me to stand by. He does really nice work. Cheers
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I did a nice New Mexico flight, and indeed, the VLA is a bunch of textures on the ground. Here are some ultrawide screenshots. Still looks cool from the air.
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The MSFS NRAO location is one that is adjacent to Mauna Kea. Zoom in on the world map and you’ll see it there.
Mark [pardon the crummy photo, my screencapture is goofed up somehow]
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Thanks for that! This is one of the radio telescopes from the Very Large Baseline Array. I’ve been there in real life. It looks like this. (Note the snow on the ground in Hawaii!)
That’s a bit of a confusing name for a POI!
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Indeed. I believe talent is in the works.
The NRAO has many locations, it seems. * 1.1Charlottesville, Virginia
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Great! that is even better! [edit, I thought you meant they were in MSFS, before I clicked on your link]
Thanks,
Mark
Have you guys checked out this? It should have the VLA and other prominent structures in North/South American continents (America World Update required to display satellite dishes / radio telescopes) -
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So you are saying Asobo has added the VLA now and I don’t need the mod?
I think he is saying “Did you try this mod? It has it included”.
As an author of the said mod, I confirm 
There are other radio telescopes too. 815 manually placed sat dishes and radio telescopes in Region 2 which covers North and South America and part of Oceania. I’m not an expert on these things, so if there are any errors I’d be glad to correct them in the next update.
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