TULSA: THE TOUR

 

OKSTULBT - TULSA:  THE TOUR:

Welcome to Tulsa, Oklahoma (pop. 370,000-ish), one time Oil Capitol of the

World and home of the best barbeque served anywhere on Earth.  

Tulsa is where I live (not exactly my hometown, since I was born in Boston and 

passed around like a towel in a men's room geographically until I was almost 

a teenager), so I figured I'd put it on ASD and share it with those who would 

be interested to visit via the Flight Simulator.  What follows is a tour of 

the area, so here goes:

Some highlights of note include Expo Square, the large black asphalt area in

the middle of the city.  Expo Square includes the Expo Building, the largest

unsupported structure in the world (not necessarily a bright idea in Tulsa, 

which sits in the middle of "Tornado Alley" and is subject to high winds at

various times of the year).  The side buildings include exhibit buildings for

livestock shows held during the annual Tulsa State Fair, one of the largest

annual fairs in the country - here you can, to quote the excellent quality

advertising for the Fair each year, "See a pig up close!"  But the fair is

really kind of boring and expensive these days - you know, same pig different

year....

By the way, once a pilot actually landed his Piper Archer in the middle of 

Expo Square a few years back - and no one cared!  Guess he thought if Matthias

Rust could do it in Moscow's Red Square then he could gain the same delicious

notoriety by doing it here; but nothing happened, and worst of all, SubLOGIC

never got around to publishing a Scenery Disk in his honor a la the Western 

European Tour.  Try landing there yourself, and you, too, will agree that this 

goofball deserved to lose his license for sure....

Just to the N or NW sits Skelly Stadium, home of the Tulsa University Golden

Hurricane (not to be confused with the far better Miami U. Hurricanes - TU's

football team should be renamed as the Golden Dweebs, although the basketball

team consistently makes it into the NIT every year).  Too bad the ASD doesn't

include a stadium icon, so I used a multi-sided building to simulate the 

stadium.  It looks real enough from the air that if you fly in close enough

you might see the local "scarlet women" plying their form of free enterprise 

along 11th St. nearby - during the fall and early winter they hold their 

annual red light special, a must to see.  Group rates are available!

Downtown is located over by the Arkansas River, which meanders down the 

western edge of the city.  The huge white building there is the Williams 

Center BOk Tower.  The University Club Tower is the tubular building just

south of the downtown area (and that's where I work - buzz the tower some

time!)  The other buildings represent various oil company offices, some no 

longer there since the days of the Oil Bust of the mid 80s.  The band of 

highways circling downtown is called the "Inner Dispersal Loop" - although 

there is no Outer Dispersal Loop and nobody's sure what the Loop should be 

dispersing....

West of downtown is Lookout Mountain, which isn't much of a mountain when

compared to the Rockies (it's hardly 1000 ft. tall) but it'll do for Oklahoma.

(In reality, Tulsa is nestled among rolling, lightly forested hills - not on

flat grassy plains as many out of staters would believe - but if I were to add

all the hills in the area I'd run out of file space for the scenery!).  Down 

by the river's western edge is the Sun Oil Refinery with its many oil tanks 

(in real life there are more like 100 tanks), and along the east bank lies 

River Parks.  It is the site of endless stuff like Oktoberfest, Mayfest, 

annual Greek/Spanish/Scottish/Black Heritage Festivals, the Great River Raft

Race and various jazz, blues and folk concerts), and features the Pedestrian 

Bridge, built atop an abandoned railroad bridge first installed during the

days of Oklahoma's 1889 Land Rush.

West of that is Sand Springs and Pogue Airport, my favorite local airport.  

Its precipitous 300 foot drop at the south end of the runway is a strong 

motivation to get your plane airborne before reaching it!  Unfortunately, I 

can't duplicate that effectively even with ASD and make it work with the rest 

of the scenery....but it's still a nifty little airstrip to hang out at.  Just

south of the airport is the Rader Center, Oklahoma's only maximum security 

lockup; I used to work with some of the kids there, and believe me most of

them make Bart Simpson look like a real cherub....

Jones Airport is on the city's SW corner, and it is the busiest airport in the

state.  A major private pilot training facility, Jones Airport is fraught with

air traffic but there is no real commercial activity there. 

Tulsa International Airport, located on the NE corner of the city, has all 

the defense and aerospace stuff, such as American Airline's National

Maintenance Facility, McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell plants, and the Sabre 

computer airline reservations system you get to play on via Compuserve is 

located there.  Not far from TUL is a drag strip where swaggering locals love

love to get drunk and race each other in their cars (legally!) when nationally 

known dragsters aren't running, and south of the airport are several shopping 

malls - the scourge of the 80s and 90s.

Then there is nearby Oral Roberts University (some locals call it "Six Flags 

Over Jesus"), located on the SW corner of the city.  I have included the 

former City of Faith hospital (now unused, it is the world's largest echo 

chamber - the only function it serves any more is for an annual vertical 

marathon up its 60 flights of stairs to the top!), the ORU Mabee Center, and 

of course the Prayer Tower, which is where Oral holed up a few years back 

and told everyone God was holding him for ransom and would "call him home" if 

the rest of us didn't cough up the $11-odd million he wanted for his 

university (Tulsans waited to see if it would really happen - not a very nice

way to treat a guy perhaps - but some dog track owner in Florida sent the 

poor slob a check, and Oral's lived happily ever after).  

There are a few other points of interest spread around, none worthy of note.

I added the freeways to the city but left out the city streets so as not to 

overload the file and make it jerky.  One thing I simply couldn't resist doing

was adding toll gates on almost every highway leaving town - just like real 

life!  Tulsa owners of ASD can play hop scotch from tollgate to tollgate so

they can get angry at the state for making us pay tolls to get out of town

while Oklahoma City gets to drive on near-empty freeways at no charge!  Not 

for those with ulcers or high blood pressure problems.....



Share your questions, comments, innuendoes and sarcasm with me by E-mail or

on the CIS Gamers Forum.  Thank you for trying out this scenery set.

Barry Turpin - 76517,456

Tulsa, OK