The San Diego–Coronado Bridge (more commonly referred to as the Coronado Bridge) is a 2.1-mile concrete/steel girder bridge that spans San Diego Bay, carrying California State Route 75 between the cities of San Diego and Coronado. The most distinctive aspect of the bridge, the 90-degree curve that the bridge takes on its descent into Coronado, was forced by some unusual engineering constraints of the bridge design; with its location near Naval Base San Diego (just to the south) and several shipyards, the bridge was required to clear two separate shipping channels with nearly 200' of vertical clearance, and a third with about 180' of clearance, requiring unusually long approach slopes on either side of the main spans. The Coronado Bridge opened in 1969 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of San Diego's founding as a Spanish colony, and the arched design of the concrete piers is a modernist nod to the old Mission-style architecture of historical San Diego.
Though its original construction was somewhat controversial (especially to the wealthy residents of Coronado), the bridge is a fairly iconic San Diego landmark 50 years later, featuring in many films and TV shows set in the area. It is also a prominent landmark on the final approach to runway 27 at San Diego International Airport.
Features
- Detailed hand-modeled recreation of the Coronado Bridge, its approaches and interchange with I-5, its former toll plaza, and a few buildings that were excluded from the default photogrammetry along with the bridge. Also includes detailed hand-models for other notable San Diego County bridges: Cabrillo Bridge, Pine Valley Creek Bridge, Lilac Rd. Bridge.
- PBR Textures, LOD models used throughout
- Collision meshes for all included bridges. Now you can land on the bridge. (but please don't, as it's probably not legal!).
- Customized night lighting (marine warning lights applied in Blender, as well as roadway lighting)
- Nine optional night lighting packages for the Coronado Bridge to illuminate the main bridge supports in various themed color schemes. This is in the works for the real bridge, but not present yet. Details below.
- Some terraforming and vegetation tweaks as needed.
- Landmark/POI markers placed on World Map
NOTE: Traffic on the Coronado Bridge continues to have various issues with falling off the roadway, driving on the water, etc., issues which are also present with the default bridge. As a result, traffic is excluded from almost the whole bridge.
New in Version 1.5
- Added hand models for other major San Diego area bridges
- Cabrillo Bridge (over SR-163 in Balboa Park)
- Pine Valley Creek Bridge (I-8 near Pine Valley; highest pre-stressed concrete bridge in the USA)
- Lilac Rd. Bridge (over I-15 near intersection with SR-76; prominent concrete arch bridge)
- Various model geometry and LOD improvements for Coronado Bridge
- Material property updates, including PBR textures for all non-painted surfaces
- Replaced roadway lighting using MSFS-default light objects with hand-placed Blender lights
- Added collision mesh for the main part of the Coronado bridge; this is also included with the three newly modeled bridges. Note that the I-5 interchange portion of the Coronado bridge does not have a collision mesh, as the geometry in that area is too complicated to meet the SDK recommendations.
- Packages re-compiled using latest SDK release.
Compatibility checked (and visible in screenshots)
LatinVFR KSAN (payware)
Balboa Park vegetation overhaul (my own recently released package, available on flightsim.to)
US Navy San Diego (by FreakyD, and available on flightsim.to)
Water Fix - San Diego County (by Mistercoffee1, available on flightsim.to)
This scenery may be compatible with other addons, but I have not tested them.
Installation
Download the ZIP file and extract the "whitearcades-coronadobridge" folder to your Community folder:
For the Microsoft Store version: C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_\LocalCache\Packages\Community
For the Steam version: C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\Community
(Please make sure to remove any previous versions of this package from your Community folder before copying the updated package in.)
Optional Bridge Pier Lighting (Coronado Bridge only)
If you want to add one of the optional bridge pier lighting packages, copy its associated folder from "Bridge Lighting Packages" to your Community folder (see included screenshots):
"whitearcades-coronadopierlights-default" - aqua blue, all piers
"whitearcades-coronadopierlights-halloween" - orange and purple, alternating
"whitearcades-coronadopierlights-hanukkah" - dark blue and white, alternating
"whitearcades-coronadopierlights-july4" - red, white, and blue, in a repeating pattern
"whitearcades-coronadopierlights-mardigras" - green and purple, alternating
"whitearcades-coronadopierlights-pads" - brown and gold, alternating (San Diego Padres normal team colors)
"whitearcades-coronadopierlights-padscity" - mint and pink, alternating (San Diego Padres CityConnect jersey colors)
"whitearcades-coronadopierlights-stpats" - green, all piers
"whitearcades-coronadopierlights-xmas" - red and green, alternating
These can be swapped at any time by removing the applicable folder from Community and copying in the new one. Make sure to only use one bridge lighting package at a time.
How To Donate
If you enjoy this addon or my other scenery addons, please consider using the PayPal link below or on my profile page to donate. I make scenery addons for the fun of it, not specifically looking to monetize my work, but keep in mind that putting these sceneries together requires a significant investment of time, effort, and even some research, and every bit helps.
Thanks, and enjoy!
Other Scenery By Me
(List is getting too long to individually link each one, but you can find them all by going to my profile or by doing a search)
Knott's Berry Farm
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Cedar Point
Kings Island
Six Flags Over Texas
Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Globe Life Park (new Texas Rangers ballpark)
Downtown Los Angeles Bridges
Golden Gate Bridge Night Lighting Enhancements
Bay Bridge Night Lighting Enhancements
Antioch Bridge
San Mateo Bridge
Dumbarton Bridge
Richmond - San Rafael Bridge
Carquinez Bridge
Benicia-Martinez Bridge
CaptainMoonlight
PAPYDANIEL66
TheWhiteArcades author
10 months ago
monstersd619
AWESOME!!!! This last update you really knocked it out of the park adding the other bridges and lights to the Coronado bridge!!! Thank you so much!!!
Dillon
Big thank you for this one. Can I trouble you for the 408 bridge south of Orlando Executive Airport? Not sure why Asobo left that one out including the Eye of Orlando.
TheWhiteArcades author
Got a long backlog of projects in the works right now, but I'll definitely add that one to the list. I'm not the most familiar with Orlando in the sim or IRL, but looking at the bridge in Google it definitely seems to have a bit more flair than your usual concrete causeways.
1 years ago
fStopper
Nice, thanks.
Davidws10
WOW!!! Great job. San Diego is my hometown. Although my dad was in the Navy, he homesteaded in San Diego and raised us kids there. I'm a born-and-raised, native San Diegan. Back in the 60's we got to see this magnificent bridge being built and the demise of the ferry system this bridge replaced. With this scenery package being compatible with all of the other packages for San Diego, I'm ecstatic. Thank you. Now, if someone could model the Star of India, San Diego would become completely alive.
gosub
Very nice work ! Thank you
mv46
Hello and thanks for this. How do you manage to completely remove the photogrammetry version of the bridge?
TheWhiteArcades author
The scenery package has an exclusion polygon that removes the entire default bridge.
2 years ago
MojaveHigh
I don't suppose you could add the pylon lighting that is currently proposed/approved? I had thought about doing this myself, but don't have the skills. Selectable color schemes such as Christmas, Halloween, July 4th etc. would be extra brilliant. https://worldlandscapearchitect.com/the-lighting-of-the-coronado-bridge-san-diego-reaches-large-scale-testing-phase/
Edit: Just had a look... wonderful!
TheWhiteArcades author
Oh yeah, I saw that while I was doing some initial research. Hope they actually go through with it, looks great. Would definitely plan on adding that lighting in the future if they do install it on a permanent basis, though I'm not sure yet how the holiday-specific lighting would work.
2 years ago
ryanbatc
Really nicely done. I guess we're in a new era - with people wanting to land helicopters on narrow bridges filled with vehicular traffic.
TheWhiteArcades author
A brave new world of helicopters landing on things they were never meant to!
2 years ago
fppilot
This looks like a great improvement and I also note the compatibility you mention with some other notable San Diego area addons.