New Jersey’s Barnegat Lighthouse v2.0

New Jersey’s Barnegat Lighthouse v2.0

This mod is one in a series of United States Lighthouse created for MSFS 2020 as part of a larger American Lighthouse Project. It features New Jersey’s second tallest lighthouse, Barnegat Light. This is a highly detailed, accurate model featuring night lighting*. The goal of the American Lighthouse Project is to create most of the major United States’ lighthouses, initially on the Atlantic coast, later on the Great Lakes and Pacific coast. The initial set focuses on the Mid-Atlantic region, from Virginia north to the tip of Long islands. The first set includes this light, and will include soon, Absecon Light in Atlantic City NJ, and Cape May Light, in Cape May NJ.

Barnegat Lighthouse (Barnegat Light or “Old Barney” to the locals) is a historic lighthouse located in Barnegat Lighthouse State Park at the northern tip of Long Beach Island, in the borough of Barnegat Light, Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. It lies on the south side of Barnegat Inlet. It is the second lighthouse to be built there, the first being a 40-foot-tall fifth order light built in 1835. By 1850, the sea had encroached over 400 feet towards the light, and an increase in both north-south coastal traffic and ships entering Barnegat bay made replacing the early lighthouse with a new, taller, first-order light a priority.

Lt. George G. Meade, an Army engineer and later a Union General in the American Civil War (victor of the Battle of Gettysburg in July of 1863), was assigned to design Barnegat Light given his recent design of Atlantic City’s Absecon Light (and he would go on to design Cape May’s light as well). Planning was complete in 1855 and work began in late 1856. The new light commissioned on January 1, 1859.

The tower light was 172 feet (52 m) above sea level, the lighthouse itself being 171 feet (50 m) tall. The focal plane is at 165 feet. The lighthouse’s beacon remained a first-class navigational light until August 1927 when the Barnegat Lightship was anchored 8 nautical miles (15 km; 9.2 mi) off the coast. The light was deactivated as a Coast Guard lookout tower in January 1944 and given to the State of New Jersey. The lightship was removed in 1969. The lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

In 2008, the Friends of Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, a local non-profit organization, raised all locally sourced funds to reactivate the lighthouse using a VRB-25 light system. On January 1, 2009, at 5:00 pm, the 150th anniversary of its commissioning, Barnegat Lighthouse activated the light for the first time since before World War II. It now operates daily from dusk until dawn with a 10 second flashing beacon. The tower is flood-lit at night so that it’s distinctive White-Red daymark paint can be seen around the clock.

The model was built in Cinema 4D R21 and prepared for MSFS 2020 in blender using the MSFS 2020 plugin.

*Note: at night there is some bleed through from the beacon light and it does not currently flash. These are current limitations in the SDK. The initial release revision is 2.0