some new Alpha freeware

[ian elliot]

Very nice selection off freeware released by Alpha, all for FS9 but some intresting candidates for CFS2 conversion maybe.
cheers ian
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=1046

[DauntlessDriver546]

Bristol Beaufort... and Shooting Star... I hope someone gets converting soon... I'll go insane!!! :costumes:

[Rami]

Hmmm,

You mean like these? :d

[The_Editor]

Thanks for the info.

[DauntlessDriver546]

Yeah! Like the F-80 on the left there, Rami! I had it and now I've lost it!

[Jagdflieger]

What a treasure trove of aeroplanes!

Thanks Phil and the rest of the gang at Alphasim.

[OBIO]

Looks likes it's time to fire up the converter and get these planes into CFS2!

OBIO

[dvslats]

Hmmm B-57 Canberra, Wonder how this one will pan out? Conversion-wise...:ques:

[erufle]

... I'll go insane!!! :costumes: . . . I had it and now I've lost it!

#1. Well, at least It'll be a short trip!


and . . .


#2. No D.D. ya never really had it, and ya can't lose what ya never had! (are we on the same page here?)


Yuk, yuk, yuk. What a straight man! :sleep: :mixedsmi: :icon_lol: :d :costumes::costumes:


OK that got me going. Oh well, back to the books.
. . . Honey bring me my medication!! I think there's hope now thanks to Dauntless Driver!

:icon_lol: :isadizzy: :sleep:

[erufle]

Luv ya DD:wavey:

[Ravenna]

Thanks for the HU Ian! For conversion purposes the Beaufort airfile by William Renwick (Merlin2) faithfully reproduces the tricky (too often lethal) handling characteristics of this important aircraft....that is unless you are repainting her as a Mk.VIII built in Australia, in which case go for something with much more oomph.:d

[Ravenna]

Below is a rework of the DP which came with Merlin2's Beaufort torp version 1. I have just tweaked the guns and moved the torpedo slightly to fit the ALPHA Beaufort. I have changed William's choice of bomb to the ALPHA RAF 500lb bomb and have recessed it into the fuselage (where it would have been anyway). Sadly, ALPHA does not seem to have animated the bomb bay doors. A nice model and some nice skins...and the price aint bad either:costumes:!
If you are converting, note that there is a MDL file for the Beaufort AI as well which deserves its own aircraft folder....and is more FR friendly. Then again, if it is framerates you want to maximise, go for Merlin2's Beauforts
Thanks ALPHA!
:ernae:

[OBIO]

Skins for the B-57: Flightsim.com. Search for Russel R. Smith. Nice USAF South East Asia camo patterns.

OBIO

PS: Finding lots of stuff for the various freeware Alpha Sim planes...including possible updates to a few of the freeware F-4s that add gauges to the VC. Will let you know what they turn out to be once I take a look at them.

[Jagdflieger]

Ravena,

I flew the Beaufort in FS 9 last night and in that sim, if you use the "/" the bomb bay doors will open. They are well modeled and kind of fold to the sides. There is also a bomb bay modeled inside the plane. I have no idea how to port that feature over to CFS 2. Thanks for the updated DP file. I've already started a CFS 2 folder for this one as I'm sure that it will soon be flying the CFS 2 skies.

Thicko's CFS 2 Beaufort is still an excellent model for those not wanting to convert this one.

Here are some shots of the Beaufort in FS 9.

[gavinc]

Hi,
the F-80 seems to convert over nicely as well. I just did a quick test and all the animations appear to work normally. The only possible issue is that the textures are designed to have a high degree of reflectivity in FS2004. Of course we don't get that and the "bare metal" paint jobs appear a little grey in comparison to FS2004.
This can be compensated for (to some extent) by putting a high degree of reflectivity on the model using MDLC.
Here are a couple of shots of the same bird in FSX and CFS2 to show what I mean.

Gavin

[oldwheat]

Easy F-80 fix: Morton has some downloads for the Alpha F-80 in the downloads section with 5 skins, CFG.,airfile, DP. & panel.

[OBIO]

Just converted the Beaufort and all went superbly. Full animations are intact...and the bomb bay doors work with the D key! Need to redo the panel and slap in a DP file and get it set up....once I have the plane done will upload.

OBIO

CRAP CRAP and DOUBLE CRAP! The left flap ain't working! All other animations are as smooth as smooth can be, but that left flap refuses to work. Must be a bug in the hydraulics system again. Back to the hangar with this one.

HA HA! The mechanics took a break, had a cup of tea and a few crackers (which I think is what the British call what we Americans know as cookies. Cookies are crackers, crackers are biscuits and biscuits are crumpets...that whole American to English translation thing messes me up)...and they got the left flap working. It took 10 runs through MDLC190, a system reboot to let the computer clear its mind, and an 11th run through MDLC190 to get it....but I go it.

So now, bomb bay works on D key, both flaps are working. Next I will tackle the 2d and VC panels and get them gauged out. Then onto the DP file.

[DauntlessDriver546]

erufle... sigh... luv ya too!

But I swear I had that P-80 before! I can't remember where I got it from!

[Ravenna]

Just converted the Beaufort and all went superbly. Full animations are intact...and the bomb bay doors work with the D key! Need to redo the panel and slap in a DP file and get it set up....once I have the plane done will upload.

OBIO

CRAP CRAP and DOUBLE CRAP! The left flap ain't working! All other animations are as smooth as smooth can be, but that left flap refuses to work. Must be a bug in the hydraulics system again. Back to the hangar with this one.

HA HA! The mechanics took a break, had a cup of tea and a few crackers (which I think is what the British call what we Americans know as cookies. Cookies are crackers, crackers are biscuits and biscuits are crumpets...that whole American to English translation thing messes me up)...and they got the left flap working. It took 10 runs through MDLC190, a system reboot to let the computer clear its mind, and an 11th run through MDLC190 to get it....but I go it.

So now, bomb bay works on D key, both flaps are working. Next I will tackle the 2d and VC panels and get them gauged out. Then onto the DP file.

MDLC190.....is that the same as MKMDLC? Ivan's converter is a work of genius, but it sometimes seems to have a mind of its own. On my first convert I got both flaps working. BTW the panel which came with Merlin2's Beauforts was very close to photos I have seen of Beaufort cockpits.
Now for tea and biscuits (which my sons madeningly call cookies!:costumes:)

[Jagdflieger]

Dauntlessdriver,

Was it Tacoli's F-80 that you had? She's still a nice plane and works well as AI.

[OBIO]

MDLC190.....is that the same as MKMDLC? Ivan's converter is a work of genius, but it sometimes seems to have a mind of its own. On my first convert I got both flaps working. BTW the panel which came with Merlin2's Beauforts was very close to photos I have seen of Beaufort cockpits.
Now for tea and biscuits (which my sons madeningly call cookies!:costumes:)

MK_MDLC is a utility that Morton put together to allow people to use Ivan's MDLC program without having to remember long forgotten DOS commands.

I have found that I have the most success using MDLC190 and unchecking the Hide Command Box (something like that) in the MK_MDLC interface. For some reason, allowing the DOS command screens to show seems to boost the overall success rate for conversions.

OBIO

[dvslats]

Ivan's and Morton's tools worked perfectly on the B-57! Holy Bejezezus! The only minor glitch are the pilots heads slightly cocked to port. I do not remember if this model was delved into before in previous posts...but she looks great. I used the air file from the much older Canneberra...can't remember the name at the moment...gets into the air ok, but has a bad case of the jitters in flight. Needs some tuning there. Thanks to Phil and the Alphasim gang. :applause: Will have to check out those repaints you posted about OBIO, and get a decent dp put together.

[Jagdflieger]

Looks like some truck huntin' on the Ho Chi Mihn Trail near the Lao and VN border Dvslats. Nice shot. Too bad flight sims don't replicate the Kharst pinnacles that are seen in the area.

[dvslats]

Thanks Jagd...I was Googling around on the web to try and get a feel for what the Kharst pinnacles you spoke of are like and found this one. If this is similar to what you have seen, man..that would be a nice mesh to have...and fly through.

[OBIO]

DV

Check your e-mail! Let me know how you like the files...if they need some tweaking, let me know. I am pretty happy with them.

OBIO

[gavinc]

Hello,
As we all know, one of the problems with converting FS9 aircraft is removing any external weapons that have been modeled onto the aircraft. In the case of the Beaufort it is the torpedo.

Fortunately for us the torpedo uses it's own bitmap (Midgrey.bmp) so I have given it a fully black Alpha channel et voila - no more torpedo.

Just drop the attached file (midgrey.bmp - the rest are just for demonstration) into your texture folders.

Gavin

[gavinc]

Lets try attaching the images this time:redf:

Whoops - you will need to rename midgrey.bmp.txt to midgrey.bmp - apparently the uploader doesn't consider dxt1 files as proper bmps.

[OBIO]

Mig-25: Converted and flying. Needs panel work and DP file.

Swift FR5: Converted, flying, panel work done. DP in progress.

B-57: Converted, flying, panel work done: DP in progress.

Constellation pack: Conversion files pack uploaded.

Shorts Belfast: Houston we have a problem. It apparently has the lights issue going on. Crashes CFS2 when I try to start the sim with the Belfast.

Beufort: Converted, flying. Needs panel work and DP file.

Badger and Mirage IV: Not touched yet.

Older releases:

SU-47 Berkut: Converted, flying. Needs panel work and DP file.

A-90 Orlenok: Converted, flying: Needs panel work, DP file and air file tuning.

[Ravenna]

Gavinc,
The Beaufort comes with a "no torpedo" MDL file as well as one with torpedo. As for the DP, Obio,see my post earlier in this thread.
:ernae:

[OBIO]

Duh, I did grab your DP file Ravenna. These days...if my head weren't screwed on, I'd lose it.

OBIO

[dvslats]

With the welcome help of OBIO this fine Alphasim bird is starting to come together. So far...:mixedsmi:

[OBIO]

Just spent a bit of time working on the DP file adding some more payload options. M117 750 pounders, Mk77 Napalm canisters, Mk82 extended fuse 500 pounders. Still need to add general purpose 500 pounders and the LAU-19 19-shot rocket pods (rarely used payload..but will be fun to have. 76 rockets to fire into your selected targets :jump:).

One thing I did find that is kind of interesting....the first few B-57Bs were produced in natural bare metal...the rest were all done in the gloss black paint for night interdiction use. No B models were produced in camo....may have been repainted in the field that way, but the factory painted almost all of them gloss black.

Also found a site with actual recorded B-57 engine sounds...talk about odd sounding. They are in MP3 format...so I am going to see what I can do to convert them into wav format then break them down into a usable CFS2 B-57 specific sound pack. This plane had a very very very very weird sound....from idle to 55% throttle it made an odd Wow Wow sound.

OBIO

[Morton]

Nice! A freeware Beaufort! And i havn't bought it like most of the other Alpha stuff. :icon_lol: The F80 has been my favourite of the kind for years. Very nice modeled. And fun to paint.

Mort

[gavinc]

Gavinc,
The Beaufort comes with a "no torpedo" MDL file as well as one with torpedo. As for the DP, Obio,see my post earlier in this thread.
:ernae:

Hi Guys,
Sorry for the late response (been in Corsica for a week hiking).

Ravenna - the "curious" thing about the Beaufort is that they took the bomb bay doors off to carry the torpedo (in fact on later marks they installed an inverted v channel where the bomb bay doors should have been - Merlin2 modeled this very nicely in his Beaufort series).
This is why in the Alphasim model that has the torpedo the bomb bay interior is visible.

Gavin

[Ravenna]

Yep, that's right Gavin, but the modelling on Merlin2's torp Beauforts is still superior to the ALPHA Beaufort.
BTW, it would be great to have some fresh paint on Merlin's Beauforts.

Mike