Frosted Canopy Glass

[GearyMcS]

Hi all,

It's been a number of years since I spent any real time in CFS1. I still have all my old CFS1 addons, payware and freeware. Loved the game when it was new, but always had a particular dislike for one thing in most of the beautiful planes I aquired... the frosted glass look of the canopy from the external view. Many of the planes I aquired didn't have the frosted glass. Most of the older ones did.

Anyone figure out a way to get rid of the frosted glass look of the older planes. Would love to fly them again, but still have a problem with that damn frosted glass look.

Thanks for any help you can give.

[winslow33]

Hmmm... What planes are they? Where can I get them? I'll take a look.

[hubbabubba]

If you could post a screen capture, it would certainly help, GearyMcS. Even better; two screen capture - one with and one without that "frosted glass look".:mixedsmi:

[GearyMcS]

Thanks guys, but think I remember why so many planes for CFS1 have frosted glass... it's so you can't see inside because there's no pilot. I'm used to newer flight sims that all have pilots.

I still have many of the original Abacus and Just Flight (The Associates) addons like, The Battle for Midway, Pacific Theater, Combat Pilots, Pacific Combat Pilots, Pearl Harbor, Tuskegee Fighters and Wings Over China. These loaded tons of planes into my installs and most look quite dated now. Maybe I should download a few newer ones and give them a try.

Any suggestions for newer planes?

[winslow33]

Around Christmas, I'm going to upload around 20 German, Russian, and Finnish aircraft for my Continuation War Multiplayer group if you're interested.

[Johnny]

~S~ GearyMcS,

I was in the other Airborne Units. Never made it to the 101st or the 173rd, but I will write to you anyway.

There are thousands of new aircraft and even mote paint jobs out there. Many are right here at the Outhouse. Just go to Yahoo (my preference) and type in "CFS downloads p-51 or aircraft or planes or scenery or panels or anything else and you will find it.

With CFS you can go from WWI to Iraqi to the moon or to Star-wars and beyond. But, if you do not fly multi-player you are missing out on all of the fun. We, the AAC (Allied Air Corps are flying with the ACP (Ace Carrier Pilots) tonight 7:30 pm EST and tomorrow 12:30 pm EST. I also fly with the 45th-peacemakers on Tuesday and Thursday 7:00 pm CST. There are other games and times, but those are the best I have found.

Tonight it is Frankydog Night and it will be at 7:30 am Sunday in Australia. He will be joined by a second Australian named Windie. I hope to see more Australians in the near future.

If you would like help with anything, please post it.

Johnny:cost1:

[Ivan]

I believe the "Frosted Glass Thingy" is caused by the opacity of the canopy. (Redundant Statement, right?) No, it is because the polygons of the canopy are facing OUT. If you change all the transparent canopy polygons to face in, you get a clear view of the pilot but the places where there is only glass will still have a slightly frosty shade. I believe you can only do it with SCASM if you are building with AF99.

- Ivan.

[GearyMcS]

winslow33,

Thanks for the invite. Let you know closer to Christmas on the multplayer thing. I still can't get my rig on CFS2 multiplayer. I need to work out the bugs. I saw your post on 'work on 67th,' great stuff, doesn't look like the old CFS I remember. Going through my old CFS stuff now and redoing some of my installs. Your planes look great.

Johnny,

Sorry you never made it to the best Airborne unit in the Army..:d ( it's not technically an airborne unit anymore, no paratroopers, though it still keeps the airborne tab. It's an Air Assault division now.) But I work at Fort Bragg now that I'm retired from active duty and I see maroon berets left and right. Always good to meet a flying grunt. :ernae:

Ivan,

When you talk SCASM and AF99 you're talking way above my head. I had been wondering if there was a way to 'clear up' the glass, but don't think it's worth it in most of my old planes. Maybe I'll just change the ac in the old missions and campaigns to newer ac and have a go at it, again. Looks like many new improvements since I was here last.

Thanks for the chat and suggestions, all.


Geary

[Ivan]

Is this what you mean by frosted versus non-frosted glass?

- Ivan.

[smilo]

Ivan,
well, there you go again, tormenting the troops with another of your fantastic creations.
have you noticed that I haven't mentioned the B 25 in quite a while?
I've pretty much given up on seeing it released to the public. pity, she's a beauty and I am sure that the boys would love to fly her in a combat mission or two. oh well, so it goes.
I think what GearyMcS is referring to is shown in the picture below. basically, you can't see through the glass from the outside. in this example, the author painted the pilot on the window.

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,

I think you are right about the Frosted Canopy thing. I really should read a bit more carefully before posting. My version of the frosted canopy is something that bothers me a little sometimes, but I am too lazy to go in with SCASM and fix things.

Regarding B-25, Thanks for the compliments and don't hesitate to remind me once in a while. I have so many projects going concurrently that stuff often drops off the radar. Up until a week or two ago, I was working on AIR files and flight testing almost exclusively. That little texturing example in Hubbabubba's thread now has me going back to work on visual models. I just had a look at the B-25C this morning. I bought a book recently that has some pretty good dimensional drawings and I am disappointed that my model isn't really that close in some places. Here are a couple recent screenshots so that others can see the project we are discussing.

- Ivan.

[hubbabubba]

Right now, Ivan, I'm picturing smilo drooling in his beard:icon_lol:...

Looking at the pictures, I wonder how much the Americans engineers would admit that the He 111 inspired them.

[smilo]

yup, she's still the Class of the Field.
I would so much love to see,
maybe, 10 of them flying together,
over the Channel in Multi-Player.
that would be a site for sore eyes.

[Ivan]

Hello Hubbabubba, Smilo, et al.

What makes you think the He-111 inspired the B-25? The two don't seem to share much in configuration other than being medium sized twins. The wings are different and in different locations. The tails are different. The landing gear is different. I don't find all that much that is similar...

Don't worry Smilo, I will be working a bit on the B-25C at least for a while. The AIR file still needs some minor reworking as does the DP file. Hubbabubba, I believe this plane will get a bit of a SCASM treatment in the engines. I really like 3D cowls and ran out of resources on this plane.

BTW, did you know that the nose gear of the B-25 does not retract straight back? It actually retracts back and to the starboard side. The port side of the nose has a tunnel for the bombardier to get into the nose.

- Ivan.

[hubbabubba]

It must be in the eye of the beholder...:kilroy:

Looking at the front view of your B-25, I was struck by the resemblance. The B-25 looks like a He 111 gone tricycle. Wings are swept back, but this too account for a tricycle configuration; you need more weight in the nose to get a stable a/c rolling on the ground.

If I was going to make a He 111 a tricycle, the double rudder configuration would be a good solution to landing-take-off attitude.

As I was saying, this is all in the eye of the beholder.

P.S.-Went to Wikipedia and, what do you know, the B-25 was derived from the experimental XB-21; A tail dragger with a single rudder tail and wings much more forward! Go see a picture HERE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-21) .

[Ivan]

Hi Hubbabubba,

While I agree the configuration is the same, I wonder somewhat whether ancestry or inspiration can be attributed. There are zillions of medium sized twins. The B-23, B-18, B-26 all come to mind. I believe the B-25 was a fairly original design with just the basics. I chose the B-25C (MitchellC as I call it) to model because it was probably the fastest of the bunch. BTW, I based my model on some drawings from a Russian site. The dimensions are slightly incorrect as a result, but I don't think anyone will notice. (The flap chord is about 6 inches too short, and anhedral is too severe.) I now have good schematics with labeled dimensions, but it is too late.

Also, why does a twin rudder setup help the take-off attitude? I see it as assuring low speed rudder control because each rudder is in a propeller's slipstream. I don't see why a rudder would make a difference for a tail dragger to a tricycle gear.

- Ivan.

[hubbabubba]

OK here...

Lets "rewind" a bit.


Looking at the pictures, I wonder how much the Americans engineers would admit that the He 111 inspired them.

I never, explicitly or implicitly, said that the B-25 was an He 111 offspring.

That said, the B-25 was being designed as the Spanish Civil War was being fought. Every military experts, war theoreticians, and certainly aircraft engineers as well, could not help but notice that the He 111 was making quite an impression.

When I look at the frontal view of your model, I can't help but notice the large "greenhouse" nose, the pilot post on top, the mid-fuselage wings. The B-17, developed before the Spanish Civil War, had much less see-through surfaces, at least in its first versions.

As for the double-rudder being more suited for tricycle a/c, it is simply a question of lifting surfaces available to maintain the tail up at low speed. The intersecting rudder-vertical surfaces, stiffening the tips like the corner of a cardboard box, at the wingtips permits wider span and longer chord from tail to tip. Try to imagine the same vertical surface without twin rudders and you will probably understand. The B-24 followed the same pattern BTW. Go compare the tail surfaces of the latter with a B-17 tail.

Was the B-25 an original project? No more and no less than any aircraft preceding and following it. Even the Wright's brothers would admit that they took some of their ideas from birds and insects... or so I would be inclined to think:kilroy:.

[Ivan]

Hi Hubbabubba,

As I see it, the specification of Army Air Corps proposal 38-385 calling for twin-engne attack bombers was really the inspiration for the B-25 (and the B-26 for that matter).

Regarding twin-tails and tricycle gears, I still don't see the connection. The A-20 (which will be a future project) has a single tail and a tricycle gear. The Me 110 has a twin tail but is a tail dragger. As I see it, a twin tail gives better rudder authority, but is penalised by extra drag over the single tail.

As for the B-24 being a good example, there is also the Lancaster and Halifax which are contrary examples.

I am not sure what the advantage is of being able to lift the tail at low speeds. I also don't believe that the twin tails help that effect much. All that is really required is enough elevator authority to stall the aircraft at a low speed to flare at landing and that effect is required whether it is a tail dragger or has a nose gear.

- Ivan.

[hubbabubba]

This will be my final comments on an argument that bites its own tail.


Regarding twin-tails and tricycle gears, I still don't see the connection.Neighter do I. You're the one who was pointing out that, and I cite;
What makes you think the He-111 inspired the B-25? The two don't seem to share much in configuration other than being medium sized twins. The wings are different and in different locations. The tails are different. (...)

I only offered my reasoning as an hypothesis for a twin rudders configuration for the B-25 tail. This doesn't mean that I equate twin rudders to tricycle and simple rudder to taildraggers. Another good example that didn't made your list was the twin-rudders-taildragger Donier Do 217.


As I see it, the specification of Army Air Corps proposal 38-385 calling for twin-engine attack bombers was really the inspiration for the B-25 (and the B-26 for that matter).Which was issued in March 1938, at the height of He 111 activity in Spain, activity that started in April 1937 with the experimental terror bombing of Guernica with incendiaries by He 111 and Do 17 preceded by Ju 52 carrying conventional bombs.

So lets agree on the principle that we tend to disagree and leave it at that.:ernae:

[Ivan]

Hi Hubbabubba,

For two people who disagree or find something to argue about on nearly every subject, we sure do stay on friendly terms! This must be yet another of those cases in which we simply didn't understand each other at one point or another. I don't disagree with your conclusions though....

BTW, did you know that two of the three entries for 38-385 ended up as smoking holes in the ground?

:costumes: Just hate it whennat happens!

Best wishes to you!
- Ivan.

[hubbabubba]

You better start on the A-20 pretty soon, Ivan, or I will. The Boston-Havoc is of interest to the AAC as it was the first a/c piloted by American crews to engage in hostile actions against the third Reich on the Fourth of July 1942.

But Taifun revisited and Harvard MkII and 4 should come before the A-20, so you have time...:wavey:

[Ivan]

Hi Hubbabubba,

My guess is that if it is on your build list, it will get done well before mine. I won't even start it until I get a couple other projects finished first. My development time is getting to be very limited. Please have at it!

:applause:
- Ivan.

[smilo]

at the risk of coming off as self-serving;
while you guys are working on your other projects and talking about it, I am currently working on a panel for an A-20 that I found in the archives. with everything else, it should be ready in a week or so.
granted, she is no where near the quality of your workmanship, but at least we will have something to fly until she makes it into your busy work schedules. would that I had the time and the patience to learn your techniques, but I don't.
honestly gentlemen, I am getting old and I don't have years to wait.
sorry for being blunt, but, the older I get, the faster time passes.
at this rate, in a few years, I just might attain the speed of light.
maybe, that's the bright light people who have a near death experience see.

[winslow33]

...And here I am test flying an A-20 for the 67th as I write this:isadizzy:

[hubbabubba]

Well smilo, three months for the jeep, when compared with four years for the Taifun, is not so long.

Don't despair:173go1:

[Johnny]

~S~ All,

smilo, I know how you feel, I am almost what 9 mph faster then you are. But in fact you are catching up. Lets say you were born and spent a day in the hospital. It took your father a hour to drive you home. 96 % of your life was spent in the hospital and 4 % in your dads car. Now when you drive home, if it takes an hour, it is only .00018561829 % of you life and .0001826484 % of my life and that my friend is why you should always let the oldest person in the car drive. Or, in your case truck.

I guess when it gets to zero you are at light speed, when I get there I will turn my flashlight on and see what happens.

Later,

Johnny:isadizzy:

[smilo]

w33,
I am wondering which A-20 you are using.
I was able to find two, but settled on the RAAF version with the narrow fuselage.
granted, the one pictured above has opening bomb bay doors, but the "frosted" windows and the out of proportion fuselage are, shall we say, distracting.

Hubba,
...redo Taifun, build a Harvard MkII and IV, fine tune the Jeep, not to mention all of the other unmentioned Projects before the A-20 sure looks like over a year to me. but I've been wrong before.
BTW, just to torment the others, beta testing the Jeep yesterday was a treat. she definitely puts Vehicles on a whole new level.
I am anxious to see the model with the 50 cal mounted.
thank you for the opportunity to beta test.

Johnny,
I heard that there was a mathematical explanation for the speeding up of time with aging, but I don't know the formula.
your explanation puts it into perspective. thanks
I guess that's why those slug bait raisins behind the wheel seem to be going so slow....they think they're going like a bat out of hell.:costumes:
careful with that flashlight, it might implode.

[winslow33]

I can't really remember what plane it is or where I got it, but it has opening bomb bay doors and frosted glass.

[smilo]

look here for A-20.zip
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/master_ftp/cfs/cfs-aircraft/

it is painted for the Pacific Theater
change the sound.cfg to alias P47d for the time being
the panel bites, but you can Alias to a P47d until you get something better.
I just finished changing the textures to the European Theater and renamed it A-20C Boston
I'm still working on the panel.

[Ivan]

Do you all consider opening bomb bay doors important? I was debating on putting those on the B-25C. Problem here is that properly done, it takes me MUCH closer to the AF99 limits and also Aircraft Animator can't seem to handle 90 degrees of bomb bay door movement (Via Spoilers).

I was working on it earlier today and gave up on version one for lack of information!

- Ivan.

[smilo]

Do you all consider opening bomb bay doors important? I was debating on putting those on the B-25C. Problem here is that properly done, it takes me MUCH closer to the AF99 limits and also Aircraft Animator can't seem to handle 90 degrees of bomb bay door movement (Via Spoilers).

I was working on it earlier today and gave up on version one for lack of information!

- Ivan.

personally, it is a nice visual touch, but it is not that important.
frankly, when I am making a bomb run, under fire, the last thing I am looking at is the bomb bay doors. needless to say, I've got more important things to do.
I rarely use spot/chase view, especially in combat. it's great for stepping back and having a look at a formation, a parking location or taking a screen shot, but that's about it.
IMHO, save your resources for something more important.

[humbles]

The usual etiquette of a bomb run was always to say to players bomb doors open while playing in a multi player game.This did not always mean that bomb bay doors did open . I know in other flight simulator games we have been using the slash keys now for a number of years to open and close these doors , the most recent flight sim has a mission what has been converted to drop large bombs

[Ivan]

I just finished putting bomb bay doors on the Mitchell. Problem is that it screws up some of the default AF99 gluing so that there is now a bleed in the cockpit area, so maybe this was not such a good idea.

AF99 default glue (viewing planes) uses the "Center of Gravity" of components to determine the axis between the pieces in order to create a plane separating them. The problem is that when I added about 8 more polygons to the mid fuselage, it threw the CoG of the middle fuselage down a bit further which inclined the viewing plane.... (By my best guess.) Perhaps I can balance things out by adding some more detail to the nose landing gear which would also move the CoG of the nose lower. (Really! No kidding!)

:costumes:

In order to get the spoilers to have an effect, I had to modify the AIR file so that spoilers actually would work. (For anyone who is interested, the controlling variable is in Record 320 - The Spoiler Angle. It doesn't matter what else is set elsewhere in the AIR file.)

It took me quite a while to find a good picture of a B-25 with its bomb bay doors open to check the angles. This morning, I found that the bomb bay doors had 4 rows of large circular perforations and not the simple average framing.... The doors just got retextured! ....But in order to put circular textures on an angled door, you need to change the ratio of vertical to horizontal scaling, which means that the textures need to be remapped again. Also, the choices of scaling are limited because circles can be 5 pixels in diameter or 7 pixels in diameter but not something in between. Same applies to spacing between circles. Either 2 or 3.

:censored:

I also found that it took me 16 extra polygons instead of 8 because the doors span two components. The dividing line I picked for the aft fuselage did not take the doors into account. In order to move the component boundary, I need to recontour the aft fuselage (probably about 60-80 polygons and make sure all the other stuff such as the stabilizers and such still line up!

:isadizzy:

I think I will be taking them out for simplicity's sake. For resource limitations, I can't put in bomb bays anyway. I am already at 1178 out of a possible 1200 polygons, so there is not much room to adjust things. I wanted to use the left over polygons to adjust the shape of the engine cowls.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Hey Smilo,

If you are working on a A-20 panel, what are you using for instruments? I have a couple issues with panels at this point:

1. My SBD has a total of 5 fuel tanks, and there isn't a proper selector among the stock CFS gauges.

2. The Corsairs have one HUGE main tank and there isn't a gauge that registers that high that looks right.

3. The manifold pressure on Japanese fighters is measured in millimeters of boost, and there obviously isnt a gauge for that.

4. Does anyone use a WEP time gauge for those engines the blow up if WEP time exceeds 310 seconds???

My daughter want some smilies so here goes:
:wavey::jump::running::costumes::banghead::redf:

- Ivan.

[smilo]

hello Ivan,
at present I am modifying a P47d panel and using stock gauges, just to get it going.
1.don't know about a 5 way selector, but I will look. got a pic?
2.same with the Corsair. have you seen anything close? got a picture?
3.I have a metric boost gauge, but it is in German. could always clean up the face.
4.I am not aware of anyone using the WEP Timer. heck, we can't even get WEP to work in the stock 190.

-------------:kilroy:--------------------
nice group of smilies

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,

Regarding the SBD, I am not concerned what the gauge looks like as long as it allows me to select between two wing tanks per side and a fuselage tank. My guess is that I will be forced to reduce it to one wing tank per side and pretend there is an automatic fuel transfer pump.

The Corsair has a 237 gallon fuselage tank. I believe the gauge for the Thunderbolt is about the same capacity, but it also reads for the reserve tank and there isn't one on the Corsair. Corsair only has a gauge for the Fuselage main tank. The wing tanks if installed have no gauge.

The German gauge isn't really metric. I have a discussion going at another board regarding what exactly one "ata" really means. Near as I can tell, 1.42 Ata is a pretty common limit on German aircraft. This works out to about 41.0 to about 41.7 inches of Mercury.

The WEP gauge is only useful for those aircraft that have "supercharger" WEP. With water, it runs out in 5 minutes. With water-methanol, it runs out in 10 minutes. Both have no ill effects when the additive runs out. With supercharger WEP such as on the P-51D, after 310 seconds cumulative time, your engine gets toasted. This is not realistic. Using the B-25 as an example (I wonder why ;-), Take-Off power is available for a nominal 5 minutes (300 seconds), but as long as the Cylinder Head Temperature can be kept below 500 degrees, no damage is done. If the limit is reached, power is reduced until the CHT falls. At that point WEP may be used again until CHT temperature rises to the limit again.

Regarding the FW 190A, I believe that folks simply did not do their research completely. Water-methanol WAS tried on mid-production A models. Power for a BMW 801D-2 was 1700 HP Military and 2100 WEP with MW-50. On a late BMW 801D-2, Military power was 1700-1750 HP depending on source, but WEP with direct fuel injection into the supercharger as an anti-detonant allowed for about 2050-2100 HP "for as long as the emergency lasts" at 1.65 Ata boost. In other words, "C-3 Einspritzung" as this was called, was useable as long as the aircraft had fuel. It would raise the fuel consumption to a ridiculous level, but was useable as "maximum continous power". The Germans actually tested this system on a few FW 190As for HOURS of continuous use. They could not guarantee that every aircraft was capable of this level of power and its duration, but every aircraft in the test achieved 2050 HP or better and lasted the duration of the test.

The FW 190A-8 carried either an MW-50 tank behind the cockpit or an extra fuel tank in that location. The folks at M$ put in the extra fuel tank but apparently plumbed the aircraft to use MW-50 which isn't there....
:costumes:

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Darn, I forgot to comment about the screenshots.

The first shows the bleed of the cockpit floor through the roof from slightly aft. The second shows the angle of the opened bomb bay doors. The third shows the pattern of lightening holes (?) on the door.

The hole pattern makes for an interesting discussion:
The size of the door is the same as the bottom of the fuselage of the aircraft or reasonably close to it. The rotation angle should be greater than the 68 degrees I used but I wanted to avoid bleeds from the top through the wings.

I found there was space for 4 rows of 14 holes each in the door. The spacing isn't quite constant, but it's close. When I first textured the door, I just spaced them evenly and found the length of the door required 17 holes. When I reduced this down to 14 holes per row, I found that the door wasn't quite as long as I originally drew. Even when I added some spacing between the holes, it was still short. It did not need to span two components, so I was able to save 8 polygons by removing the aft parts of each door section. I left in the original Bomb bay outline but changed it to gray.

- Ivan.

[Johnny]

~S~ Ivan,

I am just a little confused. Are you working on a Silent But Deadly "AIR"-craft? I hope it is Allied, I do not think I would like to go on a bombing run in it.

j.:isadizzy::greenf::pop4::redfire::pop4:

[Ivan]

Actually, it is sposta be a "Slow But Deadly" or Scout Bomber Douglas. It is another one of my partially completed projects. (SBD-3) This aircraft actually uses about 1195 of 1200 possible polygons in AF99.

- Ivan.

[Johnny]

~S~ Ivan,

Boy, am I relieved. How about a STOL fighter and maybe I can use it on an aircraft carrier?

J.:isadizzy:

[Ivan]

I believe that the FM-2 qualifies as a STOL and is usable on a Jeep carrier. If that fails, try a Gladiator or a Sopwith Camel!

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

A funny thing happened on the way to the computer:

Earlier this evening, I was testing full power dives with the B-25C from 35,000 feet. Nevermind that the plane can't get that high. Initial tests showed 740+ mph TAS and dropping slightly before collision with terrain.

I did my changes to the AIR file and retested. The new terminal velocity was about 550 mph which to me is reasonable. I then did a check to make sure that the maximum level speed had not changed as a result. 313 mph at 12,500 feet. Nothing changed.

I then throttled back to see if I could reproduce the cruise output from the SEFC I found on the B-25C. Power was too high as was fuel consumption. The family had to go out, so I left the plane cruising and went out. Several hours later, I came back to the machine and the B-25 had bellied in on the ocean (which is landable). Total distance flown was somewhere around 150-180 miles. I haven't done the exact math to be sure. I guess trim settings are pretty neutral....

- Ivan.

[Johnny]

~S~ Ivan,

I am sure smilo will say that is close enough for him.

j:costumes:

[Ivan]

Hello All,

I was doing a search earlier today and came across this thread.
I did not find what I was looking for, but the content was still interesting.
So many things have changed since the last post in this thread.
A few of the old timers are still here. Some folks were just passing through.
Some of the old folks have left but hopefully not gone from this world
The Little Girl who wanted me to add Smileys to one of the posts is now on a college visit.
She will graduate high school this year and go off to college in the Fall.

My projects described here have evolved very little though.
The B-25C Mitchell has finally gotten a paint job and is now about to get some custom built Gauges for its instrument panel.
It is progressing very slowly toward its release.
There have been many other intervening projects that were not even a thought back then that have gone the full cycle from concept to release.
I now know how to do more things and perhaps because of that, projects take longer to complete and I am often less satisfied with the results.

One of the unfortunate things about being in the CFS Forums is that screenshots tend to disappear with regularity.
Here are a few screenshots that illustrate some of the things that were described in the old posts.
Some things have changed. These have pretty much stayed the same.

- Ivan.