brad kaste
Charter Member 2012

A good day to everybody! :wavey: I am ready to upload the promised updated prop textures/new payloads/gauge-controlled exhaust effects for Mauro Giacomazzi's aircraft collection we recently re-uploaded here at SOH. This will consolidate all of my previous uploads regarding Mauro's planes, which got lost over the years due to the ailments suffered by SOH in the past damaging the download archives. I can anticipate here a few screenshots of the results, updating everything was a rather big job and there is something new, apart from new blurred prop textures: new payloads for Mauro's Hurricane MkIIC Trop and MkIID Trop "tankbuster", dressed in VVS-RKKA colours for the Russian front, using Thicko's Il-2 Sturmovik weapons. I replaced in all Hurricanes Mauro's pilot figures because they are modeled as a planes, using, for example, Martin Wright's RAF pilot which is modeled instead as a true payload, thus freeing up places in CFS2 \AIRCRAFT root folder. William Dicken's RAAF pilot provided prefect replacements for tropicalised Hurricanes, but here comes the problem. I haven't found any German-dressed "weapon" pilot to replace Mauro's GER "aircraft" pilot with and I used Wolfi's Helldiver US pilot, which, with its kaki overall, looks very similar to the flight suits worn by Luftwaffe bomber crews during the Battle of Britain. I can live with the fact this pilot figure is not German, but the yellow MaeWest sticks out like a sore thumb and I know several of you out there will not accept it.

In honor of Fathers Day, I am releasing my latest girl, the Fairchild 24. The main reason for this release is that my Dad had one and so this is also for him. As you might know, the Fairchild 24 was born in the 1930's. The famous Industrial Designer Raymond Loewy was hired to design the interior and appointments of the 24 which he equipped it with automotive details, like car door handles, roll down windows, plush interiors and comfortable seats like you would find in a nice automobile. During WWII, a version for duty was created called the Argus. Many of these were shipped over to Europe, and some remained here (in the USA) as coastal patrol spotters. They were able to carry 2 100 pound bombs and they had some success in spotting German U-Boots. The 24 has a strong, welded steel tubing fuselage frame and is finished off with wooden runners top and bottom to give it a nice shape. The tail section leading edges were wood covered and the wings featured wood ribbing with a heavy duty Spruce wood spar, and all covered in fabric/Dacron.

A good day to everybody! Yesterday I had a seriously weird thing happening in CFS2, among all others.....:rolleyes: I was test-flying some FM mods I did to Mauro Giacomazzi's Bf109E-4N when, suddenly, my mouse started operating the flight controls together with the joystick. Instead of reaching the propeller pitch control inside the 2d cockpit, my mouse pointer disappeared and started conflicting with my flight controls. I recently re-installed entirely CFS2, after having had to format my HDD and, obviously I had to re-assign all of my control axis, joystick and rudder pedals. But I haven't touched or seen anything which could have involved the mouse. I remember seeing a while ago somewhere in CFS2 a selection box where the mouse can be completely excluded from working as a joystick, but last night I could not find it. Or is it accomplished through manually editing the CFS2.cfg file?