Garry Smith sadly passed away last year. Garry, along with Edward C Moore, ran the most amazing freeware site, http://www.ford-tri-motor.net/frontpage.htm
This site has a range of Facts, Fun, & Fiction planes, textures & scenery, complete with sloping runways, ramps & even circular banked runways.
Did you know that Henry Ford wanted to set up his own factory town in Brazil, called Fordlandia? Now you can fly there.
There is also a 'Blackhawk Project' scenery, with hidded runways in a mountain!
Garry also hosted his own catalogue of repaints, Milton's older aircraft, as well as a full collection of over 100 of Mike Stone's aircraft.
Since Garry's passing on, Ed has graciously hosted the site, however, the links to Garry's catalogue, along with Milton's & Mike's aircraft are dead.
It will be very sad to see these older add-on's disappear & fade away. These guys were the backbone of our hobby & motivated quite a few others to start developing for us.
In my internet travels, I found a link to a collection of Mike's aircraft. Can anyone confirm if this collection is complete?
http://aussiex.org/forum/index.php?/...ne-collection/
Quote.." About This File
This is my attempt to salvage the files from being lost for forever. Every model he ever made is in this file. I did get permission from Mr Mike Stone himself. I am not making ANY money out of this and I think his legacy should be honoured hence I have put it up for all those people that DID appreciate Mike's efforts."
Mike Stone.. a much forgotten & unappreciated developer.
His add-on's are not as detailed as others may be, but are really fun to fly.
Remember, our hobby is meant to be Fun, Facts & Fiction!
We need to preserve the legacy of our forgotten developers, including the late Garry Smith, who gave so much freely to our hobby, without thanks, & with often with much undeserved criticism, causing them to leave our hobby!
Personally,
I was getting very bored with the usual point-to-point flying, when I found the Ford site. To cut a long story short, I ended up being a beta tester for Garry, for an unreleased ' Death Star' project that also included some of Mike's planes. I've ended up flying my Ford Project install exclusively with all the Ford add-ons, with a few others, including all of Milton & team's collection.. I've added in Bill Lyon's add-ins as well, so I can use a skier to go down the ramps, as well as an Oldsmobile to drive around banked ovals.
It's just my appreciation for those forgotten freeware developers out there.
It would be great if we could preserve these aircraft. I've found one or two of Mike's planes for FS2002 that look interesting, such as a Ford Tri-motor on floats.
Can we possibly send out a 'search party' to try find all these missing legacy planes, & maybe any ideas of how to preserve them?
FS2004 still rocks!
Regards,
Robin. :triumphant:
