Bomb Aimer Panel

[smilo]

bomb aimer panels...
where does one start?
right, hubba?
how many hours have we spent
exploring another facet of cfs?
my, oh my, we did have some kinda fun.

[smilo]

i guess the bombadier panel bmp
is as good of a place to start as any.
this one is for a B-17.

[smilo]

it's been many years
since i've made a bomb run.
i'm hoping hubba will chime in
and help stir the old memory banks.

[smilo]

i was never any good at designing panels,
but, i could edit the hell out of other people's work.
i have hundreds of modified panel bitmaps
buried on numerous hard drives,
sitting on shelves...gathering dust.

attached are a couple modification examples.
the oval with red lines was abandoned.

looking at these images now, i would, most likely,
leave the framing and remove most of the skin.

[smilo]

one might ask,
so, how does this all work?
in a nutshell,
it's all about manipulating
panels and views with gauges,
keystrokes and mouse clicks.

try this little experiment...
go into free flight.
any aircraft will do.
get plenty of altitude
and trim for straight and level flight.
with the keyboard, press keys
Alt, V, I and then G
your instrument panel will disappear.
(don't panic...you can get it back
by repeating the sequence)

okay, you're flying straight and level
and you have no panel, right?

press and hold the Shift key.
at the same time, press the Enter key 5 times.
you should notice your forward view
move down in increments
with each Shift+Enter click.

to return, hold the Shift key
and tap the Backspace key 5 times.
(if you forget to count, just end the flight
and the view will go back to default)

it seems there was a snap back
to default view key stroke, but,
i can't remember what it is.
maybe, hubba does.

anyway, the number of Shift+Enter clicks
to achieve a straight down bomb view
will depend on your altitude.

fortunately, there are a couple of gauges
that will do the job for you.
one, calculates altitude and air speed,
then, tells you how many clicks to do.
another, calculates and sets it up for you.
all you need to do is release the bombs
at just the right moment.
with practice, it's so accurate,
it almost feels like cheating.

another essential gauge
is a quality auto pilot selector.
trust me, there are several out there,
but, we'll talk about that later.

[No Dice]

I have a few examples here that you might play with:
http://thefreeflightsite.com/Panel3.htm

[smilo]

thanks, Dave...
i've seen the Norton Site by Scott Flugum.
i probably have it buried somewhere.
i encourage any interested in this subject
to download and check it out.
heck, i imagine there are even instructions
on how to use the thing....what a concept.

[hubbabubba]

My memory is no better than yours, smilo...

I will have a look at your keys' commands, some I was not even aware existed. This will give me a chance to dig into my own collection of panels and gauges. I remember of one gauge that would lower the view according to altitude, but never used it myself. Most of the time, I would simply use a P-47 panel with added auto-pilot.

[smilo]

good to see you, hubba.
there were two gauges
that lowered the view.
clicks3, which i never used,
and VirtBSight04!Master_Switch.
just toggle the master switch on
and you were on the money.
the air speed and altitude
deflection were calculated
and the view changed to looking down.
of course, you still had to get
the heading alignment correct.

it's interesting you should mention
the p-47 panel...i found a copy
of your p-47 basic bombing panel.
after all these years, i just noticed
the switch quadrant panel
has a bomb panel toggle.
i always used the one with out it.
funny...live and learn


for those who may not know,
these switches are on/off toggles
for, usually hidden, panel windows.

mouse clicking one of these
is a lot easier than turning a window on or off
by using the Alt, View, Instrument Panel menu,
then clicking on the window you want.
not to mention, when the Alt key is pressed,
the game pauses. no big deal, except,
it's considered cheating in multi player.

hubba's switch quadrant
was standard equipment
on every aircraft i flew.
i'd never leave home without it.
many thanks, hubba,
for making my sim life so much easier.

[Ivan]

thanks, Dave...
i've seen the Norton Site by Scott Flugum.

Norden Bomb Sight?

[hubbabubba]

Just had a short spell of flying...

The Alt-V-I-G trick is funny but, as you pointed-out smilo, was considered as cheating and would make your aircraft immune to shells and bullets. The multiplayer session would perceived your suspension of game as a glitch in communication and would extrapolate your trajectory for other players who would then be shooting at sweet nothing!

Simply use W key to go from cockpit/HUD/no HUD. Doesn't stop your game, doesn't flag you as a cheater if anti-cheat progs are running.

And to get back to frontal view quickly, simply look right or left with your stick "Chinese hat" or your keyboard, and the view will snap back.

[smilo]

Norden Bomb Sight?

nope...it's listed as Norton Bomb Site.
maybe it's for bombing virus.

[smilo]

thanks, hubba, i'd forgotten
about those keystroke shortcuts
and the look to the side trick.

the funny thing is,
my joystick is no longer connected.
when i fired up the old cfs computer
a few days ago, i had to fly by keyboard.
not a big deal...i was lazy flying
and didn't have to make any quick maneuvers.

[smilo]

played with the bitmap a little
in an attempt to make it look
more like an a-30 or a-20 nose.
i'll leave adding the rivets to the rivet counters.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
It has been a bit hectic here at home lately, and I haven´t got round to investigating your bomb aimer´s panel more closely.

It looks great - very promising indeed! I´ll try and use it for the Baltimores. I´ve downloaded the B17 panel that NoDice pointed out further below in this thread, and I will try and adapt the way the bomber panel works.

At the moment I am working on some minor improvements and corrections on the 3 Baltimores, and my intention is to include a bomb aimer panel in the revised versions.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
I´ve managed to use the bomb aimer´s panel bitmap that you proposed, and have also managed to incomporate the bomber´s scale used on the B-17 bitmap that indicates speeds and altitudes to be used with map view at zoom 15.

As this zoom value means nothing to me, I had to try out bombing behaviour at e.g. 5000 ft, and discovered that it works after tapping the "-" key twice to reduce the zoom.

As the Baltimore is pretty fast, I changed the scale a bit to put in 240 and 260 mph speeds as well. This involved eliminating the 180 mph setting for the 10000 and 15000 ft scales, because the lines overlapped.

For the moment, it is working with the full window map view mode used in the B-17 bomb aimer panel, i.e. centred in the top half of the view screen. Here´s a Screenshot.

However, the Baltimore has its bombing window in the centre of the bottom half, like you have it on your bitmap.

So now, I´m trying to implement an extra "map view mode" window to be opened, moved and sized into the central lower screen position, fitting it inoto the bombing window rectangle. Also, this way the normal cockpit forward view can be retained in the rest of the other window, but eliminating the Cockpit view panel bitmap.

Of course this involves moving the scale down too. It´s not working yet, but I suppose it´s what´s required.
For the moment the problem is that windows have their view centered in the middle, and in this case, the centre has to be very low so that it will fit into the bomber´s viewing window on the bomb aimer panel bitmap.

Perhaps I will have to make the bomb window longer in the vertical axis, to fit in the low map view centre.
Have you got any suggestions?

Update:
The map window size now requires a different scale dimension - the old one no longer fits. No easy job! Also, the scale gets smaller and it is very difficult to maintain accuracy. I think the best is to keep the bomb aimper´s panel in full window view mode - like on the screenshot.
The scale works well, and the looks retain similitude to the real plane´s bomb aimer´s position, so I think I´ll leave it like that, unless of course anyone has any different suggestions.

I just noticed that Ivan´s bitmap is more fitting, as it has more glass. I´ll try to adapt mine a bit more.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Folks,
Well, this is how it looks now with more glass, using Ivan´s panel which I adapted a bit at the bottom for the autopilot and an ADF. I wasn´t quite right about it looking like the Baltimore nose before, but now it does. The yellos dot in the centre of the cross-hair is a bomb!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[smilo]

hello Stephan,
sorry, i won't be available
to help for several days.
am battling the house heating system
and outside temperatures are dropping.

add to that, i'm heading to seattle tomorrow
for a day of visiting old friends.

a minor no big deal discrepency...
see post #14.
looks like i forgot to clean
the bugs off the glass edges.
oh well, things get missed
when one's in a hurry.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
Thanks for your post!

Yes, .jpg images always need a clean-up. As seen in the two screenshots, I did it a bit better (although not perfectly!) on the previous more closed panel version, but when I changed to the "more glass" one from your Post #14, it was only a frugal cleanup, which must be completed. (Ooops!! I made a mistake there in my previous post - it wasn´t Ivan´s panel at all !!)

Anyway, it seems that my doubts are dissipated then, as only a more intensive pixel-cleanup is needed! The Norton Bomb-sight Scale and using the full-window view changed to Map-view works best, instead of opening a new smaller window for it. So this appears to be the correct way to implement the bomb aimer panel.

Good luck with the heating in the house, and enjoy the trip to Seattle!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp