SOH A-26 Invader, the story continues ...

[DaveQ]

I've made a start on the A/B-26's while the K's VC and other bits are being worked on, and I've redone A-26C 44-35710 'Hard to Get' currently at Cavanaugh Museum in Addison TX. What I can't seem to find out is if this scheme is an invention or whether this aircraft (or any other) carried it. The aircraft was taken on charge in May '45 and the scheme appears to be from the 10th TRS, 69th Reconnaissance Group, Nancy, France 1945. But if it ever served with that unit it didn't do 13 missions and destroy three aircraft and one train in eight days max!! Anybody any ideas what the serial actually was??






DaveQ

[jankees]

according to the Osprey book on Invader units by Jim Roeder, aircraft #58 was 44-34486, and not this aircraft, so I am assuming that this is an imaginary paint scheme. I did discover that this aircraft, 44-35710, was based in the Netherlands for a few years, and the owners tried to register it in Belgium as OO-INV, but when that failed it went back to the states.
Nice paint scheme though!

[DaveQ]

according to the Osprey book on Invader units by Jim Roeder, aircraft #58 was 44-34486, and not this aircraft, so I am assuming that this is an imaginary paint scheme. I did discover that this aircraft, 44-35710, was based in the Netherlands for a few years, and the owners tried to register it in Belgium as OO-INV, but when that failed it went back to the states.
Nice paint scheme though!

Many thanks for your time Jankees. Yes this aircraft was in the Netherlands for a time but subsequently went to Addison. It was flying at Duxford in 2001 I believe but now is de-registered and on static display. Wings Palette, the Russian archive, also gives '58' the serial 44-34486 but on an A-26B with a 6-gun nose and no nose-art. Since I don't know the 69th RG's coding system I don't know whether the '58' is the individual aircraft number or a unit designation. Certainly none of the 69th's squadrons was 58 (10th, 102nd, 111th.). Currently operates Q-4 Global Hawks.

DaveQ

[roger-wilco-66]

Finishing up the last weapon, a LAU-3 pod for the 2.75 inch rockets.

I'm basically done with the weapon pack, just some material adjustments and translation is left to be done.
So the A26 weapons pack will be out, hopefully during the next week.


Cheers,
Mark

[stovall]

Looking really good Mark, can't wait to fly the Invader with your weapons added. Great job!!!!

[Roger]

Mark, those look amazingly real!

[roger-wilco-66]

Thanks, and thanks to the wonders of modern design techniques. I just wish the sims would catch up with these materials and a common lighting standard would be defined, so that texture translation work would be minimal. I'm afraid that some of that glamour you can see above will be lost, but we'll see.


Cheers,
Mark

[MZee1960]

Looking forward to the K release !

[DennyA]

Yes, certainly. As I said, it took me several hours to do this looking-up:

(GREAT INFO SNIPPED)

Hopefully this helps sort things out a bit.

Thank you sooo much for saving me those hours, @MZee1960!

Followed your instructions and I have the A-26 up and running in P3D V4.1 while I wait on the fantastic enhancements I see above. Everything seems great, with one minor issue: The tires have a mirror-level reflectivity. (I can ignore this from inside the plane. )

*EDIT: @Roger, you mention the tire/mirror issue and "Steve's fixer" to fix that. Is that "Steve's DX10 Scenery Fixer?" Alas, that's no longer available for sale as far as I can find. Is there another tool/solution? Is this something you have to run the model through?

[DaveQ]

Work continues on the K. The cockpit interior is being completely rebuilt by ******** at the moment (and 'rushes' look stunning!), and Mark is nearing completion of his awesome weapons. Gman has also 'refurbished' the external model to fix a couple of snags - the prop rotation and the castoring of the nosewheel. This has had to be done from scratch because the source files have sadly been lost in a crash... Here is a Nimrod as a taster. Forget the yellow gunsight - will be fixed!!



DaveQ

[strykerpsg]

Work continues on the K. The cockpit interior is being completely rebuilt by ******** at the moment (and 'rushes' look stunning!), and Mark is nearing completion of his awesome weapons. Gman has also 'refurbished' the external model to fix a couple of snags - the prop rotation and the castoring of the nosewheel. This has had to be done from scratch because the source files have sadly been lost in a crash... Here is a Nimrod as a taster. Forget the yellow gunsight - will be fixed!!



DaveQ

Beautiful update Dave. I was fortunate to see one of these as a kid growing up. They just look so menacing and powerful with the SEA camo, black and HMG armed noses. Definitely going to wear this one out on Gman's SEA scenery.

[gman5250]

Dave and JensOle invited me in on the K conversion to fix a few anomalies in the model.

As it turned out, it was necessary to revive a lost model from the remaining pieces. I checked with Milton Shupe and confirmed that John Terrell's original K conversion was lost in a computer crash, but I had enough pieces to completely rebuild the model in Gmax, and as it turns out a complete 3DSMax model. In doing the work, the team permitted me to make some major modifications on the interior. This is not a complete VC, like the Tigercat, but it is comprehensive.

At this stage, I am completely rebuilding the panel and adding some knobs, switches and boxes. I'll probably be rebuilding the console, as it is quite different in the K, versus the A-26 single pilot model. I also animated the pilots and added modeled radials.

My mods are being tested as of this writing, so we decided to preview the new model here as a bit of a teaser while the work is being finalized. Still a WIP, but coming into focus.

[gman5250]

[Sundog]

Wow, that is looking amazing! Thanks guys for doing all of these updates.

[Milton Shupe]

Now that really needed to be done Gordon; thanks for going the extra mile.

[gman5250]

Now that really needed to be done Gordon; thanks for going the extra mile.

Thank you sir.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again.

Aside from the new VC/Panel modeling, this bird is still running on the original coding. Animations, Gauges, effects, UVW mapping, mesh...all have translated into FSX and now P3Dv4 64-bit seamlessly.
I'm really happy that we could revive this model, and subsequently add it back into the archive.

BTW...I just signed the agreement with TFDi Design to implement TrueGlass into my freeware work. I'm sure I'll be adding the rain/glass effects to the K.

[Milton Shupe]

Thank you sir.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again.

Aside from the new VC/Panel modeling, this bird is still running on the original coding. Animations, Gauges, effects, UVW mapping, mesh...all have translated into FSX and now P3Dv4 64-bit seamlessly.
I'm really happy that we could revive this model, and subsequently add it back into the archive.

BTW...I just signed the agreement with TFDi Design to implement TrueGlass into my freeware work. I'm sure I'll be adding the rain/glass effects to the K.

I am really pleased that JensOle, DaveQ, and now you have invested the time to bring this to a new level. It will be great to have a newer, more up-to-date version.

Happy to hear about the rain/glass effects. The monsoon seasons in Vietnam were ... really wet, LOL and that should add some realism to the seasonal deluges we had to contend with.

[jamminjames]

Very impressive guys. ( mouth watering)......

[DaveQ]

[QUOTE=Milton Shupe;1120005]I am really pleased that JensOle, DaveQ, and now you have invested the time to bring this to a new level. It will be great to have a newer, more up-to-date version.

QUOTE]

... not forgetting roger-wilco-66 (Mark), our weaponeer!! Thanks Milton, for you help and support; hope we manage to do this great model justice.

DaveQ

PS: Hopefully we'll be able to get the A-26B and C up to a similar standard in due course; we shouldn't forget where this thread started.

[Milton Shupe]

[QUOTE=DaveQ;1120012]

I am really pleased that JensOle, DaveQ, and now you have invested the time to bring this to a new level. It will be great to have a newer, more up-to-date version.

QUOTE]

... not forgetting roger-wilco-66 (Mark), our weaponeer!! Thanks Milton, for you help and support; hope we manage to do this great model justice.

DaveQ

PS: Hopefully we'll be able to get the A-26B and C up to a similar standard in due course; we shouldn't forget where this thread started.

Thank you DaveQ; my apologies to Mark with his awesome weapons work I have been admiring. I was on my first cup of coffee in the morning so not fully coherent! :-)

[roger-wilco-66]

[QUOTE=Milton Shupe;1120014]

Thank you DaveQ; my apologies to Mark with his awesome weapons work I have been admiring. I was on my first cup of coffee in the morning so not fully coherent! :-)

LOL, no problem.
Actually, I've been a bit quiet in the past weeks or so. Actually, that was what I was doing on Christmas eve. Designing weapons. No comment on that.
I was trying to worm my way through the texture translations and it's turning out pretty good lately.
Anyway, I'm sure my work on the weapons will be finished tomorrow, hopefully.



Cheers,
Mark

[gman5250]

Just to get everyone up to date on the timeline.

Dave Q, Jens Ole and roger-wilco-66 have been in a holding pattern while I revived the physical model. That work took a bit of time due to the limitations of Gmax in Windows 10. That being said, I'm uploading the mods to the team now, and they can resume their work with the re-booted model.

While they are working with their mods, I'll do some continued work on the mesh, animations and enhancements.

[Milton Shupe]

[QUOTE=roger-wilco-66;1120026]

LOL, no problem.
Actually, I've been a bit quiet in the past weeks or so. Actually, that was what I was doing on Christmas eve. Designing weapons. No comment on that.
I was trying to worm my way through the texture translations and it's turning out pretty good lately.
Anyway, I'm sure my work on the weapons will be finished tomorrow, hopefully.


Cheers,
Mark

Amazing scenery there Mark, and weapons.

Saw lots of PSP in VN in '67-68

[roger-wilco-66]

[QUOTE=Milton Shupe;1120029]

Amazing scenery there Mark, and weapons.

Saw lots of PSP in VN in '67-68

On the PSP, I'm also at that - again. That is extremely difficult to depict in the sim because of horrible Moiré patterns that pop up resulting from the starkly repetetive patterns. But I think I solved that finally by using bump maps and a dirt layer on top, which interrupt the patterns so much that you have virtually no flickering or Moiré. Way to go, I've been chasing that problem for at least three years!


Cheers,
Mark

[IanP]

Mark,

I've just created a PSP (Marston Sheet type) runway for my East Wretham scenery, which I created by modelling the PSP and rendering it, then applying that texture to a ground poly. It works. Not perfect, but it works. Because it's now a texture, not a model per se, I've been able to minimise the moire effect. When it was a MDL, the moire was horrendous!

If you want any of my files, I can get them to you within a few minutes.

Cheers,

ian P.