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

[jamminjames]

Really looking good guys! I have a friend who has a ranch in Paris TX. Back in 78 or 79 he told me there was a man who had several old airplanes on his cattle ranch. We drove from Longview to go see them. He had two K's, a wildcat, bearcat and a TBM. He got in trouble with the IRS and had to sell em. Don't know where they wound up>

[jmfabio]

To quote George Takei, "Oh My!".

You guys will have to slow down or I will have to get off my butt. I can't keep up with all the progress on this beautiful bird.

I am busy with my meager project, and I find I am missing out on all the gorgeous rides that have been put out or are about to take flight.

Kudos to everyone working on the Invader. It is truly a work of art.

Joe

[gman5250]

The office, nearly ready to go. Just wiring up some switches and getting it optimized for FSX. It's fine in P3D and P3Dv4.

[JensOle]

Scrshot727 by Jens-Ole Kjølberg, on Flickr

Scrshot729 by Jens-Ole Kjølberg, on Flickr

[docjohnson]

Great work! All of you! Can't wait to fly this one again!

[Milton Shupe]

Great work! All of you! Can't wait to fly this one again!

I agree Doc; DaveQ, JensOle, Roger-Wilco-66, and ******** have all done outstanding work here. Kudos to all!

[gribouil]

The office, nearly ready to go. Just wiring up some switches and getting it optimized for FSX. It's fine in P3D and P3Dv4.

Hi ********,
any news on this wonderful beast?
Cheers,

Stéph.

[JensOle]

It is coming along nicely! But to get all the details right it takes time. Adding stores brought our attention to the flaps and how they deploy. Some remapping of smaller details as well, but in general the VC and textures are more or less finished. Some model work to do before the initial release. I must confess that the team sometimes get side tracked with flying the K..lol Thanks to the effort of the entire team it is starting to look really good I think :-)

[gribouil]

It is coming along nicely! But to get all the details right it takes time. Adding stores brought our attention to the flaps and how they deploy. Some remapping of smaller details as well, but in general the VC and textures are more or less finished. Some model work to do before the initial release. I must confess that the team sometimes get side tracked with flying the K..lol Thanks to the effort of the entire team it is starting to look really good I think :-)

Hello JensOle,
many thanks for your reply!
I must say I'm very impressed by the work that has been already done by the Team!!!
Cheers,

Stéph.

[fliger747]

Nice indeed, a real Pilots plane!

[awstub]

I have been experimenting with adding Tacpack to some freeware models using Corrado's WWII TMAP method.

If nobody else it taking a crack at it, I think I found a way to add it to the B-26K that would be pretty decent.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything that tells me much about what ordinance the K model could carry.

From what I can tell from pictures, it looks like each of the under-wing pylons could carry MK-82's....could they also carry MK- 83 and 84's?

How many bombs could it carry internally and could it carry the same number of MK-82"s internally as it could the shorter AN-M64's?

Vietnam era Tacpack ordinance is a little limited, but I should be able to include the following.

• AN/M3
• MK-82
• MK-82SE
• MK-82FE
• MK-83
• MK-84
• AN-M64-A1
• M117
• LAU-10
• LAU-68
• HVAR
• MAC-370 (as a dropable substitute for the BLU-10 since Tacpack doesn't support napalm canisters)

Once I know what piece of ordinance can be carried where, I should be able to configure Tacpack to work with the model by setting the token weights to match what whatever is used for visibility on the model.
I'll also need to know the coordinates from where each piece of ordinance gets released.

Users would control it all via the Fuel & Payload Management window....unless someone wants to code a payload manager for it.

Stu

[docjohnson]

Tacpacking this bird would be great! I did some digging around, here's some images from the internet:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/394557617324666488/

http://www.warbirdinformationexchang...145&start=2340

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?d...d-0a987d0f57e9

http://warbirdinformationexchange.or...34145&start=75

http://vintageflyingmuseum.org/on-di...ter-invader-2/

I'll look to see if I have an electronic copy of the flight manual...and I'm pretty sure the A-26 could deliver napalm canisters...

[awstub]

I have the flight manual....T.O. 1A-26A-1 (formerly T.O. 1B-26K-1) dated 1 September 1969.... but it's only the flight manual.
The weapons delivery manual that would have the info we need.

Stu

Tacpacking this bird would be great! I did some digging around, here's some images from the internet:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/394557617324666488/

http://www.warbirdinformationexchang...145&start=2340

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?d...d-0a987d0f57e9

http://warbirdinformationexchange.or...34145&start=75

http://vintageflyingmuseum.org/on-di...ter-invader-2/

I'll look to see if I have an electronic copy of the flight manual...and I'm pretty sure the A-26 could deliver napalm canisters...

[Milton Shupe]

Yes to napalm.

Attached is some backup for that.

Signal Squadron 037 and 134 has more.

[roger-wilco-66]

The A-26K delivered fire bombs for sure.
I made the BLU-27 napalm unit for it, in a version with fins and one without! As shown in the image above, posted by Jens-Ole.


Cheers,
Mark

[DaveQ]

The main weapons used appear to be BLU's with or without fins, Mk82's (with or without fuse extenders), Lau-3's and SUU-14's and these will be what's mounted. Typically they carried BLU's on the inner stations and Mk 82's on the outer, together with an internal load of up to 4000lbs. of M-117's (I think). Currently we don't have plans to mount an internal load.

Apparently, from reading accounts of Nimrod operations, the A-26K was the most effective weapon against troop movements along the Ho-Chi-Min trail, much to the annoyance of the top brass, who believed in the absolute superiority of jets for everything! As a result they were largely forbidden from using much else, especially cluster bombs, as these would almost certainly have improved their kill rate against trucks. As we all know, Vietnam was about as politically conducted as any war in history.!!

DaveQ

[strykerpsg]

The main weapons used appear to be BLU's with or without fins, Mk82's (with or without fuse extenders), Lau-3's and SUU-14's and these will be what's mounted. Typically they carried BLU's on the inner stations and Mk 82's on the outer, together with an internal load of up to 4000lbs. of M-117's (I think). Currently we don't have plans to mount an internal load.

Apparently, from reading accounts of Nimrod operations, the A-26K was the most effective weapon against troop movements along the Ho-Chi-Min trail, much to the annoyance of the top brass, who believed in the absolute superiority of jets for everything! As a result they were largely forbidden from using much else, especially cluster bombs, as these would almost certainly have improved their kill rate against trucks. As we all know, Vietnam was about as politically conducted as any war in history.!!

DaveQ

Sounds typical of the AF highers....same train of thought regarding the A-10...not fast enough, not sexy enough, etc....

Really looking forward to this one. I don't get much excitement over too many propeller war birds, but this one I have always liked as a kid and now.

[stansdds]

Apparently, from reading accounts of Nimrod operations, the A-26K was the most effective weapon against troop movements along the Ho-Chi-Min trail, much to the annoyance of the top brass, who believed in the absolute superiority of jets for everything! As a result they were largely forbidden from using much else, especially cluster bombs, as these would almost certainly have improved their kill rate against trucks. As we all know, Vietnam was about as politically conducted as any war in history.!!

DaveQ

Sounds typical of the AF highers....same train of thought regarding the A-10...not fast enough, not sexy enough, etc....

And the newly formed USAF was quick to rid itself of the P-47 Thunderbolt, then tried to use the P-51 for ground attack in Korea. Some things never change and the desire of the USAF brass to field only fast and sexy looking aircraft are among those things.

[warchild]

I agree Doc; DaveQ, JensOle, Roger-Wilco-66, and ******** have all done outstanding work here. Kudos to all!

I'll second that emotion.. I was privileged to see Roger-wilco's progress on his section of the texturing, and my jaw never left the floor.. Incredible work.. Major Kudo's to the entire team.

[awstub]

I just found an interesting video showing B-26K's being loaded with ordinance in SEA, circa 1962 It also has some shots from inside the bomb bay:

https://archive.org/details/USAF-38581#

The best description on the B-26K loadout I have found so far is from Joe Baugher's site:

A typical underwing load was a pair of SUU-025 flare dispensers, two LAU-3A rocket pods, and four CBU-14 cluster bomb units. Later, the rockets and flares were often replaced by 500 lb BLU-23 or 750 lb BLU-37 finned napalm bombs. The M31 and M32 incendiary clusters could also be carried, as well as M34 and M35 incendiary bombs, M1A4 fragmentation clusters, M47 white phosphorus bombs, and CBU-24, -25, -29, and -49 cluster bomb units. General-purpose bombs such as the 250-lb MK-81, the 500-lb MK-82, and 750-lb M117 could also be carried.

It would be super cool if the model visibility conditions allowed the option of MK-82's, M117's, and Mark's LAU-3A and BLU napalm canisters on the wing pylons.

With Tacpack, when a store is released from the model, it disappears and Tacpack replaces it with one of it's own models.
The MK-82 and M117 are both already included with Tacpack and until such time as they are added to the Tacpack inventory, we can substitute the LAU-68 in place of the LAU-3A and either the MAC-370 or MAC-600 for the napalm canisters (this way they would at least drop but not explode).

[docjohnson]

I won't speak for VRS, but I'm pretty sure (notice the ambiguity there) they are going to be adding more weapons in the near future. Some have been requested already that I know of. However, the list is VRSs. As people have provided them the files to add to list of munitions, etc., there is some work that needs to be done. The SDK usually catches up with each release...one option comes to mind if the modelers of these other weapons pertaining to the Nimrod that is not currently on the list wouldn't mind offering them up to VRS per the SDK:

https://forums.vrsimulations.com/sup...el_Submissions

It would be a much better integration. The biggest drawback is someone developing the effects specific to the weapons effects in the real world. FPS is a huge factor, both for the number of weapons and the sims ability to handle it in a scenario. VRS can never guarantee they will add them (as per the SDK), life gets in the way of hobbies and means of livelihood sometimes, but now would be the time. And I'm asking already for another project so there might be something suitable already submitted. The A-37 dragonfly uses some ordnance that is common to both aircraft. I'll stop back in here once I know something one way or the other.

[JensOle]

Hi


Thank you for the offers regarding tac pack. The «problem» is that we want historically correct loadouts for the K, and that means if we go the tac pack route we need to make all new tac pack stores and get them approved by vrs. As store wise it is really just the mk82 which can be used. The blu, suu-14 and lau3a are not in tac pack as far as I know. Right now we have more than enough with otter issues and to get the base pack released.

[DaveQ]

It would be super cool if the model visibility conditions allowed the option of MK-82's, M117's, and Mark's LAU-3A and BLU napalm canisters on the wing pylons.

Currently we have plans to mount BLU's, Mk82's, Lau-3's and SUU14 rocket launchers in different loadout configurations. We don't have an M117 available at the moment and I would be reluctant to trouble Roger-Wilco-66 to make one at this stage. As Jens-Ole says, we are currently experiencing a number of 'technical challenges' with the project. But I'm sure, as the project progresses, more options could be added.

DaveQ

[awstub]

Nothing would need to be submitted to VRS.....unless you want them to add it to the Tacpack weapons suite.

If a store is included on a model that is not currently included with Tacpack. It just means that it won't drop. It would just disappear instead.
Once the store IS available in Tacpack, it can be added to the tacpack.ini file and then it will work...with no need to modify the model.

TMAP allows Tacpack to be added to any airplane, whether it has visible ordinance on the model or not.

I added Tacpack functionality to the Alpha F-105D using TMAP to give it bombs on the center-line MER and outer wing pylons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg2Cfn-RO6Y
The bombs and missiles are controlled by setting the station weights in the fuel & payload screen.
If there were bombs on the MER that were visible based on payload weights, then it would have looked like a bomb on the plane fell instead of magically appearing.

[awstub]

Well, it's a shame....but I understand your decision.

Currently we have plans to mount BLU's, Mk82's, Lau-3's and SUU14 rocket launchers in different loadout configurations. We don't have an M117 available at the moment and I would be reluctant to trouble Roger-Wilco-66 to make one at this stage. As Jens-Ole says, we are currently experiencing a number of 'technical challenges' with the project. But I'm sure, as the project progresses, more options could be added.

DaveQ