Junkers Ju-52/3m

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Folks,
This thread will be for a new CFS1 model project, to be built with AF99 and animated with
Aircraft Animator, with support by SCASM for the virtual cockpit:

The famous old Tante Ju, or "Auntie Ju", also known as "Iron Annie".

The Junkers Ju 52/3m was one of the most successful European airliners ever built.
This tri-motor (3x720 Hp BMW-132-A3 or -T radials) was designed for Deutsche Luft Hansa
in 1932, and could carry 17 passengersor 3 tons of freight, and had excellent short-field performance.

By the mid-1930s, European and Latin American airlines were flying them, and during World War II,
they were the Luftwaffe's primary transports, and some served as bombers.

A total of 4,835 Ju 52/3ms were built, as well as 170 under license by Construcciones Aeronauticas
(CASA) in Spain (with 3x785 Hp Spanish ENMA Beta-B4 engines - licence built BMW-132´s), and over
400 by Ateliers Aeronautiques de Colombes in France.

The Ju 52/3m continued in postwar service with military and civilian air fleets well into the 1980s.

My intention is to supply a Spanish version by CASA, a green camo German version as in the picture,
and a paratrooper version that I still have to investigate the colour scheme for.

I expect it will be another entertaining, fruitful and didactic experience, and you are all invited to
participate, the main thing being, to have fun!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[smilo]

oh boy, this should prove interesting.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello again...
After all these years of building, I noticed a surprising thing in the tail
section: There are virtually no bleeds, and rudder and elevators are animated!

In this model, the aft fuselage is grouped in Body Main and goes all the
way into the tail section, ending under the tail-fin, just before the rudder.

There isn´t a Tail-fuselage structure or component that would normally go
into the Tail Group, and this is probably the reason for this pleasant surprise.
I should have noticed a long time ago... , but better late than never...

It seems that with this way of grouping Tail parts, the automatic glue
sequence separation created by the different Tail Groups does indeed
work - at least with a conventional tail of this type.

The Tail elements are:
- Tailplanes and Elevators, grouped in Tail Left/Right, separated by glue.
- Fin and Rudder, grouped in Tail Upper, also separated by glue.
- Lower Rudder and Tail-wheel, grouped in Tail.

I still have to see where to put the tailplane struts - I haven´t made them yet!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[smilo]

she's coming along very nicely.
am anxious to see the untextured beta.
no pressure, though.
there are plenty of holiday distractions.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Folks,
It appears that the machine gun fitted to a ring on the top of the cockpit was a field-mounted option on versions g3e through g6e, and as of the ge7 it was fixed, and had a glazed cupola over it.

Anyway, I now have military markings on the green-version with yellow engine cowls and rudder, as employed in the Balkans - this unit was 10/3 "J". Parts count on this model is at 148.4% now - I´ve managed to optimize resources a bit so as to get Ivan´s improved propeller blurs onto the model. This always adds some ambience!

Here are some new screenshots of the German military version!

This version is in effect a Ju-52/3m g5e, that had the more powerful Hp BMw 132-T2 engines - 830 Hp at 2400 RPM, still with 2-bladed, 2-pitch position propellers, delivering a top S.L. speed of 183 mph, and 192 mph higher up.

The beautifully restored museum units recovered from the Norwegian lake in 1986 seem to be 725 Hp engined g4e models in a darker colour scheme, which I am currently working on - no lighter colour on wing under-surfaces here, probably indicating that they were night-fliers, and engine nacelles and nose are black.

The next step will be to make a decent virtual cockpit with SCASM like we had on the Dornier 17, which should pose no problem.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[smilo]

the weekend has come and gone
and yet another is rapidly approaching.
my apologies, but, mama's bathroom faucets
take precedence over flight sim models.
that's my excuse and i'm stickin' to it.
hopefully, i'll make the time
to have a look at your model soon.

i hate to ask at this late date,
but, what the hell...i'm old.
would it be possible and not be too much of a pain,
to have german transport/paratroop carrier
without the external guns?
don't be afraid to say know.
i'm just asking.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Ivan,
I wonder if you would know the origin of a strange SCASM error message.
I also don´t know how to substitute Jump instruction with insufficient
range for a longer range Jump instruction.

The error message says:
-> destination ":L009CF0" out of range (33030), source line 1662
Scasm compilation status: error(s) 1

Line 1662 says:
Jump( :L009CF0 )

Investigating further, I tracked down label :L009CF0.
It appears in line 4930, and is the middle of the listing for all the
ShadedTexPoly parts of the left wing component, and is also called
by a jump in Line 1706.

It looks very absurd, and I felt like just deleting the jump lines and the
seemingly ad-lib placed label. So I just did it and the model compiles and
works perfectly.

What would you rekon could be the cause of this this strange behaviour?
A glitch in my AF99 construction of the left wing, probably...

Hello Smilo,
I know you aren´t so interested in the armed version, or in bombers, but as they existed,
it is probably a good idea to supply one...

Here´s a couple of screenshots of the g4e armed transport in darker camo livery. I still
have to darken and camo the wing textures, and put on the CA+JY registration of the
fuselage of the Ju-52 that came out of the Norwegian lake in 1986.

These could also carry 1100 lbs bombs - i.e. 10 x 100 lb, but they didn´t have the ventral
"stew pot" where the bomb-aimer/ventral machine-gunner sat.
Perhaps they eye-balled the bomb-release moment place to get a general sort accuracy.
I think I´ll leave the bombs in the Dp files for this armed version, so this option can also
be available to simmers.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Ivan,
I have a 19-inch (6:4) flatscreen that I make to work at 1024 x 768, and for some reason, it was in 16bit mode. I don´t know why, because the only reason was FS98, but that won´t run now with the graphics card I have. I´ve just put it into 32bit mode - AF99 and AA still work...

1280 x 1024 makes things too small. Perhaps a bigger flatscreen would allow the higher resolution. It would be more comfortable because you wouldn´t have to zoom in and out so much with AF99. A bigger monitor on my desk, which is tucked under and next to the stairs, would however be knocked onto the floor by people´s elbows coming down the stairs!

When you were doing the separate Do 17Z builds, I´m afraid that I wasn´t around in the Forum yet, but I understand the method you mean. If you use templates for the reference elements that are to be substituted with SCASM later, the AF99 manouevering space limit problem disappears. It would be much better than the full-build using simplified elements system I´m using.

Doing the glue templates in SCASM could be extremely taxing on the way my brain functions - I have a good built-in 3D graphic booster, but my abstract number/letter interpreter is only generic, with which I can just about manage mediocre Haiku and simple trigonometry.

Thinking about the different ways in which AF99 and SCASM work, it´s apparent that you don´t get to see any AF99 glue elements in SCASM, but you get their result as an ordered sequence of the elements involved.

Looking at the SCASM code for the animated co-pilot´s head, and then correcting labels after copying it to the unanimated one is one thing, but trying to understand it or write a new one myself would dehydrate my brain.

It´s a pity that graphic visualization is absent in SCASM. I daydream about a routine into which you could paste copied SCASM code elements, to get to see them in some order, but it still wouldn´t show glue!

Nevertheless, your suggestion sounds very appetizing, and opens up new ground for building!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Ivan,
Very well put together, your points, I must say, and very clarifying, on what the programmes do and how they do it, as well as what they could have been programmed to do better.

So, very illustrating is that the VectorJumps are exactly the view-point with respect to up/down left/right and fore/aft viewing planes, having the CoG as reference point in general, but with specific Glue providing more exact manual adjustments for certain elements.

Obviously, the tandem AF99 + AA, when combined with SCASM, allows much greater achievements than what can be done without, and if it is over 20 years ago that the programmes were released, as you say, it speaks in their favour, and their limitations can be, shall we say, lived with!

Adding decently shaped pilot and co-pilot heads and torsos to the Ju-52´s after making the cockpit transparent, added about 16% parts. When the planes had a solid cockpit with window-textures, parts count was already between 147% and 149.8%, depending on the version - i.e. number of scoops and/or machine guns.

This means that the real parts count after SCASM intervention is now between 163% and 165.8% parts, not a bad improvement over the non-SCASMed version. The result at this stage, is more than I thought I could come up with. You mentioned once that 200 parts (or perhaps more) could be added, which would make the total about 175%.
Hmmm... what else can I put in? Ha ha!

Anyway, thanks again for your coaching!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
Yes, I agree!
I´ve been doing an inventory of what we already have from other German aircraft.
Material to be used would be the engines, engine gauges and 2-pitch, 2-blade
propellers of the Fw200A Condor, all thanks to Ivan´s efforts and cooperation
with that model.

The engines on one of the earlier versions, the -G3E, are similar to those on the
Fw200A Condor, but a slightly different variant: BMW-132-A3, with 725 Hp at 2050 RPM.
Later versions had upto 830 Hp, and will also be taken into account to make other model variants.

So, for a start I used the Condor .air file to make the 3-engined .air file, entering the
Ju-52/3m-G3E dimensions and weights, and aimed for the specified S.L. base-performance,
which is 165 mph with 725 Hp at 2050 RPM.

Preliminary tests after adjusting Torque and Zero Lift Drag, give quite close results:
167.1 mph, with 725 Hp at 1951 RPM.
The slower RPM was to be expected because the Condor´s speed was 60 mph higher,
so a slight adjustment in one of the Propeller tables will be in order, and will be no problem
after what I have learnt from Ivan!

At the moment I´m putting the scale onto some very good 3-view drawings I found, to get the
basic measurements into AF99, and hopefully I will soon be making a CFS1 toy "cardboard model"
with coloured 2D parts, to get a general feel of dimensions and sizes, and to show a screenshot!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Folks!
Further research has revealed that the 2-blade propellers on the earler
Ju-52 were 9.5 ft in diameter, and on the flight model, this parameter
adjustment increased RPM a little. (The Condor had 9.7 ft propellers).

Then, aiming for 165 mph with 725 Hp at 2050 RPM, slight adjustments
on the propeller power coefficient table for the curves J=0.6, 0.8 and 1.0,
as well as other very small changes in Drag and Torque, finally gave very
close results:

S.L. horizontal speed at full throttle is 165.2 mph, with 726 Hp at 2046 RPM,
which is quite pleasing, and can be quite acceptable, at least for the moment.

Now that I have a reasonably well-behaving three-engined airfile, I can start
making the AF99 cardboard mock-up model.

Update:
Hello Smilo,
Attached with this post is the new CFS1 .air file, for any trials or experiments
you may wish. It´s called Ju52-3m.air, and will have to be re-named it to fit an
existing FS98 model that you may be experimenting with at the moment.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
Thanks for your good words.
It´s actually coming out quite nicely, once I figured out with a bit of patience, how to make the unusual shapes.

Now comes a more difficult part, the hand-made upper and lower wing bulges behind the engine nacelles.

I managed to get into Flightsim.com on the Windoze 8.1 laptop here just now, (I can´t on the WinXP tower, for some safety protocol reason), and I downloaded four Ju52 models of different older qualities, e.g. octogonal engines, etc. They are quite interesting in their own way.Two of them have transparent wire-strut cabins, and one of them has aileron/flap hinge-supports so they are not too bad really... apart from the bleeds... Definitely fine for the old days, but like you said initially, making an up-to-date one is well worth while! I also found a FS98 propeller sound called BigProp.zip, but I tried them out and they are re-worked Cessna-182 sounds, with lowered tone frequency - not really what we are looking for.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
OK by me!
No problem in taking away the guns for an unarmed logistics/paratrooper transport.

I´m having some difficulty with a camouflaged version of the corrugated aluminium
textures, so I would suggest an unarmed g5e with the green/yellow livery and the
830 Hp engines. Here is one with an authentic registration number, or so it would
seem... The only difference with my version would be the yellow elevator, but that
will be no problem.
Strange about the 3-bladed propellers, though. That would make it one of the latest
models with the 850 Hp engines, but it doesn´t coincide with the units that were sent
to Crete.

Update: Look at the second picture I just found - the picture on the right!
It´s the same plane but with 2-bladed props.
This would be the correct one, so you will be in luck indeed!
Crazy, how one has to be careful about information on the net...

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[smilo]

yup, that would be the one.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Ivan,
Many thanks for your views! Yes, I had inserted the more fully shaped crew´s heads and torsos, when the "normal Jump" turned into a "too long Jump". Previously I had inserted the Wheel structures that were 2D discs before, but probably before the Jump´s origin. I´ll see.

This Jump right into the middle of the left wing component parts (there´s none in the right wing) must of course have already been present in the original AF99 generated code, with 148.9 % parts count, so your AF99 generated error idea will most probably be the case.

I´ll try and simplify some more of the plane, to get the Jump to go away. It wasn´t there on the other two models, whose original AF99 generated code in fact had a higher parts count of 149.6% in each case.
But, there are some differences in the build, so I´ll back-track. I prefer to eliminate the Jump at its origin than try to fix it with an in-between Jump (but thanks for that remedy too!).

I seem to remember that the MS VC Program you are having the mouse problem with, is an Art or a Photo re-touching programme you intend to use for your texture work. What is it exactly so good at, that prevents you from using another more mousable programme?

I use MGI Photosuite 8.5 generally (lines, cut and paste, simple brightening and darkening, and some special effects), Paint Shop Pro 4.15 for screenshots, and Photoscape for colour curves and more complicated contrast things. Then, I have never been able to cope with Photoshop and its layers.

Also, funnily enough, modern freeware Art and Photo Re-touching programmes seemingly don´t give you a
cut-and-paste-into-the-same-window option anymore. You need Payware versions to get that feature!
Crazy...

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Folks, Hello Smilo,
I thought it would be a good idea to have a 3-engined panel for testing as well,
so I adapted the functional look-alike panel I did for the Condor, also fixing
the 3-engined generic throttle gauge with better handles.

By the way, there´s a new .air file named Eacasa52.air (for the FS98 Spanish Ju52 model
serving as a test-bed for the new CFS1 .air file), included in the panel folder because
I hadn´t activated the flaps option in the previous one.

Here is a screenshot and the panel and the panel.config with the new
custom 3-engine throttle gauge it contains.
The other custom gauges are in the FW200A Condor I uploaded some time ago.

Also enclosed, just in case, is the CFS1-SDK which contains sound and panel
config information.

Enjoy...
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Folks,
Another application of "Ivan´s Conga" here...

It never ceases to amaze me how you found that one out, Ivan,
how to glue things left and right after having glued something on
top or in front first.

The complex nose section has exhaust pipes stuck on each side,
nose-lid stuck on top, and the exhaust ring, cowl and prop stuff
further in front.

Also, as can be seen on the screenshot, the forward part of the
nose structure under the forward curvature is no longer a square
shape, but octogonal - as rounded off as a square structure can get,
so now it´s more correct with respect to the original, which doesn´t
have the sides going straight down.

I´m also trying other shapes like the Oval or the flat Octagon because
of the apex that can be seen on the side. Perhaps I can get it better.

For the moment, the exhaust is all rusty and unpolished, but we´ll see
about that later!

...procrastinating the engine nacelle bulges again, aren´t we now?

Update: Due to different central engine element bleeds through nose and outboard
engines, ALL elements in the Nose Group had to go into Body Main - and seem to be
working fine - the longest Fuselage with neither Tail nor Nose parts that I´ve ever done!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello All!
On the Ju-52/3m, the only engine that is aligned parallel
to the longitudinal axis is Engine No. 2 in the nose.
The others are almost at right angles with the wing leading
edge, i.e. facing outwards. The reason for this seems to be
to make the aircraft easier to control in the event of a
wing-engine failure.
Also, it seems from the 3-view drawings, that they are very
slightly slanted downwards.

I had taken for granted that simulator models had to be built
with propellers perpendicular to the aircraft´s longitudinal axis,
but Aircraft Animator in a very able manner, appears to offer
the possiblity of slanting them any way you want!

Unless I am very much mistaken, it is only the .air file that
positions engines at x,y,z, with no possibility of thrust inclination
in any direction. I seem to remember that Jet .air files offer an
up/down thrust angle offset, but not propeller air files.

So, at least we can feature this charismatic visual effect.

Here´s a screenshot of an older FS98 model in Aircraft Animator.
The engines in the lower part of the compound picture show the
engines lined up perpendicularly, and the upper ones show the
propeller axis inclination we can put in.
I fear I´ve exaggerated the angle a bit too much - it should actually
be slightly less than perpendicular to the leading edge backsweep.

Of course, the propellers and engine nacelles must then be built
according to plan, with the proper inclination - without perpendicular
correction for the model!!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello again,
Now the nose structure ends in an Oval shape. It seems to be better than the
previous flat octagon, that made the nose-top rounded dome part too narrow
and caused a rather sharp apex on the side, that I mentioned.

Here´s another screenshot to compare.
Then, Post #25 shows the nose ending in a square just before the nose-cowl,
leaving no space for the exhaust ring.

Update: So, the present parts 123% count leaves 216 pieces free for upper
and lower engine nacelle bulges - should suffice!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,

Fine! So then, if you agree, we could plan this new collection
of Ju-52/3m airplanes as follows:

1) Unarmed transport for paratroopers, troops and logistics,
model e5g, in green/yellow Balkan campaign livery, with
3x830Hp BMW132T-2 engines and 183 mph top S.L. speed.

2) CASA 352L unarmed trainer, transport and paradropper, in
grey/light blue Spanish Air Force livery, with 3x775Hp Erizalde
Beta B-4 engines and 175 mph top S.L. speed.

3) Armed transport unit model e4g as recovered from the Norwegian
Lake in 1986, with dorsal and cockpit machine guns, in night-flier
camo livery in dark-green / khakhi-green / black, if it comes out
OK, with 3x725Hp BMW132-A3 engines and a top S.L. speed of 165 mph.

I think it will be best to discard the eg3 auxiliary bomber version,
as was used in the Spanish Civil War and against Austria. This model
turned out not to be useful for WW2, and was only a stop-gap until the
Dornier and Heinkel bombers became available, and most of the Ju-52/3m
auxiliary bombers were re-converted into transports.

Apart from weak defensive armament, it required the bomb-aimer to be
in a cumbersome retractable "dust-bin" underneath the plane between the
wheels. It was the only place to get a good view of the objective, and
was also the defensive ventral aft-firing gunner position, but was quite
laborious to extend and caused a lot of drag.

This "dust-bin", also called "stew-pot" or "night-pot", was eliminated on
subsequent models, except for 12 e4g units that were turned into gunships
or bomber escorts, with 5 machine guns: dorsal, cockpit, lateral and ventral.

There aren´t enough parts left over on the AF99 model to make this "dust-bin"
and its inhabitant anyway, so I will leave it out.

So, if you think this is a good plan, we can go ahead with it!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[smilo]

agreed...it sound like a very good plan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo, Hello Ivan,
I had an extra problem through my own fault. The aileron
animation went in the opposite direction, and it was happening
on all three models, but I discovered how to correct it with SCASM,
so now all´s well again after four and a half hours. That´s what
happens if one doesn´t pay attention! I suppose completely re-SCASMing
the three models would have taken even longer.

A thought about CFS1 guns:
I was thinking...I doubt whether the armed version of the Ju-52
will be of any use to anyone in CFS1 without swivelling guns, so
what´s the point? That´s why Smilo is really only interested in
unarmed transport / paratrooper versions.

With one trainable dorsal MG and one trainable frontal 20 mm
Cannon, one would at least stand a chance... I think Hubbabubba
mentioned once that there was a CFS1 Plug-in that could do that,
but it only works under Windows 98.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Ivan again,
I´ve tracked down the origin of this mysterious and meaningless Jump
instruction: It was not generated by AF99 at all! It isn´t in the
un-animated code. It´s an Aircraft Animator "artifact"!

After your comments on machine generated code, or "spaghetti code",
(I love to write spaghetti code in QBasic...), this Jump would fall into a
category where the compiler (AF99) did indeed know what it was doing,
but we KNOW that the AA compiler is clearly wrong. Am I right?

In consequence, as the plane works perfectly, the meaningless Jump lines
could probably best be deleted. For the moment, I just marked them out with ";".

It´s an interesting artifact though..., and the question still remains:
Why did AA do this? The strange lines are not in the code of the other two
models.

Maybe it´s because of some AF99 quirk in this particular model that triggered
the artifact in AA...

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Folks,
Well, it works!
There´s a 5-degree toe-out and a 1-degree downward inclination
on wing-engine nacelle components and propellers.
The animation works well. For the moment I´ve kept it simple.
Now I have to do the prop-axels.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Folks,
This would be Textureless Try-out Version One, or TTV1 as it were!, to
get a general impression of the shapes, and also the feel of the .air file.
The provisional model is attached herewith.

The aliased Extra300 Sound.cfg should be changed to some good radial
engine sounds managed by Minuteman10´s excellent Merlin Sound.cfg file!

Panel is custom, to be used with the custom engine gauges that Ivan
and I made for the FW200 Condor. They are not attached here because
the file is so big it will gobble up my attachment quota.

Engine nacelle bodies are still structures! They will serve as a basis to
make all the parts for the necessary components later on, and this is
going to take a bit longer than I thought.

For the moment I have fine-tuned the structure shapes, and with a glue
sequence for Wing elements, I have managed to keep bleeds to a minimum.

Fuselage, vertical tail, tail gear, main wheels and central engine are all structures,
so as to keep as many components as possible free for the wings, flaps, landing-gear
struts, elevators, flaps and the parts-hungry horn-balanced ailerons and elevators
that are offset from the trailing edges.

Parts count at the moment at 146.1%, but should go down a bit as soon as
engine nacelle bodies are turned into components. That way, a dorsal, a forward
and two lateral machine guns will be added.

It is going quite well, and even the provisional engine nacelle bodies aren´t
looking too bad!

Note: The AF99 AFX is also included, should anyone feel like having a look.
There aren´t any textures, it´s all just coloured cardboard!

Well then! Enjoy!! I hope you like it.
...and suggestions and criticism will as always be very welcome!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp