N.A. B-25 post war

[stoney]

Would anyone know of a cold war, trainer type skin for the FDG v.2 B-25J for FS9?

Steve

[Mick]

I don't know of any post-war skins for that model.

A few years ago I painted a bunch of post-war TB-25 skins for John Young's AI B-25, which includes two versions without the turrets. There is no totally accurate model that depicts a completely unarmed fifties-vintage TB-25, but two come close. Model 3 has no turrets but has tail guns. Model 7 has no turrets or guns, but has a little pod, apparently a modern civilian weather radar, under the left wing.

They are AI models but you can add any B-25 panel and sounds, change the aircraft type to 0 in the Air file and make it flyable. It you were ambitious you could also adapt the flight files from a flyable B-25.

With a simple tweak with a hex editor you can even make a sort of non-dynamic VC by making the external model visible in VC view. It loos fine as long as you look out the windscreens, but if course if you look around the cockpit you won't see all that you would in a real VC, like a panel with working instruments. Still, better than nothing.

Norm taught me to do that: Open the model file, search for "68 00" in hex mode. If next number pair is "02" then change it to "03" and save.

Then adjust the View in the aircraft.cfg file. For the TB-25 this works:

[Views]
eyepoint=9, -1, 3.3

I don't recall where I got John Young's AI B-25, but I believe it came from the Airfield Construction Group. I think it may be on sites like FlightSim and AvSim too.

The skin pack is in the library. Search for TB-25 in FS9 add-ons with Exact Phrase checked and it will come right up.

[stoney]

Hey thanks Mick, that should do it for now.

[stoney]

That worked pretty good Mick. I do need to adjust the CG as it is about 3 inches in front of the plane. I would do that the in the Aircraft.cfg I believe. Do you know how I might fix the prop disc? I did D/L a Hex editor and am learning how to use that so I might have a VC panel. And really thanks for the help and suggestions!

[Mick]

Well, as for the prop disc, I would just take one from another plane, rename it and substitute it. I don't recall any need to do that, but it's been a long time since I did the conversion.

For the CG and such, I've attached the two sets of flight files I got here several years who when I first did the conversion. One set is a modification of John Young's AI flight model made by Norm, who shared them with me when he taught me about this process several years ago. The other one is by another denizen of SOH who adapted them from a different, B-25, a flyable one, but which one is unknown.

I should have thought to attach these files and the 3D model to my initial reply to your inquiry, but I didn't think of it then.

I've used this little trick on a number of non-VC models. It usually works out pretty well. I've converted a few non-VC flyable planes, like models by Mike Stone and Kazunori Ito before he started making VCs. I was very surprised to find that one of Mike Stone's airliners (I forget which one) had a complete flight deck with all crew stations that coldn't be seen through the little cockpit windows, but from the inside, with the 3D model made visible, there it was was.

[stoney]

Thanks Mick for your help. Got the prop thing figured out, I forgot to install the common textures! Much better now. These planes fly well in the air and are solid on the approach, which serves my purpose well. I'll try the flight files too. Thanks again.