Where things stand on several fronts...

[Rami]

Hey guys.

I just wanted to pass along some information to all of you. There has been some movement on several fronts with regard to the Free Flight site. The entire site has been moved here: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/freeflight/

DangerousDave26 (one of the senior admins) is in the process of fixing all of the links that got corrupted with the transfer of the website over to SOH.

He has to go through and fix the links on the pages one at the time, thus far, he has done the home page, newcomers, school program, panels1, panels2, and panels3 have all been fixed.

Once the site is fully restored, I believe that Kdriver will release his updated Dutch airfields, Ravenna will release his Flanders package, and I will release the Battle of France. I have three missions left to write for the project, that's it.

I also believe that Kdriver and Robert John have an ETO villages scenery pack that will be released as well.

I decided to table the missions that pre-date May 10 1940 for now....because Hewman100 sent me information on the "Phoney War," I want to implement a few of the missions in a short campaign, but because they use the same aircraft and scenery, I can release that later without having to do a large package, kind of like what I did with the Dutch East Indies a while back.

[rhumbaflappy]

Excellent work as always. Thanks to all involved.

[MaskRider]

Rami,

Thanks for the update and thanks to everyone involved for sticking with it- especially DangerousDave26 for going through the laborious process of fixing links! Ouch!

Just clicked on the link. Looks great!

Its too bad that we couldn't somehow have got our hands on the website that Dave had to have kept stored and updated on his computer. A flash-drive copy would most likely loaded onto the server with all links intact. But I understand the the constraints we were working under.

Again, well done guys!

MR

[hertzie]

Thanks x 1000!!!

hertzie.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

I was itching to do something with Maskrider's most recent scenerys, which have been coming out, based on Rhumbaflappy's mesh. For the past couple of months (minus vacation time) I have been cleaning up and revising my USS Essex CV-9 campaign. I am making maximum use of Stuart277's new ships, MR'snewer scenery with Rhumba's coastlines and mesh, new aircraft and some new missions. With the new coastlines, I had a lot of infrastructure, targets and way points to move.

I am going to imitate Rami's style, somewhat by breaking down 1 huge campaign into 4 smaller campaigns:
1. A dynamic campaign, wherein the player will fly by random choice an F6F, TBF or SBD/SB2C.
2. A linear campaign, in which the player will fly all missions as an F6F-3/5 pilot.
3. All missions linear with the player as an SBD-3/5 and later an SB2C pilot on all missions.
4. Linear with the player as a TBF Avenger pilot only for all the missions.
I have eliminated the "wingman" missions.

I currently have all the core missions except for the Rabaul strike series finished. I'm going back through them again to edit in Stuart's newest minesweepers (for example), where possible and flight testing to ensure they are all flyable in Windows 10 as well as 7/8/8.1. I am also making sure all the events and on-screen comments work as I'd hoped and I'm editing in more target and historical data into the mission summaries. The recon photos have been updated as well.

It will have a long list of downloads and since it has a Rhumba PTO install, and several scenery downloads and excludes. I recommend it have it's own install I will I follow it up with my next project - USS Saratoga CV-3 campaign - which should easily go into this install.

When I get to the flight testing phase, I'm gonna take some screenshots and start my own thread. I hope to be finished by the end of the year at the latest.


C'mon guys! All of you producers use this thread to tell us about what you may have on your "drawing boards."

SW07

[highpockets]

Shadow Wolf
Love your current Essex campaign. Still learning to fly the SB2C. Can't wait for the revised Essex and new Saratoga.
Thanks for all the hard work.

[stuart277]

Hi Rami
Thanks for the update and thanks to everyone involved.
Hi SW
I am working on some WW1 lightships for Ravenna and new models of the Yorktown/Enterprise/Hornet CV's.
Cheers
Stuart

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Hi Rami,

Thanks for the update and thanks to everyone involved.

Hi SW,

I am working on some WW1 lightships for Ravenna and new models of the Yorktown/Enterprise/Hornet CV's.

Cheers,

Stuart

Rami and I were just the other day conversing and came to the conclusion that an updated (by you) Yorktown Class CV would be a great addition.

[sixstrings5859]

Wow! All this work being done. You guys are amazing! Cheers, Scott

[Ravenna]

Thanks for tying all the bits of string together Andrew. Just a small correction: the Flanders Package is as much Kevin's work as it is mine.

[Ravenna]

A new Yorktown!! Looking forward to it Stuart.

[Rami]

Hey guys,

All I have left as far as missions to build is Kampfgeschwader 54's raid on Rotterdam.

[Shessi]

Well done guys!

Many thanks for that, ensuring survival...great conservation SOH!

Cheers

Shessi

[Ravenna]

C'mon guys! All of you producers use this thread to tell us about what you may have on your "drawing boards."

SW07

Down in my burrow there is a partly completed set of UIRES screens for a Western Front WWI install (yes, I do use my other installs). Like the Flanders Pack it has "just growed". It started out as 4 air services and has grown to 8, with RFC,RNAS, German Naval Air Service, German Army Air Service, USAS, USNAS, Aviation Militaire and (a ring in) the AFC. I looked at the French naval air service but I couldn't find enough information or aircraft to make it worthwhile.

Possibly mid October depending on what real life lobs up.

[Ravenna]

Yay...it works! I just pasted the link in place of the Freeflight part of the object links in our instructions doc and I was taken to the object to be downloaded. Big thanks to all involved.

[Shessi]

Rami,
Talking of other things.

Did you contact the owner of the Caleb Flerk's site? Any update etc?

Cheers

Shessi

[Rami]

Rami,
Talking of other things.

Did you contact the owner of the Caleb Flerk's site? Any update etc?

Cheers

Shessi

Mark,

I have called and emailed several times to no avail. What do you think the next steps should be?

[Shessi]

Andrew,
Yes, the same, I re-emailed the web site hosts, and no reply. There's no other info for them, so I can't do anything else.

So..ethical, commercial and practical..

Ethically, if we (SOH) were to host the ebooks and/or the pages (downloaded from the WayBackMachine (WBM)), we are trying preserve something of value to the flightsim community, and in essence that's what CF site was doing.

Commercially, SOH is not a commercial site and does not, and would not make or get any money or real benifit etc from hosting CF's site/ebooks. But it is not our intelectual property or copyright. Bear in mind though, that the WayBack machine, is in reality 'hosting' the pages without permission, and has been since 2002!

Practically, no problem, as these pages are low in storage and techinical requirements.


Personally, if it was down to me I would say yes let's go for it. If the CF site/info owners contact's SOH then we can negociate what to do or it can be taken down, and no harm done.

I've just gone through the ebooks and really they are the whole of the site in sections (not HTML pages) with all the links/pictures contained. These are only 10Mb. Anything not in them can be grabbed from the WBM.

It would be nicer to have viewable HTML pages rather than downloadable sections, but better than nothing.

Cheers

Shessi

[Ravenna]

Nurse, wake me when this gets operational: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/freeflight/Vietnam_Projects_2.htm