Conspicuous by Their Absence

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I don't know if I told you this from the start, but I really don't have much interest in the AT-9 Fledgling either.
It is in the correct time period, but would never have hit my build list.

You already know of my lack of interest in the big bombers from the Great War.

That doesn't stop me from assisting if asked. My real interests are actually quite narrow as far as things I actually would build on my own.

The Macchi fighters were only built because that is what the audience wanted.
That is why they sat in limbo for a couple years while others passed them by.
I stated very early on that it might take a very long time to finish them or that they may never get finished.

I have a tendency to keep revisiting aeroplanes that I like such as the P-40, FW 190, and the Corsair.
The Corsair has had two major reworks and the FW 190 has had significant enhancements since I first completed it.
I have spent enough time and effort on the P-40E to have built AT LEAST four other aircraft.....

Don't let MY choice of subjects affect yours.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Ivan,

The important this is to enjoy the building process. There´s one determining factor against enjoyment: What one would personally label as ugly: For example, in my case, the MAD Boom on the Orion or the Neptune come quite close, and then worse, the awfully shaped twin-engined Douglas B-18 Bolo or Digby, but that´s just me. Then, there´s the Boulton Paul Sidestrand or the Overstrand, and also the Boeing B-9 bomber, which are just on the verge of what I´d call ugly. So it´s quite easy to decide what not to build.

I suppose it´s just that I haven´t quite decided yet what I do want to build, but will do so soon, no doubt!

As far as twin-engined aircraft go, a couple more candidates come into mind: The slightly strange-but-not-too-ugly-looking yet ground-breaking pre-WW2 Martin B-10, which was faster than many contemporary fighters, or the post WW2 rather spectacular Grumman F7F Tigercat. Then there´s also the Martin A30 Baltimore that Smilo mentioned some time back.

We shall see...
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I have been involved with CFS for so long that there have been literally dozens of aspects I want to research and also a couple dozen aeroplanes I have wanted to build. I keep a task and project list and periodically add to it or cross something off as I finish a project or find a solution to something.

The twin engine gauges are on the To-Do list and have been there for years. Now I have at least a functional if not ideal solution.
Your Tigercat made it onto the list when I was reading "Corky Meyer's Flight Journal" a few years ago.
A lot of projects get to the Development stage without ever having been on the list.

I have also done my share of "Ugly" projects. The Stuka easily qualifies as does the BV 141.
There is never a shortage or worthy projects; there is only a lack of time to build them.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

Of course! Sorry, I should have continued the comment "to build, or not to build" after the ellipsis.
It is definitely a matter of personal taste, if you are inclined or not towards a given model.
Aesthetically, e.g. I wouldn´t say the Stuka or the BV141 were ugly - just "strange", and perhaps you wouldn´t say the Douglas B-18 Bolo or Digby were so ugly...

Another nice one would be the Lockheed Harpoon, the lines are rather smart, and a little less nice because it looks stubbier and not so elegant, the Lockheed Ventura, but perhaps not everyone would coincide with that.

The Tigercat, very much like the Lightning, has very elegant lines, and looks like a real power-house, both of which make it so appealing. None of these are available for CFS1, so the list never stops...
Anyway, we´ll see, as I said before!

Incidentally, your progress with the twin gauges seems quite interesting. I was wondering if you would be willing to let me try them out, or is it too soon yet? ...just a thought, no problem if not.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

Actually the Ventura is on my build list also. It is rather low on the priorities but would fit well as a general "Between the Wars" kind of subject. (It may not be historically correct to do this, but the aeroplane has that look.)
This is one of those projects that I am interested in because it seems like such a nice little high performance aeroplane even though it isn't particularly attractive. I know a Hudson is available somewhere.

There actually IS a F7F Tigercat out there I believe for FS98. I even have it installed on a couple computers.
The model isn't great quality so a new one would work well. That is also why I am considering aircraft like the Ki-43 Hayabusa. The ones that exist are not really all that well executed.

My "Progress" with Twin Gauges is pretty much where the last post in the Gauges thread would indicate.
I have a pair of Tachometers. I can generate a new one with a different face pretty much at will.
I have a single Manifold Pressure Gauge for Engine 1 but never bothered to alter it for Engine 2 though it would only take an hour or so to do it.
I can email you the pair of Tachometers. Not sure if you really want a single MP Gauge since it is functionally no different from the stock ones.

The issue I have had with the MP Gauge is that at Idle, the MP readings are so low that they go off the marked scale.
I am wondering if I should alter the scale but the interesting thing is that all the real gauges I have seen have the same scale as mine.
I have not come to any conclusion about this issue yet.
It becomes even more messy when one considers that although the gauge face reads to 75 inches Hg, I don't believe the simulator can produce a reading quite that high.

Of course I also have a bunch of failed Dual needle gauges......

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Ivan,
Quite a coincidence, then! I downloaded a number of pictures on the Ventura and its later Harpoon upgrade, and I read some of the texts available, and it certainly seems to have been a machine that threw its weight.
There are even a few good-sized drawings that look quite exact. It could be interesting to see once a possible Ventura has a nice .air fie, how the different area on the fins and the larger wings affects the behaviour of the Harpoon.

I also looked up the Martin A-3 Baltimore, another very interesting candidate - some good drawings too, big enough to be useful. It seems to have had a considerable punch too, and looks quite cool.

As for the sleek Tigercat, the biggest drawing I could find was 880 pixels for the wingspan, which boils down to about 1 pixel for 1 inch. I have to see if I can find a bigger one. I also read a post about the conversation between the new text pilot and Cory, the other test pilot... quite an entertaining read. For the moment, this is the one that I may tackle first.

I´m drawing up scales on the drawings for all these planes in the 3 axes, to use as plans. Maybe that´s how I can decide which to build first.

Then, the strangest looking is the Martin B-10, and I might just make the scaled plan just to see the feel I get. So basically, there are 4 or maybe 5 twin-engined light, medium and light attack bombers on the list.

As for the gauges, I´d love to try out your 2 Tachometers! Thanks a lot! I´ll be looking in my mail-box then.

Cheers for the moment!
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

It seems like you're set on Twins of some kind.
There are a very large number of candidates. We haven't even touched on the ones from the Pacific Theater yet.
I don't think I have ever seen proper treatment of any Japanese twin. There are a couple of G4M Bettys out there and that is about it.

If you are not set on twins, there are plenty of single engine stuff that has not had enough attention. Try looking for a good TBF Avenger.

I actually found a fair amount of data on the Martin A-30 Baltimore. I personally don't have a lot of interest in it though I know Smilo does.

There are always the projects Smilo and I have batted back and forth for a while such as the A-20 Havoc, B-25 Mitchell, B-26 Marauder, Dornier Do 17Z, Junkers Ju 88, etc. None of those have had very good treatment thus far that I know of.

Here are a couple of screenshots of a F7F and another twin that I was working on at one point.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,
Well, yes, at least twins!...

After your comment on Japanese aircraft, I just looked for Japanese twins and there are quite a few with cool designs on par with the Tigercat´s lines... Nakajima Gekko, Kawasaki Randy, Mitsibishi Dinah...

Judging by the quality of their cars nowadays, no doubt their planes back then must have been impressive.
When I retire in November next year I´ll have more time!

I´d thought that the more well known war-twins you mention - i.e. A-20 Havoc, B-25 Mitchell, B-26 Marauder, Dornier Do 17Z, Junkers Ju 88, etc. - were not badly represented, so I hadn´t really looked into those. But it seems there´s room even there, although being so well known, I tend not to go for those so much. Anyway, the range of possibilities grows and grows...

Time for bed!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

The aircraft and especially engines built by the Japanese are worthy of an entire new discussion.
After doing a fair amount of reading, I have my own opinions, but there are so many caveats and exceptions that it is hard to describe them in even a number of posts.

I believe I described some of their issues in a post about War Emergency Power. It really is a strange thing.
I can tell you that one of the issues with my Kawasaki Ki-61 project was the conflicting data as is the case with a lot of other Japanese aircraft. The local library is completely insufficient for research unless you start requesting inter-library loans.

Japanese manufacturing today has nearly nothing to do with their industry before and during WW2. Credit all new industrial machinery and W.E. Deming for the changes.

Smilo and I had this discussion many times: (Summary as follows.)
Yes, all those German Twins are well known, but try to find a good add-on of any of those. The same applies to the B-25 and B-26.

The Greif in my screenshot is another fairly interesting aeroplane that has never been built that I know of.

The Tigercat is an interesting beast. If you look over photographs, you may be surprised how narrow the fuselage is....
I haven't even started looking for drawings or specifications for the beast though I do know about some of its strange handling characteristics.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

I looked around a little for all the models we have been mentioning, and it seems that when FS5, FS95, BAO Flight Shop/AF5 came out, there was proliferous building going on for the majority of these models.

Later, with FS98 and AF99, some of them were upgraded to some degree or other, but probably the difficulties in doing a good job there were a deterrent. Also, computer hardware had a tough time catching up, and the improved models needed the frame rates only expensive graphics cards could handle, and the FS5 models were generally compatible with FS98 and CFS1, so few really bothered at that time. Perhaps these were the reasons that not much happened until the better 3D engines and the wireframe extrusion building programmes appeared.

When FS2002 and CFS2 came out, people were more interested in the new simulators whose 3D engines could cope with the more powerful GMax and FSDS2, but even that lasted only a short while, because soon everything became even more powerful, and only after that, a number of these models seem to have been re-born with for FS9 and FSX with Gmax and FSDS3, so there seems to be a generation gap as far as we are concerned.

As regards the Japanese and their WW2 machines then, possibly their design genius and war production quality were not on the same level, and their potential was not fully taken advantage of. Like many Russian designs, a lot of their designs are reminiscent of American ones.

The Greif in your screenshot - I was wondering what it was - the tail is too small for a Boeing B-9, and had me baffled. Interesting. Some of the large post-biplane designs are not ugly!

Yes, I noticed the minimum frontal resistance design of the Tigercat - it looks unexpectedly different from the front. Definitely an interesting machine! I prefer the one with the pointed nose...

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hi all, hi Ivan,

After trying again despite the dimensional confusions, I have resumed the conversion of the L-188 Electra I had upgraded from FS5 to FS98 in 2005, into a CFS1 P3-Orion.

Thanks in advance, Ivan, for your help in the CoG shift! It will be vital for clear building.

There is one interesting thing I discovered about Wing-Nose templates:
The inner spinner/prop was bleeding through the outer engine-nacelle when viewed from slightly aft, so I made a Nose-Wing template as per AF99 Instruction Manual: A long triangle starting at the fuselage and the point ending near the wing-tip, intersecting the nacelles just behind props and spinners.

Well... it didn´t work: The inner prop/spinner bled throught the outer nacelle when viewed from slightly forwards, although the aft bleedthrough did disappear. So, I tried a different sized, shorter triangle (see attached screenshot), just covering the nacelle area. And.... it works!!!

I thought this was cool!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Do the Propellers and Spinners now bleed through the opposite side of the Fuselage?
That is what I would expect to happen with the templates the way they are now.

I will download your AFX tonight and see how well the shift works.
Keep in mind I will likely shift the CoG to around 1/4 of the Wing Chord because this has a nose gear and CoG must be between the Nose and Main Wheels.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

There´s only one small short bleed: the outer spinner through the inner engine-nacelle front seen from the opposite side underneath, but it´s hardly noticeable.

Luckily there´s no bleedthrough through the fuselage from the opposite side, neither seen from above nor below, slightly forward or backwards. I´d have to understand a little more about the templates to visualize exactly what they do...

Your suggested CoG shift to the position you say sounds perfect, thanks very much!

Meanwhile I have been planning and found ways to reduce the 5 fuselage textures so as to have some for the pilots, and also ways to free another two components, to have 4 of these for the transparent cockpit. This way the model will gain a lot if everything works.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp.

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I believe you are getting way too ambitious with trying to build a Transparent Cockpit and PILOTS on a 4 engine bomber within the limitations of AF99.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I just had a look at the P3-Orion Project.
Per our discussions via email, I understand that you want the CoG shifted 12.00 feet Forward and 0.50 feet Up.

I recommend that the numbers be changed a bit.
12.00 feet forward puts the CoG entirely ahead of the Wing.
Considering that the Wing is the primary lifting surface, I believe the CoG should be very near the Center of Lift.
Ideally, I like the CoG slightly behind the Center of Lift so that the Tail Plane is supplying a slight amount of lift.
Usually on actual aeroplanes, the CoG is slightly AHEAD of the CoL for better stability.

In this case, the CoG needs to be ahead of the Main Gear and SHOULD be somewhere on the Mean Aerodynamic Chord.
That doesn't leave a lot of room for choices.

I recommend moving the CoG about 9.5 feet forward.

This would still have very little weight on the Nose Gear and hopefully the Fuel Tanks are not behind the CoG or it may sit on its Tail when fueled.
You might want to look at where the fuel tanks are mounted. (I am guessing most likely it is in the Wings.)
They should be near the CoG if the Designers were doing their work properly.

A for a vertical shift, Where the CoG is now actually looks to be a touch high, not low.
Keep in mind that although we can see the shape of the Fuselage and guess where its center of form is, we don't know where all the heavy equipment is located.
Most of the aircraft structure is pretty light with the exception of Landing Gear, Engines, and perhaps Electronics.
I am guessing most of the significant electronics will be under the Floor of the Fuselage in what would normally be the Cargo Bay.

I will set up the shift as I described and if you want something different, changing the scripts will be pretty easy.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

How diplomatic of you! You are very kind.
CoG: Yes, you are (of course) absolutely right. Thank you very much indeed.
I was silly enough not to check that the previous CoG correction by the original author had placed the point ahead of the leading edge, but the engine nacelle lines disguised the lines and I stupidly never noticed.

So, 9.5 ft forward will be perfect indeed! If you would like to lower it too, it will be fine, as there was a bomb bay with a capacity for 20000 lb load - bombs, depth charges, whatever, the doors being in the belly just forward of the leading edge. And: Yes, fuel was only in the wings - slightly over 10,000 USG (62,500 lb).

As regards transparent cockpit and the pilots: Oh dear! I was getting really over-ambitious! I´ve just added up the free parts left, and the shapes of all I want to add would have to be far too rudimentary, so I may leave it at the shaded cockpit windows.

Update:
Things are not easy: As regards under-wing torpedoes or missiles, there would be parts left for two on each side, with hardpoints, but bleedthrough with the outer wing is proving to be a tremendous problem.
It appears that the best and cleanest building solution here is a conservative one - i.e. to leave the plane more or less as it is now, just more finely adjusting the textured cabin windows.
As you feared, anything else seems to complicate matters considerably, but I´ll see where to use the parts that I still have left over to further improve shapes here and there.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp.

[Ivan]

Diplomatic? Hmmmm.... One of the few times someone has said that of me.

As for refining shapes, you might want to take a look at the Nose / Cockpit area.
I didn't observe if the Nose was a Structure but suspect it probably is.
If so, you might want to change it to a Component.
At the moment, the contours of the Nose look very much like those of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules rather than a P-3 Orion.
If it is a Structure, you really can't improve its shape as you could with a Component.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Ivan,
Yes, in fact the whole fuselage is a set of structures - at least this avoids the hairline cracks when joining a structure to a component - but I see what you mean about the C130 nose.
Being a structure, the circular cross-section joint or bulkhead at the windshield creates a funny effect that can only be eliminated using components there.
A good suggestion, thanks! As there are quite a lot of parts left over, I´ll try for that then.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

If you have ONE Component left over, use it for the Nose and then either close off the Nose Component's back with a bulkhead or have a Forward Bulkhead / Wall on the following Structure.... Or Both. You may still have a slight mismatch but it won't be noticeable.

I am guessing you probably don't have enough Components to do the entire Fuselage.

This is a good illustration of the design choices we each make. I would rather get the better shape at the cost of less detail and favour the areas of the aeroplane that are most noticeable to me. I also spend a ridiculous amount of time refining shapes as can be seen on the Warhawk Project.

I am still convinced that there are not enough resources in Aircraft Factory 99 for me to build a 4 engine bomber using the methods I currently use. That was shown pretty well by the Mitchell and Lightning....

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

Thank you for your consideration and counsel! I definitely agree with you that shapes are more important that other secondary details. Actually, I think shapes are vital and make all the difference. It will be quite tedious, but it will definitely be worthwhile and probably possible.

As it is, at the moment there are only 3 components free, but as the wheels are all in components, I could free 4 from the main wheels, reverting these into structures again, and then I´d have 7 free in total to make the whole fuselage out of components, including MAD boom.

I think there will just be enough parts left for this, as 4 wheels mean 48 parts more than before, although the fuselage components will save a couple.

At the moment parts count is 1066, with 134 free.

For a start, I´ll do 2 components which comprising nose and cabin sections only, and cover the last bulkheadlike you suggested, and see how it goes just out of curiosity, and then I´ll do the restly 3 (2 for fuselage "tube", 1 for tail-fuselafe and 1 for MAD-Boom).

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I tried to do the CoG move this morning and ran into a bit of a problem.
Moving Structures and Parts was no problem at all. It took about a half hour to get the scripts in order but there were no issues.

The remaining task is to move the Texture mapping to agree with the new locations of Parts / Components and Structures.
The problem I am running into is that while regular mapping uses four numbers, the corresponding moved pieces have eight numbers.
I need to figure out what those eight numbers mean and alter the program to read and process them properly.
Luckily, it appears that some of the numbers are blank, but the parsing section still needs to recognize that there are spaces for eight numbers even if it will only use four of them.

By the way, regarding design philosophies, you are not REQUIRED to use up all 1200 Polygons in a model.
My Warhawk is getting pretty complicated at this point and still only uses 1125 or so.
Use them if there is a reason to do it and if it really improves the model.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

This P-3 Orion project is really starting to look strange.
I just did some poking around in the AFA file to try to figure out what the 8 numbers instead of 4 might mean.
I wrote down the numbers to compare to what was shown in the texture mapping values in AF99.
That is when I noticed that the texture mapping DIDN'T HAVE any reasonable values.
When the values from one end to the other are both zeros, one can come to no reasonable conclusion.

I thought that perhaps I had corrupted the AFA file, so I unpacked the AFX again but there was no difference.

The place I looked to confirm this was on the Right Wing.

So Where do we go with something like this?

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

Ha ha! Yes, but if I need parts for some extra improvement, I have to scrounge around to get as many as I can.

Sorry to hear about the problems you had with the CoG shift. If I knew where to look, I´d un-texture the parts that were problematic.

Well, after a lot of exact shaping, I re-built the whole fuselage including MAD boom as components, and parts count is at 145.8%.

In order to get rid of the C-130 cheek-nose aspect under the windshield, I made the joint less circular and more like an inverted oval, i.e. wider at the top, and it´s looking better, but not quite right yet. I also have to fit the windshield parts better. Anyway, I´m getting there! I even had some parts left over for prop-blurs and glue, and to split the spinners in two so as to improve the propeller-blade bleeds.
The screenshots show the nose and the cabin where the nose just fits in. Perhaps I made the nose a tad too wide at the top. Now it looks like a CRJ-900... I have to get iit better!

I´ll keep you posted!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,
Strange - and only on the right wing.
Well, there´s no doubt about it. I´ll take out all the textures and send you the Orion again with just the AFX for the CoG shift, and then I´ll put the textures back in again. That is the easiest solution and should be no problem.
I´ll do that right away.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp.

[Ivan]

I am wondering how the AFX / AFA was textured so that the file appears in a way that even AF99 can't read it.
I can probably figure out how to fix things, but it would be a fair amount of hand editing the AFA file and I can't be sure I will get it right. That is why I do as many things as possible via programs: Less opportunity for human error.

I think the nose actually looks a bit like a DC-9. The actual P-3 Orion's nose is fairly elegant looking for the huge thing that it is.
Perhaps the famous EP-3 that "invaded" China back in 2001 would be a good subject.

- Ivan.