Hi No Dice,
What exactly is an ACT Data Fix?
- Ivan.
Hi No Dice,
What exactly is an ACT Data Fix?
- Ivan.
Hello Ivan,
Fascinating, how you managed to make an "almost complete" chess programme with the limited resources of the time. I once wrote a checkers programme, which was of course much simpler.
In the 80īs a friend gave me an electronic chess board called Mephisto, and the levels it could play at, were either graded by setting a time for the turn, or by setting its thought depth with a coice of 2 to 10 bifurcations. With a depth of 3 it took about 15 to 20 seconds, and at 4 it was a little over a minute, which was great for playing.
You could also see it think, as it went through each piece to see how it could move it: It would light up the vertical and horizontal coordinates of the piece and the positions it was investigating. It could also suggest moves if you asked for help during your turn. A great example of AI, and I only saw it make stupid mistakes at level 2, unlike other mid-range chess machines of the time that often played strangely at most levels.
This machine did not have a start-game look-up table, but was nevertheless very good. Much better than me, because I only beat it at level 3 most of the times, and only few times at level 4. I must take it out of the box again for a game!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
Hello, hello again,
Iīm working on another boxkite, a little known German 1916-1917 twin by the name of Albatross G.III Grosskampfflugzeug - a large battle-plane. Iīm upgrading my 2007 version from FS98 to CFS1.
Incidentally, someone who shall not be named from another page which shall not be named stole it and made a CFS2 version without crediting any of the original authors... These things happen...
Anyway, here are a few screenshots. Iīm putting in the G.II prototype with 165 hp Benz Bz.III engines as well as the G.III with its 230 hp Benz G.IV engines. All the air file work done in the last year with Ivan on the different sized engines and propellers comes in very handy now - itīs all done!
Apparently the Albatros G.III was faster and more manoueverable than all the other Grossflugzeuge of the time.
The shape is also very appealing, gently curved even though it had a box cross section.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
hello Ivan and all,Originally Posted by Ivan
as i recall ad2002 had an issue compiling a mdl.
the ACT Data Fix solved the problem.
A.C.T. was the name of the group
that developed ad2k and ad2002
btw...many thanks for the kind comments
regarding the work done on the ar196.
too true, the model was very complex.
i often wondered what the limits could be,
but, was never able to reach said limits.
i also wondered how the model affected
slower machines.
is it a framerate killer?...most likely.
sometimes the magic works.
sometimes it doesn't.
"Incidentally, someone who shall not be named from another page which shall not be named
stole it and made a CFS2 version without crediting any of the original authors... These things happen..."
greetings Stephan,
while it's true, these things happen,
stealing another's work is frowned upon.
i would suggest posting the perpetrator's name
and the "page" where your work is offered.
i'm not saying anything will be done about it,
but, i for one would like to know who this ahole is.
sometimes the magic works.
sometimes it doesn't.
smilo,
Who and what website?
"Incidentally, someone who shall not be named from another page which shall not be named
stole it and made a CFS2 version without crediting any of the original authors... These things happen..."
I have been around long enough and know enough people, Let's just shut them down.
Dave
http://www.TheFreeFlightSite.com
"Laissez les bon temps rouler"
i don't know who or what website, Dave.
the quote in red is from Aleatorylamp's post #1328 above.
sometimes the magic works.
sometimes it doesn't.
Aleatorylamp,
If you do not want to post the thief in this forum,
Please contact me direct: dea14u@aol.com
I will take it from there:
Dave
http://www.TheFreeFlightSite.com
"Laissez les bon temps rouler"
Hello Smilo and Dave,
Thank you for your support on this issue.
OK, so it is better not to just accept it and stay quiet, so I WILL mention the culprit:
The plane is on the ABSquad page, and does not include any credit for the original authors of the plane or the AFX files from which the guy made a modification for CFS2.It is easy to see that he has plagiarized the model and has unfairly taken credit for himself. This is to be seen in the .air file content, panel, sounds, textures and colours on the screenshot. Even the title is the same! Then he took out the readme I had in it, and also put his name into the panel .cfg. I had put in disclaimers and copyright texts for the model and also for the AFX.
The web page is: http://www.absquad.net/cfs2_absquad_wolrd_war_1.htm
The text on the page next to the plane is as follows:
CFS2 AB-Albatros G.II (848KB). Prototype of the Albatros G.III, a very little known medium sized tactical bomber biplane produced by Albatros Flugzeugwerke of Johannisthal, Berlin. By: AB_Lt_Cmd_Riker.
Behind the pseudonym AB_Lt_Cmd_Riker is the webmaster and "author", a Mr. Michael Priester,
whose e-mail is michael.priester@comcast.net
I wrote him an e-mail a few days ago complaining about his not very honourable way of taking credit for other peopleīs work, but of course he hasnīt answered.
Thanks again for your support!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
Hello Aleatorylamp,
This fellow did the same to me a few years back.
There seems to be something wrong with his CFS1 page at the moment or I would include some links to my own projects that he has claimed as his own.
One of the good things is that he has a tendency to pick some generally nice projects that might otherwise not get publicity otherwise.
I found a few models mostly by Japanese authors that I had not found elsewhere on the ABSquad site.
It is amazing how prolific he would be if he actually even built 1/10 of what he claims are his own projects. As it is, I am sure he has built absolutely none of them.
It is quite amazing how such as A$$H0LE can make such claims about honour and have so little of it himself. I wonder if he winces every time he even thinks of the words honour, courage, and all the other crud he posts.
The only nice thing about his site is the genuinely nice stuff he chooses to steal.
I had an email exchange with him a few years back.....
He even acknowledged my ownership of a couple of the projects and promised to fix the credits. Of course he never did.
Hubbabubba executed a rather embarrassing "Sting" operation on him a few years back. Although there was probably some minor embarrassment on his side, nothing really ever came of it.
- Ivan.
Hello Ivan,
I think itīs a flaw in human nature, perhaps to do with the survival of the fittest, but applied to the sense of achievement in this case, so that the person in question feels to be someone, as opposed to being nothing.
I donīt think this kind of person ever feels embarrassed about anything. We tend to look at them through our prespective, when theirs is totally different. They like to get away with whatever they can at the expense of others, and feel a sense of achievement when they sucessfully trick or rip someone off, or steal something. If caught out, they are very apologetic, polite, and seemingly cooperative, but thatīs only out of cowardice - words to avoid confrontation!
A large part of modern society actually thinks that this kind of action is cleverness, and confuse it with fighting the establishment and the oppresive oligarchy. In countries like Spain, if you get caught cheating in an exam, you may get a zero, but not necessarily. Peers will regard it as being clever! In Britain, however, you get a zero, and the third time, you get expelled.
Corrupt politicians are another example of this kind of dishonesty, and it often extends into a free for all for a long time until some of them get landed in jail. They never give anything back, though... They donīt care anyway, because they see the war-mongering power-groups, ruthlessly acting in their own interests all the time, regardless of the human suffering caused.
One can always think that Karma will catch up with them one day, or that they will eventually learn what to do and noto to do, even if it is not in this life, but enough philosophy for this morning!
Building airplanes is better!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
Hello!
My progress on the Albatross G.2/3 large battle-plane has come to a point of battling bleedthrough with different approaches, none of which is perfect. In this case, there is no difference in having animated surfaces or not, because of the excessive number of parts to be glue-sequenced in the tail groups. To prevent bleeds with the fuselage and wings, the the pusher props, and consequently the rear gunner and gun, must be placed in the tail groups, apart from the normal tail-assembly elements, which here also have two lateral tail struts. So itīs not a very straight forward ensemble.
However, as there is considerable distance between the tail assembly and the pusher-props, rear gunner and gun AF99 seems to cope quite well in separating the display for the different elements, and there are only short minor bleeds when viewing from directly behind.
Several different alternative groupings undertaken in several days give worse results, so Iīve come to a point of the best possible result, and the minor bleeds will not hamper the model so much as to prevent its upload!
So, now Iīm doing the virtual cockpits - and for the moment, here are some more screenshots! In a few days I hope to have the model ready for upload.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
Hello Aleatorylamp,
I actually don't necessarily want the ABSquad site to go away (strangely enough).
The site hosts quite a few things that simply cannot be found elsewhere.
The majority of people who are not quite as well connected as we are in this enthusiasts forum would never figure out that Michael Priester is such a phony. I believe that is his audience. Most of us here know better.
One does have to wonder how someone can live with himself knowing that he is a simple thief and unable to actually create any of the things he claim as his own work. ...But as you said, this fellow obviously doesn't share the same values.
You certainly are quite prolific with the Great War Aeroplanes.
- Ivan.
Hi Ivan,
Well, at least there is some use to be had from this phonyīs website, and its flaw is another example of a lesser evil!
Anyway... Planes of the Great War: I have always found old biplanes fascinating, especially the bing ones. Not many modellers build these slow multi-engine biplane bomber, probably because there are too many struts and wires, and some elements are located in strange positions, and this adds difficulty to building the model. So, I thought hereīs a niche where I can quietly do my thing.
While I know that general interest for these models is somewhat limited, probably for performance reasons, there is an adventurous atmosphere I like about them. The fact that a lot of them flew well was a tremendous engineering feat.
If a new model was actually able to fly reasonably, it was already a merit in itself, as not all of them did. A lot of experimentation was going on, and in a matter of months or even weeks after the prototype trials, new versions came out with notable improvements, possibly leading to a production batch. It must have been a fascinating time, with lots of room for inventiveness, even though test pilots flew these machines at the risk of their lives.
The development history of a lot of these models is in fact quite interesting, and the Albatros "G" type battle-plane is a good example:
The Albatros factory was having great success with its nimble fighter biplanes, but there was a need for armed bombers with capacity for large payloads. Hardly anyone had built any, so in 1915 the Albatros factory based a design on the 4-engined Ilya Murometz, and came out with its 4-engined Albatros G.I prototype (4x100Hp Mercedes DI). Unfortunately, performance was far from satisfactory, and the design was abandoned.
Shortly afterwards, in 1916, they made a 2-engined prototype, the first G.II. The more powerful 165 Hp Benz Bz.III engines and the lighter airframe made for a much better aircraft, but its wide wings not only reduced the rear gunnerīs visibility, but forced a rather aft-placing of the engines because of the pusher-props, causing CoG problems which made the plane very tail-heavy. For approach and landings, constant forward helm was required, and flaring was was forbidden, so a heavy "Stossfahrgestell" nose landing-gear (shock-landing gear in German!) was installed to prevent nose-overs! Some stop-gap inventiveness!
Although why they insisted on using pusher engines, remains a mystery to me. Perhaps it was inherited from the cleaner single-engined pushers that kept pilotsī goggles free of castor oil...
Anyway, the design was nevertheless good enough as to allow for improvements: Intelligent and practical inventiveness: They cut away the lower-wing trailing edge to move the engines forward, making room for the propellers, thus eliminating the CoG problem - and also the heavy "Stossfahrgestell" nose-gear. Then, they also cut away the central top-wing trailing edge to improve the gunnerīs field of view.
In spite of retaining the Benz Bz.III engines, the single prototype improved tremendously, and led to a reduced production batch in 1917 of the Albatros G.III, which was given the more powerful 230 hp Benz Bz.IV engines and saw service in Macedonia. The prototype was subsequently also put into military use. The Albatros G.III was in fact faster and easier to fly than the rest of the more famous German Grossflugzeuge, and was an example of a clean, elegant and noteworthy well-functioning design.
Anyway, those were other times!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
Hello Aleatorylamp,
It seems like the "limited interest" you described is actually more than the interest in my more modern projects.
I personally don't have a great interest in bombers or "Targets" in general.
As you already know, I have released exactly ONE aeroplane from the Great War. My Albatros D.Va has been awaiting its Lozenge paint and flight model for years.
These days, I have to carefully choose the aeroplanes I work on because of time and other constraints.
I generally don't pick a subject unless I would like to have one of my own or if there is some aspect about it that I would like to test as with the P-3 Orion. The Me 109E was supposed to be just a short diversion for the good of the community. I seriously miscalculated the time required for that one.
I think there was a lot less engineering for aeroplanes in the Great War; I am convinced that they were generally designed by eyeball.
Regarding ABSquad, their CFS1 site appears to be down. Although I didn't like what Priester was doing, I do still miss the site because of the other cool things he hosted.
- Ivan.
Hello Ivan,
I think the interest there is, even though limited, still provides enough motivation to justify keeping up an activity which is in itself enjoyable. To do all this only by oneself with no outside contact, would be too isolating to be possible!
Sometimes a model Iīm working on does not always coincide with what I planned to do, or perhaps really want. For example, friends from our little group of FS98 enthusiasts (who are now a little less active than before) sometimes request a little upgrade, which I then do quite willingly. Other times things get a little difficult on a model like now with the P3 Orion, and I am easily side-tracked with other models to fix that look easier than they eventually turn out to be, and it ends up taking longer to get back to what I was originally doing!
I got back to the Orion and eliminated all the control surfaces on the P3 Orion, and now I have enough resources for all components needed for the new nacelles, but it is not an easy job! So I got side-tracked again with another biplane upgrade Iīm finishing - the Albatros G.III age-old biplane twin.
At the moment Iīm stuck again, this time, with incomplete specifications, and Iīm trying to decipher the maximum fuel capacity for the given maximum range, calculating from the engine and payload specifications. Then I have to adapt that to the weaker-engined, lighter, slower G.II prototype - So Iīm busy juggling a lot of numbers...
After that I hope to return to the P3 Orion!
I donīt think the ABSquad site is down... I got into it to download and inspect my creditless plane, and the site is still open today. Perhaps it has changed its address?
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
just the CFS1 section is down....
the plane that I made at meigs.....
It was made using Chuck Dome's 'trodem demo
these were the early happy days trying to figure
how Scasm/BGL lingo worked
It also calculated vectors (which I was not to sure of then)
When I got SciDis I could figure it out.
I also did the Fsasm examples and d'sembled them to
Scasm source txt----happy intreging days!!!!
>>>papingo
Hello Ivan,
You mentioned that there was not so much engineering and more eyeballing going on in the aircraft industry of the Great War. I would tend do disagree, but not with the purpose of starting an argument, but only with the intention of expressing my opinion. I would think eyeballing is more like what you do when you make a paper aeroplane and try to fit the build to the shape of the sheet of paper available. ...or what I have to do when I only have one or two photos and have to fit specifications to draw a plan, and there are things hidden from view...
I my opinion, even the first pioneers conducted more than eyeballed measurement on birdsī dimensions and weights, (thatīs why for some years airplanes were all tail-heavy and had sustaining tails - I mean what is a birdīs head going to weigh anyway? It uses the tail as a fan not only for direction but also to adjust flight attitude). To make a plane like a bird is already an engineering exercize, I would venture to say.
Then, after the initial success of the first pioneers, data from experimental results like wing-area, span and curvature, aircraft weight and engine power became increasingly available, and using this data do to lift, drag, speed, power and weight calculations for a new model, I would qualify as engineering. Even innovations had to have some kind of theoretical basis and would need calculations more than mere eyeballing, and success depended on whether the ideas and their mathematical calculations worked or not.
Limited by the need for light structures because of the heavy, low-powered engines, there was a tendency towards flimsiness on prototypes, and structural failures were the order of the day, but I wouldnīt say that they were eyeballed. Also, new materials like glue and lighter canvas were not always reliable, and calculated specifications were not always true. Wood had to be selected and treated carefully, and this was also not perfect. With all this inexactness, the risk of accidents was not exactly low.
Engines were also evolving very quickly, and that was pure engineering, and soon aircraft factories realized that larger multi-engined aircraft were possible, and experimental designs with different degrees of success appeared. Including failed designs, they all contributed to the further evolution of aviation, and even if it started as an inexact science, it was a science.
Of course, there will also have been manufactures who werenīt as good as others, and who just copied some designs, possibly eyeballing quite a lot of it. A famous case apparently were the Rumpler aircraft! Although they were very successful, Mr. Rumpler had a reputation in Johannisthal for being quite a copy-cat, and others would scatter when he arrived!
Anyway, be it eyeballed or engineered, the budding aircraft industry must have been exciting times.
At the moment we can see something similar happening with the DIY 3D scanners and printers, perhaps?
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
Hello Aleatorylamp,
I am always open to these kinds of discussions.... I don't consider them more as explorations than arguments.
The reason I believe that aeroplane design up until the mid-1920s was more an art than a science and more of eyeball design than real engineering is because there were so many structurally unsound designs.
Although the Wright Brothers used a "Wind Tunnel" to experiment with airfoils, it is pretty obvious that some that came after them did not. How many times have we seen photographs and videos of the early "aeroplanes" that could not get off the ground?
I have a book called "Early Flying Machines" that illustrates many of the good as well as bad designs. Some designers had an instinctive understanding and put together pretty well balanced aeroplanes. Others' designs looked more like a bunch of aeroplane pieces attached together in some random fashion.
Think of how many of the Great War "Kites" would shed pieces of their structure in a dive or under hard maneuvering. Nieuports come to mind here. These aeroplanes looked good but it is pretty obvious in hindsight that there was certainly not enough consideration for stresses and loads which is the part I would consider "engineering".
I believe the reason that they were so often successful was because they tended to err on the side of too much wing area and too light loads, so the inefficient wings, weak structures and draggy airframes that were built to mimic birds or bats (like Rumpler's designs) still made it into the air.
I believe there simply was not the understanding of what we call aerodynamics today. I believe there was a lot of very good research on both sides of the pond after the Great War.
NACA Technical Reports written at that time are still very good reading today.
If a Bird is used as a design model and the big issue is that the bird's head is very light compared to an engine, then a bit more weight at the front would tend to move the CoG forward and increase stability. There would also be less lift required of the tail plane with a forward CoG.
Also, there is nothing really wrong with the tail surfaces supplying lift.
The only requirement in my not so educated view is that the Front Lifting Surface stalls before the Rear Lifting Surface.
I don't think God cares whether your aeroplane is a conventional tailed design, canard or has equal front and rear surfaces like Langley's aerodrome. If the rear surfaces stall first, he will kill you just the same.
On a minor side note, in another forum, I came across a discussion of propeller behaviour with increasing engine power and a constant speed propeller. I can say that there was never as much information presented as we have discussed here based on Jerry Beckwith's documents on flight simulator propellers.
- Ivan.
Hello Ivan,
OK, Iīll go with that! Being more of an art than a science would include a lot of intuitive ability and feeling for a successful design, and your expression "eyeballing" would have a more sophisticated meaning to it this way. It would not only include the idea of haphazard approximation eyeballing that Iīd interpreted before.
Given the lack of technical information available at the time, the success of a model would depend largely on the intuition of the designer and the ideas that were put into practice, some of which were evidently disastrous!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
Hello all!
I have managed to complete the CFS1 upgrade of the German 1917 Albatros G.III Grosskampfflugzeug mid-range tactical bomber and its 1916 prototype. Apart from 3D crew figures and guns, I have been able to include several little improvements in the AF99 build. With all the struts, wires and the pusher props, it is actually quite amazing that there is only little, short, transitory bleedthrough in few places, so I suppose it is quite satisfactory. The unusually elegant design made it an appetizing candidate for modelling, as well as the reputation for good quality on the part of the manufacturer and designer.
Although of the G.II prototype only a single unit was built, it is interesting to experiment the difference in performance in CFS1, compared to the noticeably more powerful engines of the G.III.
The Albatros G.III Grosskampfflugzeug link:
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=19&id=20835
The G.II prototype link:
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=19&id=20834
I hope you will enjoy some leisurely flying to admire the CFS1 scenery...
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
Hello All,
Over the last couple days, I have been working on a high precision Trim Gauge that can show the current trim state as precisely as possible.
The first goal was to be able to indicate Trim for all three axes:
Longitudinal -- Elevators
Lateral -- Ailerons
Directional -- Rudder
I found after starting with the FS98 SDK Control Surfaces source that I had no trouble getting a very precise reading with the Elevator and decided to go looking for the variables for the other control surfaces.
Imagine my surprise when I found that there actually aren't any indicator variables for Aileron or Rudder Trim....
The next thing I found is that the way I THOUGHT the aircraft trim worked probably isn't accurate.
That would explain why I was sometimes getting inconsistent results in testing.
My next steps are to tune my nifty new test gauge to indicate what I BELIEVE it should indicate and then to work out another Trim Gauge that I can throw into an operational panel to replace the not so accurate SP,Trim gauge I have been using.
- Ivan.
Hello Ivan,
Sounds very interesting and useful, and Iīm looking foward to seeing how it develops.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
Hello Aleatorylamp,
Yes, this development was very interesting. I am just not quite sure yet how to interpret what I am getting.
As I said before, I had certain ideas how things worked in the AIR file and this Gauge is telling me that I am not correct.
Here is a screenshot. It is on my Test Panel and is Screen 3. (Screen 1 is the Main Panel, Screen 2 is Engine Controls.)
As you can see from the screenshot, this Gauge reads exactly Zero as I enter the simulator and all trim settings are neutral.
As you can also see at the lower left, SP.Trim gauge reads slightly Nose Down.
I will most likely re program and replace my the SP.Trim gauge on my own machines with something that is lined up a bit better, but I have always relied on this as a stock gauge that is on everyone's machine and I can't replace others out there.
As you can also see, although the new Trim Test Gauge appears to be capable of fine accuracy, it is way too large to use in an operational panel.
It looks to me like I will be programming a normal looking Trim Gauge to distribute. It is a wonder that the first gauge I build and distribute publicly will have such minimal functionality. <sigh>
Ivan.
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