...the question is, can I? And am I being realistic?


I've been flying MS Flight Simulators since I had a 486DX2-50 computer. Out of all of those years of virtual flying, my favorite plane by far has been the Lake Renegade. I've flown more miles than I can count in John Woodward's good ole FS2002 plane. I then flew her in FS2004, and even FSX.

Until now that is. I recently did the DX10 dance following the Avsim doc to the letter, and my FSX has taken on a whole new life. It's so nice that I don't want to ever go back to FSX DX9. However, the one largest problem with DX10 is that lots of my planes no longer work, their models and textures just aren't compatible. And I'm honestly OKAY with this.

Except for the loss of my Lake Renegade. It astonishes me that even today there isn't a DX10 compatible version of this awesome amphibian. And I'm not willing to give her up. I've considered simply buying Addon Converter X so I can fly John's faithful aircraft yet again, but honestly she is starting to really show her age. That's to be expected for a ten year old model I guess. It's really time for an update to the old girl.

So, I've made a decision. Since no one else seems like they are going to do it, I've decided to try my best to make a DX10 ready Lake Renegade for FSX.

I've never so much as repainted an aircraft for any flight sim, let alone modeled one from the ground up. I have a 3-way plan view of the Renegade (admittedly not a great one), I have a directory full of photos (again, not good enough IMHO but they will have to do), I've installed the SDK and gotten Gmax installed and configured. I've been going through a few Gmax tutorials but honestly I'm still having difficulty getting my plan box set up correctly. And I don't even want to do this for a living, or for money, I fully plan to just put it up for free if I ever get it done so that everyone (especially me!) can enjoy a good looking Lake Renegade in FSX with DX10. But this is harder than I expected it to be. I'm beginning to wonder how much time invested I'm looking at here to get her done.


Is it even feasible for a newbie like me to teach themselves how to model aircraft and make a flyable workable plane of decent to excellent quality? Or have I bitten off more than I can chew?