Conspicuous by Their Absence

[Ivan]

Hello Hubbabubba,

Glad to see you are back.
"Ivan's Conga" sounds like a weird dance or something. Yech!
The AF99 tutorial that comes with the package is pretty worthless, isn't it?

I pointed Aleatorylamp to you in regards to SCASM. You do more with SCASM than I do. I basically just follow a recipe I got from you a few years back as an email. I have expanded upon it a bit, but it is still just a recipe from you and Alain Breton.

Hello Aleatorylamp,

Glad the Tail glue sequence worked for you. Unfortunately it will not help much for animating control surfaces. I have never thought there were enough resources to build animated control surfaces with AF99 at least without costing the model somewhere else.
My "philosophy" is that the representation should show something that indicates the aircraft state to an external observer.
The landing gear retraction state and flap position are tactically significant. The angle of the control surfaces isn't nearly as indicative, especially as many authors choose the wrong motion range anyway. They are also so transient that their observed position means very little from a tactical standpoint.

Regarding cool uses of AF99 Glue, check out the Fin / Rudder assembly for my P-39. THAT is what I call cool. It doesn't really break any of the rules I described before but still looks interesting.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Thanks, Dave!
Yes, I´ve just downloaded it and it is truly amazing to see how much detail you can put into a CFS1 aircraft!
Well done, Smilo!
Cheers,
Stephan

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

Rudder, elevator, aileron animation is basically eye-candy, I suppose, but it does make the plane come alive some more, perhaps even at the price of some bleedthrough.

Spoilers would belong into the tactical significance of the visual reference too, perhaps. Air brakes too, and these are really dramatic. Have you seen how the F-22A Raptor brakes by flaring out flaperons, elevators and rudders?

That really looks terrifying - the enemy would just die of a heart attack only by seeing this! Like a bird of prey zooming in on you, suddenly almost halting in mid-air before it grabs you!! Kill the enemy by shock - no need for shooting or missiles!!

It´s eye candy, but it gives the feel, and causes bleedthrough!! Yes, I´ve run into some problems with the animated tail parts, but not as much as I expected. I´m working on it. Let´s see what happens.
When you want something you have to suffer for it...

OK, it´s way past my bedtime.
Cheers,
Stephan

[aleatorylamp]

Hello all!
Here´s A very well proportioned and successful design by Geoffrey De Havilland in 1916, the DH-10A twin-engined biplane bombers. The MarkIIIA had its engines mounted on the lower wings without struts, saving on parasitic drag. Here are the links to the upload:

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=19&id=19225
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=19&id=19226

I hope you like them!
Cheers,
Stephan

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I am truly amazed. Perhaps my knowledge of aircraft is fairly narrow, but I am finding that the the majority of your aircraft models (otherthan modern jets) are ones that I either know very little about or have never even heard of.
I am sitting here building the P-38 Lightning which 50 or 60 people have done before me and you haen't hit too many that are common.
How do you pick your subjects? The are certainly different.

Regarding Air Brakes, and moving parts: I still choose fewer bleeds over moving parts. To me, getting the shape right is the most important part. It is an understanding of how that aeroplane is unique.
I also don't even try for modern warplanes because the performance data is often classified and the weapons systems are impossible to represent in CFS. They also use aerodynamic principles that are a bit more complicated than I currently understand.

Besides, Jets are a fad!
People will go back to big piston engines soon!

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Ivan: Yes, some of my models are indeed rare! To build a model I normally look for one which hasn´t been built for FS98 yet, so it´s a rare plane. I started with the biplane bombers of the Great War - really rare in FS98 - because I was impressed by their huge size and the developing technology at the time to make such weight fly!

As fighter biplanes are quite fast and nippy, they had already been built for FS98 - but multi-engined biplane bombers hadn´t, brobably for being slow and cumbersome to fly. Also the many struts, wires and engines probably were probably difficult to build, and AF99´s predecessor BOA Flight shop, couldn- t cope with as many parts.


Normally I avoid a one-off prototypes, unless there is something special about them, like the Rohrbach seaplanes models and the Porokhovschikov Twin-tail, and go for those that at least have had a small production run like the Curtiss Twin-JN. I often stumble on some gems when I´m browsing for details for a model I´m building at a given moment. Some have even had runs of a few hundred, but have somehow escaped develpers´detection on the net!

I have also upgraded existing FS5 jets or turboprops for FS98 on request from my small team, provided that the AFX is good! Here I round off some shapes and adding moving control surfaces, or even do extended versions of a first shorter model. With this kind of work I often run into the dreaded often AF99 texture distortion problems.

I try to add rotating turbines to make the engines livelier! As for their flight dynamics, normally one of the team does those, or I try to adapt or modify existing ones that fly conveniently. At the moment we are working on extensives upgrade on the Starfighter. The initial ASFX is really good, so it´s going well.

Quite often I also find that existing FS98 models have been quickly knocked together by just pushing around components and structures from previous similar models, but the resulting shape doesn´t tally, and for a re-build you go crazy with parts flying around all over the place. So, I build a completely new one from scratch!


I also prefer props myself! Especially the big oldies, but slowly I´m running out of models. They are getting increasingly more difficult to find!

Anyway, cheers...
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hi everyone!
Here are the links to another couple of "golden oldies" I´ve just uploaded.

Blackburn GP Seaplane (GP = General Purpose) prototype, 1916:
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=19&id=19239


Blackburn Kangaroo RT1 Reconnaissance Torpedo Bomber
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=19&id=19238

They have Dp files too. I wonder what this kind of plane is like in combat without a couple of good escorts though, because they are not exactly nimble, although they could take quite a beating.

I hope you enjoy them!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I had a look at your Curtiss Twin JN and was quite pleasantly amazed.
YOUR model certainly pushes the limits of AF99 much more than any of mine ever have.
You also included the AFX, so I poked around at that as well which is how I confirmed that indeed you have pushed the limits.
30 Components - No surprise, Any worthwhile model will be pretty close here.
30 Structure - Hmmm. I have never even come close, but I believe I understand where you used them.
1170 Parts which is pretty far up there.

Out of curiosity, why did you make the crew only an optional display?

Very Nicely Done.
- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

Thank you for your good words on my models! Buzz Lightyear did better, and went beyond the limits - to infinity and beyond - but then, we aren´t plastic!

The CFS1 versions I´ve uploaded in the last few days here at SOH are newer than the FS98 ones, with slight improvements on some minor aspects (glue and part order mainly) because of CFS1´s slightly higher sensitivity to bleedthrough. Also, guns pointed upwards - useless for a combat simulator! Now they are parallel to the fuselage, shooting in the direction you are flying. This is probably also better for the rear gun against an enemy on your tail.

On these Great War models, I have crew and guns appear by pressing the lights key ("L)". I felt sorry for the crew having to sleep sitting in their planes - now they can go home and the gun is taken away to avoid theft. Jokes aside though: As these planes didn´t have lights, the "L" key came in handy so you can take a screenshot of the parked, unarmed plane.

However, should people prefer the crew permanently on display, I can change that and eliminate the "L" key thing on future releases.

I can gladly make a zipped package and upload the AFX/PCX files of the other uploaded planes (2 Blackburns and 2 AIRCO DH-10A). I hadn´t included the source files because I wasn´t sure if there was interest.

At the moment, my present re-work is taking longer than I expected, on two 1915 pusher biplanes. I´ve run into trouble with the texture on a 9-cylinder radial engine component (after making the machine gun 3D instead of 2D, raising parts-count from 134% to 139%). It even has valve push-rods, and everything seemed OK, but suddenly the texture now becomes black in the lower half of the engine. Strangely enough, this glitch disappears after you load two different planes into CFS1 before re-loading this one! I even wrote the texture coordinates into the .afa file by hand, but it still happens. Probably I´ll have to leave the engine un-textured, but it still looks cool though!

I hope to upload these 2 new ones this weekend. I´ll leave the source files in as well. One of them is at 150% - just one more part will make AF99 protest bitterly! Oh, what fun!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hi again!

AFX/PCX Files for 4 previously uploaded biplanes of the Great War:

- Blackburn RT1 Kangaroo reconnaissance and torpedo bomber, 1916
- Blackburn GP General purpose armed Seaplane, 1916
- DeHavilland 10-A Amiens MkIII bomber, 1918
- DeHavilland 10-A Amiens Mk IIIa bomber, 1918


...for those who have a) the necessary curiosity to look into such things, or b) just want to do so for fun, or c) want to improve them or use them as a basis for a variant.

I´ve just uploaded them in the "CFS1 Other add-ons" section with the following link:

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=21&id=19253

Enjoy!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello,

Here´s quite a strange looking 1915 pusher biplane with twin-booms by Gustav Otto and his factory AGO Flugzeugwerke, (the origin of the BMW company!). It had less parasitic drag than the strutted or lattice-type fuselage in use at that time. It was his first military design after his successfull series of Otto Pusher-biplane trainers.

The engine was a 172 hp Mercedes D.III. and it was nice to fly, with a completely clear, unobstructed view/firing field ahead for the observer/gunner, and also very important, clean air to breathe! - no exhaust or castor-oil in the face!

There were subsequent almost identical models with a very slightly shorter wingspan, and very slightly longer tailbooms, with the stronge 220 hp Mercedes D.IV engine, combat-rated at 232 hp. The colour schemes were pale yellow and pale blue, colours which AF99 cannot cope with.

Should you want to try out the 60 horsepower increse (it is definitely noticeable!), just increase the horsepower to 232 in the .air file.

And: Should anyone want to paint a 232 hp version of this plane in pale yellow or pale blue for CFS1, I can gladly provide the colour schemes.


Here´s the link to the upload, including source files:
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=19&id=19254

Any suggestions or constructive criticsism will be welcome!
Once again, enjoy!
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello,

I was musing on using structures... These poor things have suffered so much aversion in AF99 by quite a few modellers in the past, some of whom even hated them so much they never used them! This is not only because they eat up so many parts, (a bigger problem in BOA Flight Shop back then than now), but also because of their difficulty to "marry" exactly to adjacent components. You can, though...

However, they have their purpose. Ivan has also mentioned that intelligent use of them can save you lots of components to use elsewhere.

Anyway, I love using them whenever and whenever I can. They save lots of work, especially on rounded surfaces so difficult to make by hand. They can even be used for perpendicular, rectangular wings and tailplanes, and their flaps, ailerons and elevators, for which they don´t eat up many parts, although longitudinal joints sometimes show, as only with transverse joints you have the option not to show bulkheads.

What is really great, is to use the structure "top half only" and/or "bottom half only" option. You can fit two different upper and lower shapes together using the same top template, e.g. engine nacelles on the nose or wings, a dome shape for the upper half of the upper fuselage and a keystone (ufff! why don´t keystones work outside the centreline?!), and even putting them into two different groups - "Body main" and "Canopy - high wing". One useful thing can be to use the 10-sided circle bulkhead here, as the vertical sides disappear. They will not be cut in half, and neither will any fore or aft bulkhead be, by the way.

Another nice place to use structures could perhaps be vertical tailfins and rudders: Triangular bulkheads labeled "top half only". For the bottom section of a rudder, a "V" shaped bulkhead. Beware though: You have to make separate top templates for structures on the left. These won´t mirror.

Lots of component-saving manouevers indeed! They seem to contribute to keeping AF99 happy without complicating its life with an excessive degree of complication. This way a parts count of 150% can be attained - one more part will exceed the absolute limit of1200 parts, and only then does AF99 bitterly complain!

Anyway, happy modelling, especially now, during the Christmas hols!!

Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello!

Here is a 1916 Russian variant of the Voisin-5 pusher biplane, the Ivanov-Voisin Anatra. This one had a lattice-type or strutted fuselage, and a radial engine.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=19&id=19258

Enjoy!
Alatorylamp

[Ivan]

Thanks for all the good information, Aleatorylamp.

You are describing a few techniques I have simply never tried before. Perhaps I should go experiment a bit more with Structures.
My choice has been generally not to go there because I believe I have more control and precision with Components.
I don't use them much for many of the reasons you mentioned and have honestly never tried the Top Half Only or Bottom Half Only techniques.

I use them a lot as references for a nice smooth curve as I did for the general Nacelle shape on the Lightning and Macchi fighters.

I have 9 of them currently in the P-38J Lightning and am about to cash in 3 of them for Components to add two more Structures.
I am also debating on using Alpha Transparency on the Canopy as you suggested. Normally the translucent canopy doesn't bother me, but it does on this Aeroplane.

Have you noticed the relatively high download count of your aeroplanes?

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

One of the problems with structures is that somehow the rendered shape comes out a bit narrower than an adjacent component, so the structure templates have to be adjusted, to avoid "welding gaps" on the model.
I hope you can manage and it´s not too annoying to use them!

Yes, I´m happy to see there´s quite some interest for my aeroplanes! They are some of my more recent ones, so they didn´t require much updating. The older ones I´m preparing now need a lot more re-work. Especially the German Grossflugzeug and Riesenflugzeug models. I have to re-build all the fuselages to put in crew and guns.

They had hollow fuselages for the cockpit and gunner wells, transparent windows, some even had a corridor joining them and a rear firing tunnel downwards through the fuselage. I hope not to have to sacrifice all of the hollow 3D and windows, but I´ll have to get rid of some, as it not only caused bleedthrough problems, but made it impossible to add crew and guns. It also uses up so many individual parts, so that the AF99 compilation limit barely reached 100% (800 parts).

At the moment it´s the medium-sized AEG G.4k twin, quite a manoueverable twin-engined Great War bomber with an 882 lb load capacity and a 20mm cannon in the nose. It´s coming on quite nicely and should be ready for upload soon. Let´s see...

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

The Germans sure had some original names for their aeroplanes:
Big Aeroplane
and
Giant Aeroplane

I have never had much luck in getting Structures to match vertices with regular AF99 Parts. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't and when they don't, there really isn't a solution that I know of.
My complaint isn't that there are Structures in AF99; it is more that Components are so much more useful in general and that I personally find Component limits to be more challenging. I don't think I have ever come close to running out of Structures, but obviously you have.

Here are a few screenshots of a case for which a single Structure easily took the place of roughly 3 Components.
It cost more Parts, but the total project stayed well under the 100% Limit while most projects are closer to the 150% Limit.

The Gun is done as two Structures in this project, but that is only because I put the front piece in the Nose Group and back piece in the Body, Main Group.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan!
Very interesting indeed, that gun - and textured too!
I had to do one on mine in 2 structures to get 2 colours, and didn´t have a texture left over.
Cheers,
Ateatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hello again!

I wonder if anyone can help: I´m having trouble with the landing gear on a number of air files which in FS98 in seemed to be OK, but could it be that CFS1 is more sensitive here? Sometimes they won´t budge on the landing-strip. I´ve checked that the scrape points aren´t underground...
It´s a very low-powered aircraft - only 50 hp - It only seems to work if I enter 65 hp - as if ground friction is too much. I must be missing some parameter or other!

Thanking you in advance for any advice!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

Regarding Texturing:
It sounds like you are using one texture file per Piece of your aeroplanes. That is not necessary. Multiple pieces can share the same texture. Just adjust the scale to be able to represent the level of detail you want in your model.

Regarding Landing Gear:
I would suggest you get and load a copy of Jerry Beckwith's VERY USEFUL test gauges.
I set this up as a "TestPanel" aeroplane and just alias to it when I am flight testing.

I don't do much with FS98 AIR files so I am assuming they work about the same as CFS:

1. Set your aeroplane for the amount of power needed to get it moving.
Observe the thrust generated at Zero airspeed.
Observe the propeller pitch at Zero airspeed.

2. Reset the Horsepower back down to where you wanted it.
Observe the thrust that is being generated at Zero airspeed.

3. Go to your Propeller Efficiency Table (I believe this is 511) and find the Prop Pitch entry for Zero advance ratio and increase it until you get the thrust required to get moving.
Adjust the entry - See if there is enough Thrust - Repeat as needed.

This should not affect your performance at all because nothing else except for hanging by your propeller depends on the Propeller Efficiency at Zero airspeed.
Note that in theory, there should be Zero efficiency at Zero airspeed, but I don't believe that is how CFS works.

Let me know if it worked for you.
- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

Thanks for your answers!
My AF99 doesn´t usually accept specific entries for texture coordinates unless written directly into the .afa file ever since I changed from Win98 to WinXP. The people at Abacus couldn´t help there either.

I got the test panel gauge, and the information it supplies is indeed striking!

The .air file in question needs a thrust of just over 200 to get moving. It didn´t have the Propeller Parameter section, only the propeller entries in the Piston Engine section, so I added one over from the CFS1 Hurricane, and I´m increasing the first two Zero rows at the top, but nothing has happened to the thrust reading yet, which stays at 109. Being a fixed pitch wooden propeller, perhaps this isn´t meant to work?

Just edited: I adjusted some propeller parameters in the Piston Engine Section and managed to squeeze out the necessary extra thrust and now it works fine.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Glad it worked for you!

It is really cool to be able to tweak a single parameter to make a flight model do what you want, but sometimes it might be indicative of a more general problem that needs a bigger patch. If you switch to a complete CFS AIR file, you can get the engine torque effects, but there would be a LOT of things to fix.

I had to do some of the same things when I was building the Eindecker.
The biggest issue was trying to figure out how a fixed pitch propeller would behave and I basically cheated there:

I began with a P-51 as usual, and of course the Propeller Power Coefficient would have been WAY different, but it didn't matter because I left it as a constant speed prop until I got a reading of the prop angle at maximum speed which was then fed back into the AIR file.

There is an Albatros D.Va that needs a proper AIR file before I can finish it up. Problem is that I don't know how to build a biplane AIR file.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

Things often get more complicated that one expects. It appears that FS98 .air files flying in CFS1 do so in "simplified mode". Also, the surface friction changes from asphalt to grass in CFS1 - planes that don´t move in Interlaken, do move in Velizy Villacoublay... Well, I´m not complaining - I´m thankful that FS98 .air files are at least compatible with CFS1 - even if not vice-versa!

As FS98 .air files have no entry for biplane wings, the 2 friends I had who wrote .air files for my "big planes" and "giant planes", did the Wing Section as follows:

Span: Span of the longer wing ONLY (usually the top).
Area: Sum total of both upper and lower wings.
Chord: Sum total of the average chord of both upper and lower wings.

The wing area parameter entry seems obvious, and the chord parameter being the sum of both chords would be obvious too, accounting for increased lift and drag of the two wings. The span not being duplicated would maintain the behaviour of the relatively short span of biplanes, as otherwise we´d have a huge glider, which would not do at all!

I hope this helps!

Speaking of "big" and "giant" planes...Somehow this sounds much more imposing in German - even the word "aeroplane", "Flugzeug" in German, means "flying thing", totally ridiculous in English! ...and a car would be a people´s powered wagon in German! Funny how languages transmit their own atmosphere.

I hope all followers of this thread and everyone else in SOH have a nice Christmas Dinner!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I believe that going full CFS AIR file versus modifying a FS98 version would be better.
If you don't have the same propeller records in FS98, then you probably can't simulate the very heavy gyroscopic effect of a rotary engine.

I don't know that the numbers you describe would not work, but I bet there are a lot more factors involved.
I have actually tried to read the NACA Report by Max Munk on the subject but the problem is that my math today is much worse than when I was in High School or College. This is pretty much the definitive information source, but unfortunately it is written mostly in mathematica formulae rather than readable English.

Things don't seem so obvious to me because with two wings, you run into the issue of stagger, gap, and doubled wing tip losses.
Are the angles of incidence the same? Are there interference issues between them? I am sure all of these would have an effect that isn't easy to simplify.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Merry Xmas day to everyone!
Free time to do things is the best present!

Ivan, I´m afraid I´m out of my depth with the deeper details in FS98 .air files, let alone CFSD1 ones.
My understanding of aircraft, propellers and biplanes is rather simple. I wouldn´t know how to simulate the large gyroscopic effect - obviously the propeller inertia and propeller diameter parameters won´t be enough.
I know there is one parameter that refers to the engine torque pulling the plane right or left, but I don´t know which it is.

As regards biplanes, there are obvious limitations, and I doubt more complicated things can be simulated: Greater wing efficiency due to the combined effect between the wing-planes, and a possible staggerwing effect (top plane further aft) causing stall sooner are possible, I suppose, but only one angle of incidence entry is available (I don´t know if they can be different), so the possible effect of two different ones would have to be simulated using other parameters.

Probably the best solution is a work-around - i.e. going for the overall expected behaviour, playing around with the more complicated available parameters on the 3 axes, which unfortunately I´m not much help on.

Interference between wings and double wing-tip losses would perhaps create a greater altitude loss in turns, and a greater rudder effect on roll, probably not much difference in adverse yaw, but I don´t know. I´m very much out of my depth here, and not much help.

On top of this, we have the 2 different ways that AirEd and FDEdit refer to Angle of Incidence/Angle of Twist and Wing Efficiency/Angle of Incidence.

Such are the complications!

Anyway, for monoplanes, in my humble opinion, you have managed admirably on your P38 .air file and the Emil Messerschmidt!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hi again!

This would be the first of the "Grossflugzeug" - the big planes. I´ve been re-working the AEG G.IV rather heavily, and have had to take some decisions. Control surfaces were only 2d and needed body, and there were no crew or weapons. This required so many extra parts, that it was impossible to do with AEG G.IV-K: The anti-tank cannon in the cut-away lower nose, the biplane tail and the twin rudders were just too many parts, so I had to go for the AEG G.IV with its more conventional tail.

Even so, after eliminating the hollowed-out fuselage on the old model and getting the control surfaces into 3d, the shapes for guns and crew are rather square and simple, because I´ve completely run out of parts. There´s also nothing left for a rear ventral gun in a trapdoor, but perhaps it would be a good idea just to leave it in in the DP files - to surprise the enemy coming from below behind!

I still have to do some welding on hairline-gaps, but hopefully I´ll get it done for an upload after this weekend or so. Let´s see how it goes.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp