Conspicuous by Their Absence

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,
Striking, isn´t it? Apparently it was very well balanced too, with a great field of vision for reconnossaince! I think the only problem was the reticence of the high command because of its unorthodox design.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

This Blohm & Voss is another project taking up some of my time at the moment.
I figured a minor repaint was all that was needed after getting the Landing Gear Animation working after all these years. It would be a quick re-release after updating.
Looks like a lot more than that is actually needed. Some of the animations don't look quite right and I have already done the first SCASM pass.
What is shown here is from the first release many years ago. This can be seen by the doubled up triangular window on the side of the pod. That was fixed on the new one but the propeller disk is a touch too small in the one I just looked at.

I believe the other accounts of the reason for not mass producing the BV-141B are much more likely:
The BMW 801 engine was in great demand. The production facilities required would have caused interruption or reduction of other more "worthy" aircraft.
The short range recon - light bomber role did not require the level of performance that this aircraft offered.

Thus, the existing aircraft were used operationally but there was no continuation of production.

Playing with the flight model for this aircraft is what gave me the idea of doing the P-38 flight model the way I did.

- Ivan.

P.S. The biggest hang up with my development at the moment is that the new laptop seems to have a few issues with the tools.
Basic tools such as MS Paint seem to have gotten some bugs.
I downloaded GIMP, but there seem to be some issues with the version I now have.
Hopefully it will get sorted out soon.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,
Definitely an interesting project with such an original machine. I really didn´t know much about it, but it sounds very enticing. Good luck with it!
I´m curious as to what aspect of flight model inspired something similar on the P-38...
As for the problems with the tools on your new laptop, I suppose Windows 8 doesn´t help much. I was able to put together quite a fast Windows XP setup shortly before Microsoft discontinued all the WinXP motherboard drivers for new computers. For example, AF99 won´t work with Windows 7 or 8, and neither will FS98. For me, luckily most of the tools work fine under WinXP.
Did you manage to get AF99 working on the new laptop with Windows 8?
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

As I said earlier, the BV 141B-0 was released many years ago. I built it with very little in the way of reference drawings but it seems to have the right shapes anyway. Recent changes were first to fix the doubled window pane on the side, re-arrange things which fixed the landing gear animation, and do the SCASM virtual cockpit. As with most things, there is no hurry for a (re)release.

The asymmetrical engine location in the BV 141 resulted in an aircraft that pulled (slightly) to the RIGHT on take-off. The general flying and handling was apparently quite good in the original as well and in the CFS version, I noticed that there was very little effect from engine torque and what little there was appeared to be a result of over compensating with engine location. I suspect it was because the original BV 141 had much less engine power than the B-0 model and the added power needed less offset of the thrust line.

This more neutral handling with little else as a side effect gave me the idea that offsetting the Port engine would have the effect of negating its torque and act as a REAL opposite rotation engine and thus counter act the Starboard engine. The offset worked pretty much as intended in my opinion.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,
Interesting, what you write about the BV141B. I was looking for it in the library but couldn´t find it, and I was just wondering how you had done the rolling axis. If I remember correctly, (correct me if I´m wrong), the plane rolled about the pilot´s cabin, and I suppose how it was achieved was by having different sized ailerons, or aileron deflection angles.
In the FD I haven´t found a way of doing this, so then I thought that it had to be done either by building the model in AF99 with the longitudinal axis centered on the pilot´s cabin, or by later re-locating the AF99 Center of Rotation.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I have no idea why I picked the BV 141 to do as a project except perhaps because I was curious what an asymmetrical engine location would do.
I also have no evidence that the aircraft's roll center was the crew cabin. In fact, I very much doubt that the roll center was that far offset.
My guess is that the roll center was closer to the fuselage than the pod.

The engine and fuel tanks and most of the things causing air resistance were on the fuselage. The fuselage was much closer to the midpoint of the wings than the pod was. If the masses were arranged to create a CoG near the pod, then one would also expect the wings to be laid out for more even lift. The Landing Gear would also be offset to balance the loads on the main wheels which from observation, it was not.

I don't recall how I built it back then, but if I were to start fresh on such a project today, I would have put the model centerline on the midpoint between the wings.
This is the most likely location for the center of gravity because otherwise, the center of lift would be offset. Yes, you could compensate with different angles of incidence, but at that point with all the offsets, why even move the engine to begin with?

As for references, I have the Schiffer X Planes book which I bought long after I released the CFS Aircraft. I also have "Wings of the Luftwaffe" by Capt. Eric Brown.
There isn't much description about the handling of the aircraft except that the lateral stability was low. It also implies that I was incorrect that the engine location over compensated for the engine torque. Capt. Brown stated that there was "surprisingly little take-off swing" which would imply that my statements about overcompensating were incorrect. He didn't say that there was reversed or no swing at all. He also commented on the poor hydraulics which has been mentioned a few times elsewhere.

I might have a few other references, so is there something in particular that you were looking for?

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,
Actually, what I was looking for is your model of the BV141, but I have no problem in waiting for your new re-release - I´m actually quite looking forward to it. No hurry at all, by the way!
I spent some time searching for info, and found data that confirms your thoughts:
The CoG was between the Pod and the fuselage, with the advantage that it counteracted engine torque. In fact, it virtually cancelled it out, making the asymmetrical design stabler than a symmetrical one!
Then, I also found a couple of old films on the U-Tube, and though the flying did not include any strong rolls, there is a turn/back sequence where one can see that the rolling axis is between the pod and the fuselage.
OK, then!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I believe I uploaded this aeroplane here back in 2003 or so.
This place has had enough crashes and missing stuff since then that I do not believe it is here any more.
(Check your email.)

There is another BV 141B that is out there. I found it a few years ago but I believe mine is a bit prettier (is that the correct word???) even in the original version.

Here is a screenshot of the other out that I know about.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,
For a start, yours has prettier, rounder edges and cross-sections!
More later,
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Finally after all these years, my BV 141B gets a camouflage paint job.
There is a lot of touch-up for overspray that still needs to be done though.
It is an interpretation of a general pattern based on several aircraft, the HiPM model kit instructions, Airfix kit instructions and other artwork but not copying any one in particular.

Now it just needs a touch more SCASM and a proper panel.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

This is similar to the background for the control panel I plan to build.
It needs a bit more reworking but you can pretty much guess where it came from.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,
The camo pattern looks really cool, and the background for the panel is very fitting!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

The fairly simple camouflage was a lot harder to apply than it appears.
At the tail, there are multiple components coming together and the lines should match between the pieces.
The problem though is that it is hard to find any reliable camouflage information at all. The photographs of the actual aircraft don't show much if any contrast between the two topside colours even on the wings and I have not been able to find any tail shots that are not of model aircraft. Even my book from Schiffer uses Airfix instructions for painting their 1:72 model and half of the photographs in the book are of model kits.

Still I like the way it turned out. You have the model and can see the interior of the cockpit. Others don't so they can't see that the "Panel" is really a screenshot of the V-cockpit.
Lots of things still need checked after all the pieces are in place.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

I remember my friend Udo Entenmann, who usually textures for me in the past, saying that camo textures were one of the hardest, only surpassed by the Gotha and Staaken lozenge textures. It´s also a difficult job of imagination, deduction and extrapolation when the photos available black and white and far between!

After spraying or drawing them, he would use an additional photoshop process he called "soft washing", which I believe is the blending option, to soften the divisions or borders between the colours, which has a very good effect indeed!

Then, for dashboard and VC dashboard textures, he did panel screenshots, but we never got very much into making panels themselves - actually we had no one in charge for that!

All the textures on my later models are "remakes" of the ones he made in the past. I cut, paste and resize parts of them to put textures together them for later models, but the basic original material is all Udo´s.

Anyway, I´m looking forward to your new model!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[hubbabubba]

This is similar to the background for the control panel I plan to build.
It needs a bit more reworking but you can pretty much guess where it came from.

- Ivan.

It is a good idea to use the model internal view for the cockpit, that's exactly what I've done for the jeep "dashboard". But if I can give you one advice on the subject; make sure that the cockpit 2D view is taken from the 3D cockpit at 1:1 ratio (- on keyboard from start, backspace then - on keyboard otherwise). Usually, the game starts on 2:1 ratio.

This, of course, is if you want 2D and 3D views to coincide and give the same field of view as the pilot would see it. Or maybe this was already done?

[Ivan]

Thanks for the advice, Hubbabubba,

My goal isn't really to get the 3D and 2D to coincide. I figure all the stock aircraft don't really match there.
All I am trying to do is to get a plausible looking panel for the BV 141. The panel for the other BV 141 for which I posted a screenshot actually uses a panel that matches a FW 189 which isn't quite the same but "plausible".

I have actually done this before; This is how I built the panel that I am using for all the A6M Type 0 Fighters.
I have the same problem here as I did for the Zero though: A prominent instrument is simply not represented in any of the stock instruments.
The Zero has an Exhaust Gas Temperature Gauge and a Radio Direction Finder. The BV 141 has only the RDF gauge in a prominent location.
The question is what to do to replace that gauge with something useful.

The goal isn't to completely duplicate the instrument locations. With the Zero, a lot of the important instruments were well below where the panel would end, so I shifted everything while trying to maintain a similar appearance.

The same thing will apply to the BV 141 panel but the problem here is that there are only 7 or 8 gauges on the main panel. The rest will have to fit on the throttle panel which will take the place of the Port side console. There may be yet another auxiliary panel if everything doesn't fit.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

This new Window 8.1 Operating System still seems to have its share of "Bugs".
I do wonder though: If something is working well, why break it in the next release?

I have been using MS Paint for editing BMP files for quite some time.
Generally it is pretty easy to get what you want accomplished without much fuss.... At least with the older versions.
The new version seems to alter the Palette of the BMP from the default one used by AF5Paint and that kind of "corruption" makes the tool nearly useless now.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

I believe I have found a work-around:
An earlier version of MS Paint copied from a Windows 2000 machine seems to work well enough.
So far, GIMP, MS Paint, and the Calculator all seem to be worse than earlier versions.
This is not promising.

- Ivan.

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Ivan,

I believe I´d have a problem if I had to use Windows 8 instead of Windows XP.
For texturing, I´m still using the MGI Photo Suite 8.05, which ages ago came with a scanner that no longer exists, and works fine for most things - including screenshots, cut and paste, and cloning areas. Then, for more difficult things like lens effects I use Photoscape, which is more user friendly than Photoshop.

Have you managed to make AF99 work on your new computer?
I gather CFS1 works well once the Joystick issue is solved.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[aleatorylamp]

Hi all, Hi Ivan,
I started a new threat for this plane because there are several issues to address, including in the FD.
It might be interesting!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I don't really plan on installing either AF99 OR CFS onto the laptop.
I use it mostly for utilities and Internet Access and to process images and reference materials.
The old Pentium 233 MMX is still in service as a development machine.

The problem with using the laptop as a development or game machine is that its aspect ratio is way way off.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

One comes across a model that is very old but quite good.
This one looks pretty good to me even though it is FS98 or earlier.
I actually have no idea where I downloaded this from but it was a LONG time ago.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

As it turns out, this aeroplane is based on the same 3D model as the others. The big difference is that this version has "glass" in the canopy which hides the pilot pretty well and also does not have animated control surfaces as some of the others do. The Paint Job is also one of the better ones in my opinion.

Since it was not animated, I decided to give it a trip through Aircraft Animator.
The Propeller Animation was pretty basic.
The Landing Gear Animation required only a couple minor tweaks to align with the wheel wells.
The Flaps do not match those on the actual aircraft particularly well.
I changed the basic Flap Animation to function as Fowler Flaps much like the"Butterfly" Flaps on the actual aircraft.

After playing with it a while, I am thinking that perhaps I should put the Ki-43 Hayabusa at the front of my build list.
It does seem like this would be a nice little nimble fighter to own.

- Ivan.

[No Dice]

No insult to the original author, but your aircraft a quite a bit better sir.

Dave

[Ivan]

Thanks No Dice, but the credit is undeserved. I had nothing to do with the model other than finding it.
Some other fellow deserves the credit for the modifications though from what I can see, most of it is just a pretty good pain job.

My animations really do nothing for the appearance other than to bring it closer to typical FS98 standards.
My version whenever I end up building it will be way different in method of construction though perhaps not in appearance.

By the way, Check your email soon. There should be something interesting there soon.

- Ivan.