Cry "Havoc" and Let Slip the Frogs of War!

[Ivan]

Just messing around with some templates.
Note that the Nacelle Template is not anywhere near correct.

- Ivan.

[smilo]

verry cool.
i look forward to watching the progress
of this long awaited project.

i remember spending many hours
trying to get the raised gear to fit, just right,
into the back of those nacelles.
'twas a tight fit, it was.

then there was some issue with the gear doors.
can't remember exactly what.
probably, operator error.

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,

You were probably trying to do too much detail. Wheels fitting into Nacelles and Gear Doors closing correct are declare NOT to be problems in THIS Project. That is the beauty of doing 3D Design for games. Stuff doesn't NEED to actually move correctly. It just needs to LOOK like it does and in CFS, the standards are not very high.

As usual, there are conflicts in the dimensions in drawings for this beast as well.

- Ivan.

[smilo]

nacelles too small,
tires to big,
gear arc of travel just a skosh off.

call me a stickler for detail..
i didn't like the look of raised tires
protruding through the top of the nacelles.
'twas kinda distracting.

so, dink, dink, dink, on and on,
trying to get it right.

chalk it up to lack of experience.

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,

Here's the deal: Big Tires, Small Nacelle, it really doesn't matter much. The Tire never finishes retracting into the Nacelle because when about half of it would be within the Nacelle, it disappears entirely. If it didn't, we could never manage the bleed problem that would result. Consider also that the tires are AF99 Structures typically. That means that they have nice square corners and would never fit inside anything reasonable.

As for the arc of retraction being off, have you ever looked at the gear linkages on the Hawker Hurricane? That situation is darn near impossible to simulate with Aircraft Animator. The same applies to the retraction arcs on the F4F Wildcat. I don't know that I gave it proper treatment, but the result seemed passable to me with the tools available. On the F4U Corsair, I didn't really do a rotate and swing like the real aeroplane does. I just picked a simple arc that resembled it to some extent.

Don't get hung up on the details. Just build!
- Ivan.

[smilo]

apples and oranges,
or is it oranges and apples.

whatever...i really need to watch
what i say and where i say it.

you're experience is mainly with af99,
my limited experience is with ad2k.

trust me, the tires do not disappear
halfway into the nacelle in ad2k.
they will come right through the top
if one is not careful...i've done it.

so, i will leave it at that,
except to apologize
for taking the thread off track.

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,

On the main gear of something like the A-20 Havoc / Boston, the real retraction covers about a 90 degree arc, but the wheel should be hidden within the nacelle between about 45 and 60 degrees. Why not specify the retraction arc as only 45 degrees and then have it disappear? OR you could move the pivot point forward and down so that the wheel moves forward into a larger part of the nacelle as well as up?

BTW, this is no distraction from the project. I don't know that I have a track in mind except that the first cut will not be very full featured.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

About a week ago, I stopped by a local Aircraft Modeller's Meeting and they had a "Parts Box" which I looked through for anything useful.

I collected a couple dozen stray pieces of plastic. Among them were most of the pieces of the fuselage for a 1:72 Scale Matchbox A-20 Havoc.
There isn't enough here to come anywhere close to building an entire aircraft or even a complete fuselage but there IS enough here to assemble a basic shell without canopies or other glazing.

Perhaps this will help with seeing the shape a bit better.

- Ivan.

[smilo]

that might be fun.

another option might be to watch Milton build one for FS9 & X.
it seems to be on his short list for 2014.

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,
Seeing one for another simulator isn't really appealing to me. I have plenty of photographs and references if the shape of the aeroplane was what I was interested in, but what I really want is to own one. The model fuselage just brings the task one step closer to completion.

- Ivan.

[smilo]

i found this interesting;
http://modelingmadness.com/review/al...f/bakera20.htm
and then, there's this. only page 1 of 6;
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=...0+havoc&crdt=0

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,
I wish the modeler doing the kit comparison WAS a serious rivet counter. As it is, a simple comparison of these old 1:72 kits isn't quite as helpful. FWIW, I actually used 1:72 scale Airfix models to help build both the Hellcat and the FW 190A. It really helps to have something 3D to look at while building. The FW is a pretty well shaped kit, but the Hellcat was not which may explain a few things because I did everything by Eyeball back then.

The eBay page was really helpful because I just realized that I also have the AMT 1:48 scale kit in my basement and three or four of the books being sold.

Thanks!
- Ivan.

[smilo]

don't know about counting rivets.
i'll leave that to others in other sims.
i ain't that picky.

the purpose of the links was just to show availability.
i was surprised to see just how much there was.

i've always liked solid wood models,
but could never afford one.
i have several guillow balsa models.
they are very basic, but the shape is there.

got me to thinking about, say, the a-20 drawings.
specifically, the bulkheads and wing cross sections.
if one wanted to take the time,
a physical model could be built.
either as bulkheads with stringers (like a guillow)
or as a solid with the bulkheads as reference points.

who knows, maybe someday...

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,

The term "Rivet Counter" is slang with plastic modellers for someone who is very uptight about the exact shapes and dimensions in a model kit. The fellow doing the reviews on HyperScale was just the opposite: "Looks about right....". I believe a "Rivet Counter" review would be much more useful because there is more information.

The actual fuselage I have is from Matchbox PK-120 which is a A-20G. It isn't the model I intend to build because I believe the dorsal turret spoils the lines of the aircraft. Matchbox kits generally have a pretty fair shape, but the panel lines are way too deep and wide. Figure that if they existed as full size aircraft, the panels would have a gap around 3 inches wide.

Regarding Wooden Models, I believe the standards there are generally pretty low. Personally I would suggest building a Flight Sim version first because the visualising would be so much easier.

Regarding Standards, my neighbour's wife has a bunch of little B-26 Marauder models made of wood. They are probably around 1:144 scale though you can tell from the shapes that the accuracy isn't very good, yet they have a really great appeal to them just because they exist and you can handle them and look at them from all angles. I am sure I could make a nicer one, but I would also get too hung up on the details to actually finish the model.

- Ivan.

[smilo]

as i recall, years ago, i saw the term,
rivet counter, in a texturing tutorial.
same definition, different format.

as i see it, being one in cfs is an exercise in futility.
this doesn't mean that we shouldn't do our best,
just that there are detailing limits with cfs1.
of course, then there is the dwindling cfs community.
at times i find that i ask myself, why bother?
but then i answer, who's hobby is it?

plastic kits and guilows? i have several. still in the boxes.
except for the mosquito i built years ago.
waiting, waiting....maybe someday.

thinking more and more about a scratch built model.
kinda funny. first i will need printed accurate drawings.
in all these years, i have never had or used printed drawings.

talk about standards. it was years ago and i no longer have the link.
did you ever see the p-51 model? the detail was incredible.
right down to linkage, hydraulic lines and rivets. simply amazing.

[Ivan]

There are a lot of things that are an exercise in futility as far as CFS1 is concerned.
I recognise that. Whether or not that futility is important depends on what your goal is.
Mine is to learn more about aeroplanes and simulators are just one rather large part of that.
CFS is the environment I am attempting to use to apply things that I am learning.
It may not be entirely realistic, but it is the closest I am going to get to having my personal wind tunnel and being able to fly in the near future.

Gathering the information and making sense of it is a reasonable goal to me even if it never translates into a project for CFS. I just spent a bit over a week looking for information about aircraft ammunition weights even though very precise values make nearly no difference in CFS, but I did that because of my interest in the subject.

The same goes for trying to figure out how to tune engines in a well determine fashion in CFS. It's an interesting way to see how things are inter-related and how they work at least in the simulators. Sometimes it drives other research such as how Manifold Pressure readings translate between different measurement systems. These are subjects I probably would never have thought of if I were not involved in flight simulators.

As for plastic models, I easily have several hundred kits in my basement. I also haven't built one in years. The ones I have completed are now sitting in boxes because other than picking one up and looking at it, there really isn't anything else to do with them. Most of them also are still not "complete" in that they don't have a proper paint job which is also how my CFS projects end up.

In the simulator, you can also "Fly" your creation around a bit to see if your idea of how to do things matches up with reports of the actual aircraf and perhaps if the projects get finished, even share the result with others.

- Ivan.