Veneaviones Rockwell Turbo Commander 690B VC Upgrade

[expat]

This one never leaves my active aircraft folder. Just a beautiful model. Great short field and IFR performer AND will do 300 kts over the ground. I actually think this is faster than the Turbine Duke which has a lower airframe speed restriction.

It works well in FSX and am trying to update the VC a bit. I have imported some payware gauges e.g. from the Flight1 Pilatus PC-12 and have the "repair kit" if anyone is interested to fix the windscreen and air.cfg changes to make it fly right in FSX. Inspired by the work of others here, I was wondering if the VC textures could be sharpened up a bit. I would in particular like to make the surface texture "cowling" around the panel (see red circles) more smooth and less mottled looking, but I am confused about which textures to change. If anyone can point me the right way or might want to take a crack at this themselves that would be most appreciated.

expat

[falcon409]

One of my real favorites for all the reasons you mentioned expat, but I lost it many years ago after a series of HDD crashes and virus attacks. Is that airplane even available any more? I know it used to be on Avsim, but after they were taken down several times by attacks I think it also disappeared.

[expat]

Howdy Ed. Hoping you might see this.

The original a/c is indeed on Avsim. Also posting my FSX fixitkit (need to mod the flight tuning to stop her wanting to pitch up).

Category: Flight Simulator 2004 - Original Aircraft Veneaviones Rockwell Turbo Commander 690B (Wingleted Version) File Description: Veneaviones Simulations Group is proud to present the Rockwell Turbo Commander 690B. This package includes two models (with and without Virtual Cockpit), and features full moving parts including ailerons, trim tabs, rudder, elevator, spoilers, accurate landing gear retraction and extension, lights at all effects. Full details like: pitot tubes, stall warn vanes, air intakes, antennas. FDE mastered with first factory hand information, customized sounds and panel. For further information please read documentation attached to this package and consult our web site and forum at www.avsim.com/veneaviones Filename: veneaviones_rockwell_turbo_commander_690bwl.zip License: Freeware, limited distribution Added: 14th January 2010 Downloads: 64503 Author: Veneaviones Simulations Group Size: 18038kb

[paiken]

The texture you're looking for is "vcpan_690". It's the rectangle in the upper left of the texture sheet. I have also been playing around with this plane, and have cleaned up some of the interior textures as well as replacing the non-working gauges with default FSX gauges. Nowhere near perfect, but it works for me. I found that making the texture a solid color, rather than the "grainy" texutre in the original is the only way to remove the stretching in the vc.

[falcon409]

Ah, got it. . .thanks expat. Looking at the textures, it is "vcpan_690" and at the top of that texture is a strip that I believe is the texture used on the glare shield. That's the problem with using a "mottled" texture on some areas when the texture is going to have to stretch to cover the surface. . .you get that unrealistic look to it. Easily corrected though. The actual VC textures are in the panel folder "panel.vc" and there are 4 main textures and all of them are pretty fuzzy, so that might take a bit to get everything sharp again. It would sure go a long way to making an excellent airplane that much better though.

[expat]

Thanks guys. Paiken - that looks MUCH better!

[falcon409]

I'm going to tackle the VC as well. I like to use shadowing around the gauges and under the glare shield to add some depth and reset all the labels to sharpen them up as well.

[expat]

That sounds great! Found this one with a Beech style tan panel surface that looks nice.

[expat]

Tried the glare shield with a lighter grey . .

[falcon409]

The first of four sections to the VC panel (before/WIP):

[expat]

Cool!

[Naismith]

Avsim seems to be down at the moment but the file is here

http://www.4shared.com/get/t_9xUUGL/...turbo_com.html

You may have to reg'd to access d/l, but I've had no problems there at all.

[falcon409]

Coming along pretty nicely so far. I will not be adding the normal shadow effect under the glare shield and the reason is that the VC panel is 4 separate panels and all of them overlap each other at the top and sides. Trying to get a shadow that follows the contour of the sides and then matches exactly the upper left and upper right sections as well as across the top would be more trouble than it's worth. . .doable, but not really, lol.

[Milton Shupe]

Howdy Ed. Hoping you might see this.

The original a/c is indeed on Avsim. Also posting my FSX fixitkit (need to mod the flight tuning to stop her wanting to pitch up).

Expat,

I took the liberty of modifying the FM to improve some of the issues.

If you wish to try it in FSX, let me know how it does. It had the same issue in FS9 and I have that and a few other things corrected.

Preserve your original air and cfg files before trying this.

For takeoff, no more than 1/2 degree of nose up trim, rotate gently at about 90 kias. Retract gear and flaps at 300AGL.

EDIT: Updated to correct Cruise Speed.

[expat]

Ed - looking really nice there on the VC textures!

Milton - many thanks for your FM file. Will try her out and report back.


Great to see the interest in this very underated aircraft!