Ford Project - New Aircraft Under Consideration

[GarryJSmith]

Hi Good People,

Edward and I are considering adding a new "Support" aircraft for use in the Ford Tri-Motor Project.

The FS2004 De Havilland DH.91 Albatross by Jens B. Kristensen.

This aircraft fits within our era specific range and would be a great addition to the overall impact of the Ford Tri-Motor Project.

Below are some screenshots of some tinkering with liveries for this girl. I know she is a fully wooden aircraft - but I, of course, did some tinkering with some full metal skin versions - just to see how they would come out.

9030 9031 9033 9034 9032

However, before we get stuck into integrating this girl into the project there are two things that need to be addressed:

(1) I have been trying to get in touch with Jens to seek his consent for us to use his aircraft for the Project but have had no response so far. Without his consent then we cannot proceed with the aircraft and a package of liveries for her. If anyone knows a more current e-mail for Jens then please let me know so that I may contact him.

(2) If consent is forthcoming then we need to know if there is interest out there for us to put in the time and effort to create a batch of era specific liveries for this girl. Therefore we request that you let us know your opinion via this forum or via e-mails to either Edward or I - your are also welcome to suggest a livery for inclusion in the suite.

Edward's e-mail lostsoulsoftexas@gmail.com (lostsoulsoftexas@gmail.com)
Garry's e-mail garry@gjsmith.net (garry@gjsmith.net)

Thanks for your time and I look forward to your responses.

Happy simming to all.

Garry

[ian elliot]

Thas an intresting subject Garry, the Albatross never really fulfilled its potential, with the war putting an end to further development, some what if schemes from you guys will be great and in some small way a very beautiful airliner will live on.
cheers ian

PS, maybe the folks over at Calclassic would know of Jens whereabouts

[HorusJ]

Garry,I hope you can get in touch with Jens.I am a huge fan of the Albatross and combined with your teams work,:applause:.

[Hurricane91]

In the past, Jens has been flying F1B Wakefield in the European Free Flight competition circuit this time of year. If he is flying this year, I wish him the best.

http://www.modelflyvning.dk/elite/fritflyvning/gammelt.aspx

[Sascha66]

This airplane would be a fine addition to the Ford Tri-Motor Project! It looks really great in the BA livery.

Sascha

[GarryJSmith]

Thanks good people for the clues on trying to contact Jens - but no luck in those leads.

Seems that Jens may have stepped away from simming around 2010 :culpability:

Will continue to seek him out.

The aircraft is a pretty good rendition of an important aircraft for the era and it would be a shame if we cannot proceed with some "what if" liveries for her to give some additional life and enrichment to history - even if they are fictional repaints they would still add some enjoyment to our simming environment.

Regards

Garry

[Drzook]

I too am a fan of Britain's First Wooden Wonder (after all what they learned with the DH.91 went a long way towards development of the DH.98 Mosquito). I especially like the powerplant choice--The Gipsy Twelve is essentially two Gipsy Six engines mated to a common crankcase making an air cooled inverted V-12. So many things could have gone wrong with the installation of this engine but not only was it one of the cleanest looking engine installations the ductwork flanking each engine managed to keep things cool--even for the rearmost cylinders.
http://www.fronta.cz/pics/clanky/tom/91_10.jpeg
As for suggested liveries, might I suggest a BOAC livery from the Early 50s to 1960s, like this Comet? I think the Albatross would wear it well...:encouragement:
http://dmflightsim.co.uk/html/gallery/COM4_BOAC.jpg

[zswobbie1]

Hi Garry,

I really like the 'blueprint'on your front page. Is it possible for me to get a copy?

Regards,
Robin

[GarryJSmith]

Hi Robin,

The "blueprint" as the entry screen for the Ford Tri-Motor Project is one that I built from several different blueprints from various sources - built into many layers and all, including the specific text etc for the Ford Project - several hours of graphic tinkering for the end results

All up about 30mb of images in multiple layers.

Then blended and compressed it all extensively to create the Entry screen jpg image.

After that it was turned into sepia to age the image to more suite the 1930's era.

As it was a one off graphics project for a single purpose I dumped the original masters and used only the end results for the entry screen.

So, in a nutshell - unless you want the Ford Project Specific image, which I doubt as it is specific to the Project, then I can only recommend you trawl the net and dig up the images and create one more meaningful to your needs.

Sorry mate.

Regards

[zswobbie1]

I really like what you have done &, as my version of Golden Wings is full of your scenery & planes, methinks it will be a fitting loading front screen.

[GarryJSmith]

Hi again Robin,

If you want a copy of the entry screen of the Ford Site for your own personal use then you could surf to the site - http://www.ford-tri-motor.net - when the image is presented - then right click on the image and select "copy"

Navigate to somewhere relevant on your computer and then right click and "paste" - rename the filename to whatever you want to call it.

Once you have it - you can resize it as necessary and use it for a spashscreen for your flightsim etc


Regards

Garry

[GarryJSmith]

Hi Robin and anyone else interested in a Splash Screen replacement.

I have rebuilt the image, modified it to be suitable as a splash screen and rescaled it to 800x600, then made a bmp version for use as a splash screen.

You can download the bmp version at: http://www.ford-tri-motor.net/images/Ford-Splash-Screen.zip 873k
Remember to back up your original Spash Screen before replacing it with the Ford version :wiggle:

Sample in JPG format below:
9234

[GarryJSmith]

Hi All,

OK - I can't resist tinkering. :wiggle:

There is now a zip file available for those who want a Ford splash screen - revamped from the previous one.

http://www.ford-tri-motor.net/images/Ford-Splash-Screens.zip 2mb

Contains three versions
Coloured
Grey, and
Sepia

Feel free to use them for your FS2004 Splash screens - remember to back up your originals.

Now back to the original topic - do you want to have the Ford Project to proceed with the DH91 development project.

PS - we now have Jens Kristensen's approval to use his aircraft.........

[zswobbie1]

Garry, a double yippee!! Thanks so much. Now for the DH.91... :-) (My left whatever for a steampunk paint collection .. lol)

Regards,
Robin

[GarryJSmith]

Hi Robin,

:biggrin-new: Glad your happy with the stuff above - however, I must be far too old - I do not get the gist of what you mean about "Steampunk" liveries.

Wikipedia is not much help - other than "historically fictional" - if that is what you mean then that is indeed what we do with most of our liveries - particularly for an aircraft like the DH91 which only had 6 aircraft ever made.

Regards

Garry

[zswobbie1]

Garry, best I can describe:
Imagine if aircraft were textured as follows:
Steampunk: Victorian style alternative history.. lots of brass & filigree detailing
Dieselpunk: Industrialised styling.
Steampunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction, usually set in an anachronistic Victorian or quasi-Victorian alternate history setting. It could be described by the slogan "What the past would look like if the future had happened sooner." It includes fiction with science fiction, fantasy or horror themes.

See here: http://forum.worldofwarplanes.com/index.php?/topic/113-steampunk-airplanes/

Medieval Steampunk: Speculative fiction set during the Middle Ages.

Victorian Steampunk: A modern Science Fiction work (post-1930s) that is set in the early parts of the industrial revolution.

Western Steampunk: Science fiction set in the American Old West.

Industrial/Modern Steampunk: Science fiction taking place in the late industrial age, early modern age; i.e. World War 1, World War 2
Examples of steampunk:
Wild Wild West
The Time Machine
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Dieselpunk is a lowbrow art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowbrow_(art_movement)) genre that combines the aesthetics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics) of diesel-based technology influenced by the interwar period (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interwar_period) to the 1950s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950) with futurist postmodern (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern) technology.
see here: http://dieselpunksencyclopedia.wordpress.com/tag/aircraft/

Sorry about the history lesson, but maybe it explains why I think some of the above will fit into your álternative' scenery?

[JoHubb]

Am glad to see you have Jens's permission. Should make an interesting project. Good luck!
Some stills and some in flight video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q_zNrj0GpM

John

[arl]

Garry,

Congratulations - both on getting Jens agreement and in holding out for a whole 11 hours on tinkering with the splashscreen. :biggrin-new:

I'm not sure which took more willpower. As you already produce as many repaints as the rest of the known universe put together, I hesitate to suggest producing even more but would it be possible to produce alternative copies of textures in the original wood as well as the metal skins?

As the DH91 had a fuselage weakness that resulted in one folding on landing, the addition of a metal skin may not cause too much offence to Sir Geoffrey's shade.....

[GarryJSmith]

Hi Arl,

Yep - graphics tinker maniac I certainly am. Can't resist a challenging idea. :wiggle:

And yep again for I certainly have pumped out a few liveries since starting 1998 - many thousands free from my various sites and other project sites I have been involved in - and many thousands of repaints for products from companies like JustFlight and Abacus to name a few. I have no idea of the overall numbers - Just keep on graphics tinkering and repainting - until they put me in a box.

Great idea by you on my metal tinkers for this girl, release a wood version as well - can and will do that for this girl. :applause:

Mostly that would entail simply removing the alpha layer and removing a darkening layer from the principle artwork.

Better get back to tinkering - got a couple of DH91's to bring back to wooden :biggrin-new:

[GarryJSmith]

Hi All,

For the sake of a tinker I have created a Wooden Plank version of the DH91 - this should make it clear to the purists out there that she is a totally wooden aircraft.

9297

Scrubbed up pretty good in FS2004 even if I do say so myself :biggrin-new:

You can check out the others that I have done over at the Ford Project site Coming Soon page:

http://www.ford-tri-motor.net/coming-soon.htm

Regard and happy simming.

[zswobbie1]

Garry, love the wood look, I'm naging again, how about brass trim instead of chrome? Methinks I'm naging a bit too much,.. Thanks again, this is going to be another great one.

I think its gonna be a case of a new install just using yours & Miltons stuff!

[arl]

Garry,

Cheers, you make it sound disarmingly simple. From a couple of feeble tinkers with repaints I found it anything but.