Hello fellow virtual aerial firefighters!
I am glad to announce that I have been working for a few... months on modelling and interfacing a pélicandrome model with Lorby SI's FireFighterX!
"Pélicandrome" is how refill stations are named in France, a portmanteau of Pélican, the callsign of French waterbombers (Catalinas, then CL-215 and CL-415) and aérodrôme (airfield).


An issue with the animations got me banging my head against the wall for most of the last two months. I couldn't find a solution (the modelling wizards at FSDeveloper.com neither). So I have had to change my way of dealing with the hose and hose crew animations, and I have just been able to come to a quite satisfying solution. The hose crew can't walk around (having them walk would mean I could not fix the anim issue), so they "slide around" in a static pose (pose that you can see in the following pictures). I know this is not ideal, but I had come to a point I was faced with the eventuality of discarding the whole project. 😱
But the hose is animated as one could expect.

I still have to work on the hose gear texture and a ground poly, and Lorby SI are working on their side so that they can introduce a specific function to create the hose crew model at the right spot in the sim.

So it is definitely comes along nicely. Stay tuned!


PS : I tested first the marshaller and stripes, then the hose crew and gear. The released version will feature all these items together, of course.

View of the marshaller and the positioning stripes


Default Position of the Hose crew


Bringing the Hose to the Aircraft


Hose Connected, Walking Away


Refilling Ongoing


Topped Up, Coming to Disconnect

And I apologise for having forgotten to screenshot the hose crew dragging the hose away from the aircraft...