RA-5C Vigilante

[expat]

Keep going back to this old favorite . .

 

[gecko65]

There is definitely something about the lines on that plane - it's one of my favorites as well :ernae:

 

[flyingbrian]

I have a different RA-5C, but it really is a joy to fly.
-Brian

 

[Cag40Navy]

What RA-5's are there for FS?

 

[andersel]

The one I fly when I get that Vigilante urge is Obio's rebuild/mod of the Alphasim bird. It's in the FS2004 aircraft library.

LA

 

[fsafranek]

What RA-5's are there for FS?

Three that I'm aware of. A freeware version by Kazunori Ito and another by Massimo Altieri. And the now freeware one by Michael Davies/Alphasim.

OBIO did a lot of work on the Alphasim one here are Sim-Outhouse. I've just sent OBIO's model and texture masters to Antonio Diaz (lots of E-2C and S-3B repaints recently) to have a look at so we may be seeing some new RA-5C texture sets coming out. I did a search for "vigilante" at Simviation.com and found examples (originals/updates/repaints) of all three versions.
:ernae:

 

[expat]

The screenies at the top are of OBIO's repaint and re-worked model (with a few embellishments from me), based on the Alphasim Viggie, originally I believe an FS2002 model which still looks the business today IMHO. :salute:

 

[expat]

Some very nicely done artwork and examples of paint schemes here: http://www.markstyling.com/ra-5c.01.htm

 

[papab]

Really is a lovely bird-gear up, cleaned up passing over the Forrestal as we did a re-spot after launch-going vertical,full burner-till it was out of sight!

I was in RVAH-9 (Hoot Owls) from 1970-74, Jet mechanic...had to climb those intake ducts after every trap to check for FOD damage
Ahh, the smell of kerosene exhaust in the morning........better then a cup of coffee!

Are there any more HEAVY members out there?

View attachment 64941
Rick

 

[Navy Chief]

Rick, I was a Heavy "wannabe". When stationed at Pax River in the early 70s, I put in for a transfer to one of the RVAH squadrons. I think it was one at Key West..can't recall. The transfer would have meant a guy with that squadron would have swapped duty stations with me.

But what happened was my unit at Pax River did some checking on my replacement. Turned out he was a real dirt bag, so they nixed my transfer request. That's the closest I ever got to a heavy squadron.

We did, however, have two Viggies at Pax when I was there. Helped work on them a couple times.

The Viggie, in my opinion, was one of the most beautiful jets the USN had in it's inventory, ever. Sleek, powerful, and a joy to watch fly overhead....

NC

 

[expat]

Hooters!

 

[papab]

Expat-Great repaint!

She was a sweet bird and great to work on......

Rick

 

[papab]

Rick, I was a Heavy "wannabe". When stationed at Pax River in the early 70s, I put in for a transfer to one of the RVAH squadrons. I think it was one at Key West..can't recall. The transfer would have meant a guy with that squadron would have swapped duty stations with me.

But what happened was my unit at Pax River did some checking on my replacement. Turned out he was a real dirt bag, so they nixed my transfer request. That's the closest I ever got to a heavy squadron.

We did, however, have two Viggies at Pax when I was there. Helped work on them a couple times.

The Viggie, in my opinion, was one of the most beautiful jets the USN had in it's inventory, ever. Sleek, powerful, and a joy to watch fly overhead....

NC

The Vigilante Squadrons moved in Jan 1974 from NAS Albany, GA to NAS Key West....got two weeks basket leave on the move!

And before they converted her to recon and added extra fuel tanks and the recc canoe on her belly, she was to drop Nukes out of the bomb bay between the engines
The tail cone was to pop open and act as fins on the way down-

Out at Fallon one time, we had an Air Force Pilot on a three month cross training( A. J. Showers was his name)

After we completed this part of our carrier qual training, on departing ,A.J. held her on the deck at about 200 feet in full burner for what seemed like a 30 seconds, pulled the stick back to go vertical and at the same time pulled the fuel dump handle(dump tube comes out below the port engine). He flew out of sight with at least 200 feet of buring fuel trailing behind him....

What a show!


Rick

 

[expat]

Get the AB to work from the throttles, play around with the lights (I had to switch the red beacons to "#2 " strobes for the them to work right), get some heavyish smoke going and then top it off with this fairly ancient sound file by Eric Cantu and listen to the almighty howl of those J-79's !!!

<CENTER>FS2002 - FS2002 Sound</CENTER><CENTER>FS2002 Sound--Lockheed F-104 </CENTER><CENTER>[SIZE=-1][ Download | View ] </CENTER>[/SIZE] Name: lf104snd.zip Size: 3,682,163 Date: 01-25-2003 Downloads: 6,585 [SIZE=-1] FS2002 Sound--Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. Here's your chance to hear what the infamous missile with a man in it sounded like. Includes full suite of startup and shutdown sounds, including noise of start cart. Recorded from real recordings of an F104 Star Fighter equipped with the J79. By Erick Cantu. [/SIZE]

<CENTER> </CENTER>

<TBODY>
</TBODY>

 

[expat]

Just to show how one can have fun modding an older model like this, I have installed the "realistic HUD" by Scott Printz and Jivko Rusev
on the RA-5C (the Viggie IRL had one of the very early such displays).

This one is cool in that the "9.6 TCN" reading is the actual distance between the plane and the Javier Nimitz (9.6 miles off shore) and the green mark highlighted with the red arrow is the bearing to fly to rendevous with the CV. Last, the green arrow in the red box is the direction the CV is heading. This is all very useful and fun to have when trying to find a moving carrier in the dark or bad weather. Better still you can do this with CarrierTracks and the default moving carriers in FSX. You need to tune your Nav to 112 for Javier's Nimitz and 111 for the default cvs. Happy hunting.

You can get the HUD here: http://forums.vrsimulations.com/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2110

 

[michael davies]

Keep going back to this old favorite . .

One of the few aircraft I actually enjoyed making . I can still see the normals/vertices folding over on the intake tops and casting poly shadows, golly I anguished over those for weeks, wish I had Max back then, so much easier and nicer to bend polys with than Gmax and the silly poly limit we had way back then....think it was about 45K, most modern VC joysticks beat that in one part these days!!, silly how we managed to build a whole aircraft for what now covers a joystick or ejection seat in poly count.

 

[Victory103]

Gents, over on flightsim.com, A. Diaz has released more paints for the Viggie. Continuing on his now long line of naval aircraft repaints, including most of the Abacus FD series and some great ones for the FS9 DSB/Iris S-3 and A-7, they look good in FSX too!

 

[thunder100]

One of the few aircraft I actually enjoyed making . I can still see the normals/vertices folding over on the intake tops and casting poly shadows, golly I anguished over those for weeks, wish I had Max back then, so much easier and nicer to bend polys with than Gmax and the silly poly limit we had way back then....think it was about 45K, most modern VC joysticks beat that in one part these days!!, silly how we managed to build a whole aircraft for what now covers a joystick or ejection seat in poly count.

Time to do a new one???

Its one of my old alltime favorites and I fly all 4 in FSX with Alphasim modernized gauges (e.g. off SR71) and it is fine and a gracefull look,but just imagine what HD textures and a bump map could do to THAT beautiful plane

My 2 cents as non modeller at all

Roland

 

[expat]

Gents, over on flightsim.com, A. Diaz has released more paints for the Viggie.

Just noticed these!. Very realistic looking based on real photos. This plane was usually big, fast, loud and filthy!

One of the few aircraft I actually enjoyed making

Michael, all your work is top notch but you really nailed this one. The shape is perfect and it stands up so well after a number of years. b/t/w - the low polys are a bonus with the AI Viggies I have camping at NAS Key West!

 

[expat]

Always better looking cleaned up flying than on the ground but having fun populating NAS Key West circa mid seventies. Using a MAIW airbase scenery that ports fairly well into FSX.