NASA repaint of Alphasim Freeware F-107A for FS2004.zip 2024-05-11

Two North American F-107A aircraft were flown at the NACA/NASA High-Speed Flight Station starting in November 1957 and continuing until September 1959. The F-107A possessed some interesting features that NACA wished to examine in detail. NACA acquired the first and third F-107As built.Originally called the F-100B, the tactical flighter bomber was so extensively redesigned that the designation was changed before the first F-107A (Serial #55-5118) flew in 1956. It featured a large inlet located above the fuselage for a Pratt & Whitney YJ75-P-11 engine with afterburner, a very sophisticated stability augmentation system, and a movable vertical fin. In July 1959 the F-107A (Serial #55-5118) airplane designated NACA #207 was donated to the NASA High-Speed Flight Station. The first aircraft proved mechanically unreliable and only made 4 flights before NASA grounded it. The third aircraft built, F-107A (Serial #55-5120) made its first NACA/NASA flight on July 25, 1958. It would complete 39 more flights during 1958 and 1959 before being damaged in a takeoff accident on September 1, 1959, fortunately without injury to the pilot. During this period an electronically-controlled side-stick program was NASA's major accomplishment with the craft, after the proposed inlet and fin studies went by the wayside. The complex inlet, with its movable inlet ramps and variable inlet control, caused many problems and all were finally positioned in a fixed mode. Engineers at NASA modified the F-107A NASA #120, with a so-called Side-stick Flight Control System. (Side-stick was the center stick, modified and moved to the side of the cockpit area and could be used with wrist motion only) This system had been planned for the upcoming X-15 program. North American refined the design and the designated X-15 test pilots gained experience before having to use it in the actual X-15 airplane. It eventually led to all side-controlled joysticks as is now employed in the F-16. For that alone, the F-107A owns its place in aviation history. This repaint of the freeware Alphasim FS9 North American F-107A, Serial #55-5120, is a complete repaint of the four major textures. Alphasim's default texture left a lot to be desired as far as the sharpness of the red paint demarcation, it was too jagged, even in all Anti-aliasing. Seeing the textures, one knew why. They were not crisp at all. So I decided to start from scratch, making layers for the metal, red, layer sets for the lines and rivets, and decals. I maintained Alphasim's Alpha gray, but made new Alpha channels for all whiting out the the new paint scheme. The four main textures are in DXT3 to maintain a good Alpha Channel. The texture misc2 with the exhaust nozzle is in its default Extended 16-bit 565 format. I modified the texture of the exhaust nozzle, because I felt it looked far to bright a metal color in default in screens than seen in reference. I did nothing more than make a Photoshop copy, so it could be layered, highlight the exhaust nozzle area, clicked new layer and applied a layer first of 100% very dark gray, then reduced the opacity until the desired darker shade of metallic. Some things are in the .mdl file and I could not change. The NASA F-107A had no cannon. I painted the ports, but could not cover the gun ports themselves. Alas, some things do not go as per conviction to accuracy. This is not a hard airplane to take off and fly, but landing is entirely another matter. it will take a whole lot of runway. Stall speed is 200 mph, so you have to need to have somewhere like Edwards AFB to fly it. As with all low-aspect wings, it will roll om a dime, but it is twitchy, it takes a steady hand. View is fantastic and a good VC is in the Alphasim package. Go to http://www.alphasim.co.uk/fwd.html, click Freeware and scroll under USAF/USN to F-107 and click for the download. Caz Dalton. By Cazzie, 2009-01-19 09:07:44