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Aeroplane Heaven A6M Zero

hangarrat101 said:
Just released for MSFS 2020, 2024 compatible:

aeroplaneheaven.com

Aeroplane Heaven - You're virtually there.™ Mitsubishi Zero A6M-2 for MSFS2020

Aeroplane Heaven has been developing software for flight simulation for 25 years. In that time we have produced nearly 60 different commercial releases for our own brand and for other publishers and distributors Worlwide.
aeroplaneheaven.com aeroplaneheaven.com
Click to expand...
You beat me to it. Was just about to post it myself! And since this is a new release, sticky! :)

Priller
 
Just as I have no interest in any Russian airplane, I have Zero interest in the Zero. Nothing to do with Aeroplane Heaven, just my quirky inherited prejudice against WWII Japanese. My Dad fought the Japanese on Iwo Jima. He was also slated to invade Japan before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He told me the Allies expected over a million casualties, if they had to invade the Japanese mainland. That was part of the reasoning in the decision to drop the atomic bombs. As horrific as they were, the casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were less than the expected death toll from an invasion of Japan. At least, that is what my Dad was told and believed.

For a week every month I went into an underground bunker to sit on Nuclear Alert. I did this for three years. I studied the routes into Russia we would have taken, and viewed some of the first satellite images of target sites. If the klaxon would have sounded and the code said go, we would have gone. If we made it to the targets we would have rained nuclear hell on those poor people. I know we would have done so. There would have been no home to return to. Everything we would have known and had, including family would be gone. Besides, our training would have taken over... or perhaps vengeance. I am very thankful it never came to that.

So, I do not own a Soviet aircraft in DCS or MSFS, except for the free ones, which I have never flown.

Interestingly enough, however, I have sat in the cockpits of both a Mig-21 and a Mig-23. This was at Nellis, AFB, where they have/had a bevy of Soviet era aircraft. This was so US and US Allied pilots could learn more about the aircraft. They also had a huge (about 400 sq meters) three dimensional map of the Fulda Gap in Germany. The Fulda Gap are two corridors of lowlands through which Soviet tanks were expected to invade Europe, if there had been a WWIII. Nukes were planned for it too.
 
The first time I ever saw an authentic airworthy 'Zero' in person, it was the A6M2 that was owned/operated by Texas Flying Legends (now since sold/flying in Canada). It really struck me just how sleek and racy of a designed aircraft it is - one of the most perfectly-aerodynamic aircraft I've ever seen, which when you see it in person, in flight, it looks like it cuts through the air with greater ease than any other warbird. For me, it garnered a whole new level of respect for the aircraft that I had never had before. The real aircraft has quite thin wings, with a very defined leading edge airfoil, very thin and sharp vertical and horizontal tail surfaces, and a lean fuselage - exquisite design aspects that are too rarely if ever captured well in flight sim depictions. The real aircraft also has fantastic flight characteristics at low-to-medium airspeeds, and very forgiving - I've had the fortune of watching Warren Pietsch fly that A6M2 through aerobatic displays, and he can throw it around in the sky with such ease, with its fantastic power-to-weight ratio, able to perform vertical maneuvers at speeds that would cause most other WWII fighters to stall. Of the six authentic/original A6M's that fly, there are only two which I have yet to see in person.

Coincidentally, Blackbird Simulations had stated recently that they were hoping to release their (MSFS 2024-only) A6M5 'Zero' by late May of this year.
 

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All these characteristics made it vulnerable aswell.
But i gotta agree that it is a wonderful plane to look at. I never saw one fly for real though.
 
Blackbird must be very frustrated by this....personally I don't see that the Sim needs two Zero's. Especially when we don't have a single Griffon Spitfire.... : )
 
collensr said:
Blackbird must be very frustrated by this....personally I don't see that the Sim needs two Zero's. Especially when we don't have a single Griffon Spitfire.... : )
Click to expand...
Hey Richard, while the Aeroplane Heaven A6M2 has been developed for MSFS 2020 (and will work in MSFS 2024, with possibly minor issues), the Blackbird Simulations A6M5 has been developed for MSFS 2024, and therefore will only work in that sim and not work at all in MSFS 2020.
 
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While they may not have been as prolific, the Japanese aero engineers had some nice innovations. In particular, the J7W Shinden might have been a game changer if either the war had dragged on or it had been built sooner.
 
As all of you know I build models (fine looking one above by the constructer). I built a Tamiya Hayate years ago in the late 70s. My father saw it and said "son you know those sum bitches tried to kill me and my comrades at Iwo and Okinawa". I never constructed another Japanese aircraft that served during World War II, only pre and post-war Japanese aircraft. I did, however, construct a Tamiya Zero, the Aleutian Zero captured intact and refurbished and tested by the U.S. Navy.

Cazzie

zero_+2_0_-2_Balanced-Edit.jpg
 
collensr said:
Blackbird must be very frustrated by this....personally I don't see that the Sim needs two Zero's. Especially when we don't have a single Griffon Spitfire.... : )
Click to expand...
The Blackbird Zero is FS2024-native, though. Since I've moved on to the new sim, I'll likely opt for that one.
 
Politics and history aside, the model is simply brilliant. The modelling, the texturing (especially in the VC) and handling are brilliant. Well done AH!!

Priller
 
jmig said:
Just as I have no interest in any Russian airplane, I have Zero interest in the Zero. Nothing to do with Aeroplane Heaven, just my quirky inherited prejudice against WWII Japanese. My Dad fought the Japanese on Iwo Jima. He was also slated to invade Japan before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He told me the Allies expected over a million casualties, if they had to invade the Japanese mainland. That was part of the reasoning in the decision to drop the atomic bombs. As horrific as they were, the casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were less than the expected death toll from an invasion of Japan. At least, that is what my Dad was told and believed.

For a week every month I went into an underground bunker to sit on Nuclear Alert. I did this for three years. I studied the routes into Russia we would have taken, and viewed some of the first satellite images of target sites. If the klaxon would have sounded and the code said go, we would have gone. If we made it to the targets we would have rained nuclear hell on those poor people. I know we would have done so. There would have been no home to return to. Everything we would have known and had, including family would be gone. Besides, our training would have taken over... or perhaps vengeance. I am very thankful it never came to that.

So, I do not own a Soviet aircraft in DCS or MSFS, except for the free ones, which I have never flown.

Interestingly enough, however, I have sat in the cockpits of both a Mig-21 and a Mig-23. This was at Nellis, AFB, where they have/had a bevy of Soviet era aircraft. This was so US and US Allied pilots could learn more about the aircraft. They also had a huge (about 400 sq meters) three dimensional map of the Fulda Gap in Germany. The Fulda Gap are two corridors of lowlands through which Soviet tanks were expected to invade Europe, if there had been a WWIII. Nukes were planned for it too.
Click to expand...
I bought a Datsun 120Y as my first car back in 1978 mainly because my then partners' Uncle had a Datsun franchise. Unbeknown to me my Fathers best friend was in the British Army and fought the Japanese in Borneo. He refused to speak to me from then on. Quite understandable.
 
I get it, because my great uncle died trying to nurse an RCAF Vickers Wellington back to Cairo after his crew had bailed out following an attack by German fighters. And my grandmother migrated to Canada when she was pregnant with my mom because German bombers were constantly bombing the area of London she lived in.

I do have Flying Iron's Bf-109G and FW-190 in FS2020, because I'm interested in test-flying historical aircraft. But I fly them in captured liveries, because while I do want to fly the plane, I don't want to fly around in a Nazi livery due to what my grandparents and family went through. That said, Germany and Japan have been our allies since before I was born, so while I don't want to celebrate the Axis pilots of WW2, I don't have an issue with buying products from those countries 80 years later.
 
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