• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning

Airship Macon

J

jdhaenens

Luddite in Training
This week, the US Naval Airship Factory will release the airship USS Macon.

The folks to thank are:

Piotr Lowicki who did the original model for some CG uses and Dan Dunn who adapted Piotr's model to FSX. Jeff Schaefer did the initial request...somehow Bill Mackay got involved. John Stinstrom made most of the 1930's Sunnyvale NAS with some support fron Bob Hinkly. Wayne Tudor did the flight model (we actually found a Macon operations manual). Earl Watkins did the USS Patoka and her mooring locations. Paul Clawson figured out how to make it work with AI Carriers. I did the dirt work at NAS Sunnyvale, Hangar One, the VC, and a bit of texture work on the model. A special thanks to Bill Leaming who, as usual, answered all my animation questions.

A huge thanks to Lynn and Bill Lyons who started it all.

The release will come in a few pieces. First, the Macon will be released, followed by NAS Sunnyvale, the USS Patoka locations, and the High Mast at North Island.

Here are some pictures:
 
An inspiration lives on to continue from a great modeler of our community. This is going to be a fantastic re-creation. Very exciting!
 
Here's a link to some renders of the original CG model by Piotr Lowicki.

http://popgriffon.cgsociety.org/gallery/598880/

I've been studying and collecting images of the USS Macon and USS Akron since I built my first computer model on a CAD system back in 1987. I would have to say this is the most accurate and complete model of the airship and it's surroundings that I have ever seen.

Being able to recreate history and see something magnificent that no longer exists is one of the greatest things a flight simulator can do. The size of the team also illustrates that a project of this size is complex and rather sophisticated.

My compliments and congratulations to the entire team for a job well done.

John MacKay
 
Good idea! Looking very nice (or not too white?).

I know product of Bill Lyons for FS9, I spent many hours with his Zeppelin. This addon (as LZ 127 and scenery and mission) was SIMPLY fantastic:

http://yoyosims.pl/FS2004_Zeppelin.html :salute:

If someone cant wait just play this game with USS Macon :D : http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/content/flying-aircraft-carrier-3772/


4133218265_51a67dc426_z.jpg


Best wishes
 
Hi Guys: Please note - you MUST read the "Read Me First" file prior to your first flight. Dirigibles did NOT fly like conventional airplanes, so if you don't read the file first, you will NOT be able to fly! There is no running down the runway like a heaver-than-air airplane.

Bill
 
Jim, that is just brilliant! Incredible screenshots.

I wish we still had one left flying. It would be pretty awesome to see.
 
Excellent! My favorite airship is finally in FSX. Thanks to everyone who made this possible.
 
This will be a "must have" for me. It's great to see such a tremendously talented group of people get together in order to create a wonderful and historical project such as we have here.

Many thanks and congrats to each and every member of your team! (Hi Bill, Hi Dan)
 
Hi Jim,

Great work, just one question - How does FS model a dirigible? I thought the were only fixed wing and rotorcraft models?
 
As Wings of Gold said,

Hi Guys: Please note - you MUST read the "Read Me First" file prior to your first flight. Dirigibles did NOT fly like conventional airplanes, so if you don't read the file first, you will NOT be able to fly! There is no running down the runway like a heaver-than-air airplane.
Click to expand...

There is no built-in support for LTA craft in FSX, but with an open mind one can fool the system into acting like one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top