Bombing Raid

[Hageneezz]

Hello all, good evening

So, I recently have bought the A2A Wings of Power B17, for FS9. It`s fun flying her.

But I was thinking about creating something, like a bombing raid mission..

I have downloaded an AI B-17 from MAIW, and finally managed to put a couple of these
birds into FS9. They even take off, and fly the flightplan! WoW!

But, they don`t really fly in formation, they take off and do their thing. So I am wondering, is there some
tool to create a formation, with AI aircraft?

Are there any tools you, dear readers, would recommend?

I also would like to know if there is some sort of moving map available. The A2A B-17 comes with a GPS, but
that is not very realistic...

Hoping for suggestions!

Thanks

 

[Mick]

Well, this might be an explanation... maybe...

Years ago I learned that you can't follow AI planes to their destination because if you try to follow them they won't head for their destination; they'll just wander off aimlessly. I learned that when I tried to formate on AI planes and found that they didn't go where they were programmed to go when I was near them in my flyable aircraft. I asked if anyone knew what was going on and a few folks replied that it's an FS thing - you can't follow AI or formate on it and have it go where it's supposed to go.

That makes me wonder - if getting close to an AI plane in your flyable plane makes the AI plane go astray, maybe the same thing happens if you try to make an AI plane fly near another AI plane. If so, a formation of AI planes would be impossible.

There have been a few models of formations - the Red Arrows Hawks and the Battle of Britain trio come to mind - but they were one model of three or four planes, not three or four separate models in formation.

On the other hand, I once saw (but do not have a copy of) a Thunderbirds air show that apparently did have multiple planes that would usually be in formation but could (apparently, judging by the file description) fly maneuvers where the planes weren't always in the diamond formation. I wish I could tell you more about that package! I don't know who made it or where I saw it, but for all my years with FS I've mainly perused the same four download sites: this one, AvSim, FlightSim and SimV. Maybe you could find it and if it is what I thought it to be, maybe you could reverse engineer it and see how they did it. But you might just find that it doesn't really do all that I thought...

 

[leuen]

I worked on a very similar subject (maybe it could be the same) and did this reply at FlightSim Forum:

By pure curiosity I tried to create a formation flight of twelve B-17 taking off at Rickenbacher Intl, former Lockbourne AFB and WWII training base for this aircraft.

Even they are all the same model (ACG B17G AI) and taking off from the same runway, some fly their own path like the one on the right outside.

On longer flights I fear that the formation will be heavily scattered.

Bernard