Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina

[Shessi]

Hi Folks,
Just got back my interwebs...hurrah!

And have just about finished the next instalment of the PBY's, the PBY-5.

Here's a few pics as a taster, I'm going to do a clean 5 and a loaded one. I won't be doing various load-outs, but maybe one with a mix of 2 x 450lb depth charges and 2 x 500lb bombs...any thoughts on this?

Lots of little things done, including re-profiled engines/spinners, new crew, rear opening blisters with crew and machine guns etc.

Cheers

Shessi

 

[ViperPilot2]

Shessi,

Depth Charges & GP Bombs sound good... how about a torpedo & GP Bombs?

One little observation re: Nat'l. Insignia... the Rectangles on the sides of the Star look as if they need to be a touch bit longer.

Looks AWESOME!

Alan

 

[TARPSBird]

Shessi, that looks real nice. I think a load-out of depth charges and bombs would be fine if you're just doing one version with ordnance. If you change your mind and do two then yeah, I'd like to see a torpedo.

 

[Mick]

Excellent work, as always!

My only requests are that you:

1 - maintain the same level of reflectivity in the model file as on the early round-tailed cats, and

2 - carry over the mapping change that allowed the non-slip walkway on top of the bow chines to remain black when the base color of the hull is silver, again as you did on the round-tailed cats.

That way I can adapt my pre-camo skins simply by editing the file names as required. (In anticipation, I have already upgraded them with the enhanced colors and details that we developed for the early versions.)

Thanks in advance!

PS - yeah, he's right about the proportions of the national insignia.

 

[Shessi]

Thanks Gents.

This is a WIP, so the tex was only there to give it some colour, ALL associated files are WIP.

Re-ordinance. The funny thing is that the US didn't use the 5 much, but I've read a few autobiographies where pilots say they preferred the 5 to the 5A, as it was lighter, handled better, had more range. I'll be going on to do the 5A, so will be able to do that with a torpedo load-out (eg. Blackcat).

A question, a standard US Mk13 torpedo weighed in at 2200lbs, the max weapons carried by a 5 or 5A was 4000lbs, did they carry two torpedoes or a torpedo and another weapon(s) to counter balance it?

Mick, I'll be looking at the tex alpha channel versus mdl shine, as the jury's out on this one.

Cheers

Shessi

 

[Wayland]

Re: Ordnance loads for PBY

Shessi, The Navy film on the Black Cats shows a torpedo under one wing, and two GP bombs on the other. Here's a link to the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShWtHJDVCb0

My guess would be either two 500 lb. or a 500 and a 250.
Steve

PS: It shows PBY-5's with beaching gear.

 

[Shessi]

Thanks Steve,
That's what I thought would have to happen, as 2 X torps would be too heavy(?). Other sims happily but unrealistcally put x 2 torps on ac. I'll use that info for the 5A.

Shessi

 

[Wayland]

Black Cat ordnance

I did a bit of further digging and found that the -5 and -5A could use two torpedoes at the same time, but fuel load had to be cut back. The Cat could carry four 1000 lb. bombs, one per hardpoint. Two torps would have put her at least 500 lb. over load limit.

I'm waiting eagerly for this one, as I have an extreme fondness for aircraft that were called on to perform "Above and Beyond" and did so handsomely.

Steve

 

[mrogers]

Very nice! Does it have working cowl flaps?

 

[Mick]

...Mick, I'll be looking at the tex alpha channel versus mdl shine, as the jury's out on this one.
Cheers
Shessi

Two things to keep in mind:

1 - For the pre-camo paints finished in aluminized silver paint, specular gloss looked completely wrong on the -2, so there's no reason to think it could look right on the -5.

2 - Most -5 skins by other painters will be of wartime camo schemes, and specular gloss would be completely wrong for them - they'll need to be full matte.

A glossy finish will be appropriate for Dark Sea Blue US Navy liveries on the -5A and -6A, but nothing earlier.

 

[Milton Shupe]

Two things to keep in mind:

1 - For the pre-camo paints finished in aluminized silver paint, specular gloss looked completely wrong on the -2, so there's no reason to think it could look right on the -5.

2 - Most -5 skins by other painters will be of wartime camo schemes, and specular gloss would be completely wrong for them - they'll need to be full matte.

A glossy finish will be appropriate for Dark Sea Blue US Navy liveries on the -5A and -6A, but nothing earlier.

You can have and control both.

Add specular to the materials in gmax ( I use 37), and use a xxx_t.bmp.

The specular gives you the requisite sun glare highlights (not glossiness).
Use the alpha channel to provide the glossiness for the paints requiring it. (Usually 210-235 depending on darkness of the primary color, and white 255 for no glossiness-matte).

 

[Mick]

...se the alpha channel to provide the glossiness for the paints requiring it. (Usually 210-235 depending on darkness of the primary color, and white 255 for no glossiness-matte).

That's not glossiness, it's reflectivity - something different. And it only works that way if reflectivity is enabled in the model - otherwise the alpha channel controls transparency instead.

I have downloaded many models and paints where the modeler or the painter has used reflectivity to simulate gloss, and it doesn't look right. You can spot it in a second. Instead of looking like glossy paint, it looks like color-anodized bare metal. The difference in appearance is plain to see. There's a sheen on the surface but the color has no depth.

To an even greater degree, you can't effectively simulate a metallic finish with specular gloss. No matter what you do, it will look like glossy paint, not like metal or metallic paint. The early, prewar Cats, like all pre-camouflage Navy airplanes except a few big, land-based transports, were painted in aluminized silver paint. It had a metallic sheen, but no hint of gloss. Think of radiator paint, if you remember those old steam radiators they used to have in old houses back when we were kids. It looked like unpolished or semi-polished metal at first glance, until you noticed how uniform the finish was, but it never looked glossy - it's a completely different kind of shine.

A model can be both reflective and glossy at the same time, but if there's too much glossiness that can spoil reflective textures. A semi-gloss can look OK if the textures are reflective, so the same model can look good with different kinds of skins on it. But full gloss tends to stomp on reflections unless the reflections are turned up really high in the textures, which isn't what most paint jobs need in order to look right.

Except for a brief period with a couple squadrons, the PBY-5 flying boat was a wartime variant and was pretty much always in matte camouflage warpaint. I can't think of ever seeing a glossy livery on a -5, and there may have never been one (though I hesitate to say "never" about anything!) If the model is reflective, then the reflectivity can be used to make pre-war aluminized silver look right, and it can be simply ignored by painters of matte camouflaged skins. A glossy model would make both silver paint and camouflage look wrong.

Since the pre-war Navy wasn't big on testing ordnance or training pilots to carry it, only the clean model would be needed for the pre-camo skins. I've read that whether they flew the big boats or carrier planes, most pilots in the early part of the war never flew a plane with an ordnance load until they took off on their first combat mission.

I don't think there will be any need for a glossy model until the -5A and -6A come along to wear late-war and post-war glossy Dark Sea Blue skins.

Well, that ramble got quite a bit broader than I'd intended it to be! I'll be quiet now...

 

[wombat666]

Thanks Gents.

This is a WIP, so the tex was only there to give it some colour, ALL associated files are WIP.

Re-ordinance. The funny thing is that the US didn't use the 5 much, but I've read a few autobiographies where pilots say they preferred the 5 to the 5A, as it was lighter, handled better, had more range. I'll be going on to do the 5A, so will be able to do that with a torpedo load-out (eg. Blackcat).

A question, a standard US Mk13 torpedo weighed in at 2200lbs, the max weapons carried by a 5 or 5A was 4000lbs, did they carry two torpedoes or a torpedo and another weapon(s) to counter balance it?

Mick, I'll be looking at the tex alpha channel versus mdl shine, as the jury's out on this one.

Cheers

Shessi

My father flew RAAF Cats throughout the Pacific and he hated the amphibians with a passion, more so he really hated the local conversions of the 5A into boats, not only were the cursed by their weight but the COG was truly stuffed and the wells (which were left in situ) were used by some crews for extra storage which stuffed up the COG further.
Re the carriage of two torpedoes, it was not general practice in the RAAF, in fact, they were rarely fitted.
One of the higher ranking 'Gong Hunters' (as my father put it!) attached to his Squadron took it upon himself to lay on a mission to be flown by a scratch crew armed with two 'fish' and captained by the 'Gong Hunter'.
Most of the aircrew turned out on the afternoon of their departure, making wagers on how far and long it would take for the Cat to become airborne.
According to my father, it bounced and lurched almost out of sight until it staggered into the air.
Neither the crew or the Cat were ever seen again.
Normal load-out for a 24 hour mining mission consisted of two 1000LB 'Sea Mines', often flown out of the Philippines as far afield as the coast of Indo China, aka Viet Nam.

 

[Shessi]

Many thanks Wombat, really good to hear it from the 'horses mouth', so to speak.

That confirms the thoughts I had read about from US pilots/crew.

I was checking, as, unfortunately a lot of other sims have put x2 torps on their Cats, which very rarely or just did not happen. Coastal Command did not use torps, and it was only the Far East RAF, RAAF, RNZAF and US ac that, as you say, rarely used them.

Here's the 'Kitted Cat' (A good nose-art name for a PBY Cat?! ), with x2 325lb depth charges and x2 500lb HE bombs.

And Mick, notice a matt-Cat?

Cheers

Shessi

 

[Mick]

...And Mick, notice a matt-Cat? Shessi

Matte's a good start. It's suitable for the camouflage textures that wartime Cats wore. But it won't be possible to simulate the metallic silver paint of the pre-war Cats unless the model has reflective textures enabled. It wasn't possible on the pre-war models, as you must recall, and it isn't possible on the -5 for the same reasons.

Nothing has changed. Metallic finishes require reflective textures, and reflective textures require a reflective model, just like it was a couple months ago. We couldn't do it with specular gloss on the -2/-3 and we can't do it on the -5 because specular gloss can not simulate reflectivity. That's why Microsoft invented reflectivity for FS2002 - because everyone was tired of paints of silver airplanes that looked gray, and had to just pretend they were silver, like in the days of FS98 and FS2K.

I'm baffled as to why you think metallic-finish pre-war skins can be painted realistically on a -5 model without reflectivity after it proved to be impossible on the early versions. There's nothing new here...

 

[Shessi]

Mick,
This is a semi-matt finish WITH reflectivity actually, so wind your neck in there boyo!........

Cheers

Shessi

 

[Mick]

Mick,
This is a semi-matt finish WITH reflectivity actually, so wind your neck in there boyo!........

Cheers

Shessi

Well, that will work! Would you please send me a copy of the model file? The only copy I have is the one you sent earlier that isn't reflective.

It should display the pre-war skins properly. If dead flat works better for them, I can whip up a dead-flat model file to include with them without messing up the VC. It's just reflectivity that I can't do anything with on my own. Anyway, I will do a little testing and see what looks best.

It occurs to me that dead matte might also be more appropriate for some wartime camo schemes (though I don't know if everyone would agree with that.) For most liveries, I agree that semi-matte would be better. I'm thinking of early Black Cats with their color applied in the field, which probably used flat black paint.

It also occurs to me that someone should take the AlphaSims Black Cat skin and do the required file name edits to make it work with the improved model. I will do that. We should have a Black Cat in our WW2 hangars. The AS one serves the purpose adequately, and according to the In Action book, it's authentic.

 

[Mick]

Black Cats

First, I should say that I think Shessi's semi-matte finish is most appropriate for skins depicting wartime camo paint. But I suspected that this might not be so for the black Cat night raiders. I did a little research and this is what I found out:

Black Cats weren't finished in camo paint - they weren't finished in paint at all! According to Richard Knott, writing in his book Black cat Raiders of WW2, the finish was a field-concocted mixture of lamp black and soap! Soap! No wonder it tended to wash off in water, leaving the planes with that beat-up, scruffy look.

And lamp black has a flat finish. Since this is the only livery that needs a fully flat model, I think what I'll do after I do the required file name edits is to release the black cat skin with a dead flat model for use with just that skin (and possibly the pre-war skins - I haven't determined that yet.)

This isn't the only case where lamp black was used as a pigment. The interior color zinc chromate green, used for inhabited spaces in most American planes (and uninhabited spaces in many) was made by mixing lamp black into zinc chromate yellow paint. (Paint, not soap!)

Lamp black, BTW, isn't pure carbon. It's a version of carbon black, the product of incomplete combustion of petroleum products. If you stick your finger up the tailpipe of your car and rub the inner surface, that black junk that comes off on your finger is carbon black or lamp black. It would seem to have better adhesion than graphite or any form of pure carbon, though as the photos of black Cats show, it doesn't stick as well as paint. If you feel compelled to check it out, wash your finger thoroughly afterwards - carbon black in its various forms is considered a probable carcinogen.

 

[Mick]

Now that I know how they colored the black Cats black I'm pondering something else.

We've all seen photos of black Cats with the black worn off. They're all black & white photos and it looks like the black paint has worn away, leaving bare metal to show through. The AlphaSims black Cat skin shows silver where the black is worn off, and O've always figured that was correct.

Now I wonder about that. Since the black was a field-applied mash of lampblack and soap, it was undoubtedly applied over the planes' existing paint job, which in the early days of blacl Cat operations would have been blue-gray with light gull gray undersides. So it would seem that where the black is worn away, we should see blue-gray or gull gray showing through, not bare metal.

Does anyone have any thoughts about that? Does my speculation make sense to you?

Has anyone seen a color photo of an early black Cat?

 

[TARPSBird]

Hi Mick,
Whatever the ingredients in the paint can, I think the black paint job on the Cats would be quickly worn away on portions of the fuselage and wing that got walked on, handled, or had stuff dragged across it. You'd see blue-gray paint first, then aluminum (or chrome yellow on the top of the wing), then zinc chromate or bare metal. So yeah, I agree with you that the blue-gray would be visible first off. SBD-2 BuNo 2106 at the museum in P'cola is displayed with some of its old paint showing on the leading edge of the wing. This bird was a Battle of Midway vet and was recovered from Lake Michigan. The chrome yellow shows up real well. Being applied in peacetime I'm sure the Airframes boys laid it on nice and even - and heavy.