Conspicuous by Their Absence

New Puppies

I take it you got it already? There are already three downloads since I uploaded it after lunch today and that accounts for most of the people on this thread.

This is one of my favourite planes. I do like the later Corsairs better, but this version has never been released before. Lots of visual problems with it though.

- Ivan.
 
So what is the conclusion on the Birdcage Corsair?

Know of a good F6F Hellcat out there?

- Ivan.
 
Corsairs and Hellcats

The Corsair flight model is one of the nicest handling in my opinion. It fits with what I have read about the aircraft's handling and it is kind of surprising how low the stall speed is on such a big heavy bird.

I do have a couple Hellcats also (Both a F6F-3 Hellcat Mk.I and a F6F-5 Hellcat Mk.II), but they need cleaned up before a re-release. The F6F-3 was released years ago, but the F6F-5 has never been released before.

I have wondered a bit why F was chosen as a suffix for Grumman. The U for the Corsair wasn't obvious but did make sense for Universal which was apparently the owners of Chance Vought. C would not have worked because it had already been used for the F?C fighters by Curtiss.

- Ivan.
 
Ivan,
Seems that the F is the Grumman designation for the planes primary role as a fighter.
Seems all grumman fighters carry the F designation. The second Letter seems to be its secondary role, such as F again for Fighter, W for Wide area Radar, S for Submarine striker. Then BF Bomber Fighter.

??

Dave
 
I think in the early days the US Navy and US Army were able to use different designations with the navy using F for Fighter whilst the US Army using P for Pursuit. I think they merged around the time of the Korean War and settled on F.

The Lockheed Shooting Star was a P-80 but the last batch were labelled F-80.

Dave
 
Hi No Dice,

That was pretty close.

F4F-3 can be broken down like this:

F - USN Designation for Fighter
4 - Fourth Design from the Manufacturer - No Number if FIRST Design of this type.
F - Grumman
-3 - Third Model (Second Major Change from the Original)

Thus
F4U-4
U - Universal Aircraft (Chance Vought)

PBY-5A
PB - USN Designation for a Patrol Bomber
No Number - First PB from the Manufacturer.
Y - Consolidated
-5A - Modification to the Fifth Model.

Thus
SBD-3
SB - USN Designation for a Scout Bomber
D - Douglas

FG-1D (Corsair)
F - Fighter
G - Goodyear

TBF
TB - USN Designation for a Torpedo Bomber

TBM
M - General Motors

Funny thing is that the Japanese used almost exactly the same system and the USN believed it was too complicated to figure out. To to fair, the Japanese used several systems concurrently and their Army and Navy used different designations for the same parts.

- Ivan.
 
Hi Dave Cumming,

I don't know what the final arrangement was, but I can say that THIS happened:

The F8U Crusader became
the F-8 Crusader.

The F4H Phantom II became
the F-4 Phantom.

The A4D Skyhawk became
the A-4 Skyhawk.

How about aircraft such as the Japanese
Mitsubishi A6M2-N "Rufe"
or the
Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden-KAI?

- Ivan.
 
Hello No Dice,

Hope you don't mind my posting of your list here:
Arado Ar 196?

I believe there are a couple of these out there already. I know Piglet built a Westland Whirlwind. There are Zillions of Curtiss P-36 / Hawk 75s. I am pretty sure there is a Arado 196 also. I probably have a couple Beaufighters already installed on my machine.

I will check....
- Ivan.

Looks like a Nakajima A6M2-N Zero to me.... Not a bad one either.
I like your colours!

- Ivan.
 
nope, not yet.

now, with an ever so subtle hint. :icon_lol:

i'm beginning to worry
about the appearance of this thing.
the first shot was taken
from my wide screen,
which tends to stretch the view.
...a lot
this one is 800x600
 
Floatplanes

If that is stretched, then perhaps eyeballing it isn't working really well. It looks pretty good from that screenshot but not if it has been stretched.

The principal dimensions MUST be close to even have a chance at getting the shape right.

BTW, was my guess reasonably close?
:icon_lol:

- Ivan.
 
a minor misunderstanding,
the model is not stretched.

comparing the shots in posts 311 and 316
shows a significant difference in resolution
between standard and wide screen monitors
which causes the visual stretch.
(happens with panels all the time)

model length and height are both a little short,
but the float is not in the correct position, yet.
we shall see

she is definitely not Japanese

---------------------
last night when i shut down ad2k,
a small window popped up in french.
i don't understand french.
i restarted the program, just to see what
and everything is gone!
i even made sure to save before i shut it down.
crap and drat!
i wonder what happened.
the only saving grace is that
the coordinates are marked on the drawings
and i wrote them down in a notebook.
now i am extra nervous and will have to start
a special backup system.
it's always somethin'
 
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