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  • 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

Jan Visser F86

Black Cockpit

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026"/> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapelayout v:ext="edit"> <o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/> </o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--> After a layoff of a few years, I recently got back into flying simulations and discovered the Section 8 F-86. When I figure out to install it properly, it should be a lot of fun. In the meantime, I have come up short on getting the VC cockpit to display properly. I can see outside and can also see the flight instruments, stick, throttle quadrant, and communication and navigation radios. The rest of the panel and the canopy frame are dead black rendering the display pretty much unusable.

I am using Microsoft Flight Sim X and installing into Windows 7-64bit. By now, I have spent probably 8 hours or more attempting various iterations of install methods. There seems to be two fixes out there to provide a clean install of the Sabre into Sim X. The first, by Jan Visser (sf86fx_fixup.zip), seems straightforward to install but gives me the “black cockpit”. The other fix by Bjoern Kesten (sf86fsxup.zip) is a bit more complicated. I have used the “Section 8 Sabre Interim FSX upgrade revision 1.1a” instructions to no avail. Each attempt has resulted in the F-86 not being listed in the available aircraft to choose from in the simulator program.

I have dug through all of the information I can find in the forums available in the Section 8 website, the sim-outhouse website, and the Avsim website. There is no doubt in my mind that I am misinterpreting information provided in the fixes that these gentlemen have made available because others have not had the same problem that I have.

Many of the posts on the forums are quite old—I hope someone is out there that might be willing to help me find a way to install this very fine aircraft successfully.
 
Did you install Sabre Service Pack1, blkbart ? If not here it is :

http://fsfiles.org/PA/uploads/sf86efu1.zip

Please overwrite the files from 'sf86fsx_fixup.zip' with the files found in this zip. Check they go in the correct folders because this service pack originally is for FS9.

Good Luck! ( sorry for the trouble it has givin you... :redface: )

cheers,
jan
 
The F-86 is Flying!

Thanks for your reply to my plea for help. As it turned out, the black cockpit problem was fixed inadvertently after I discovered that there were two service packs available for Microsoft Flight Sim X---SP1 and SP2. After installing them, I went back to the F-86 and was shocked to see that it worked perfectly! The only anomaly I see is the black reticle that I see has been addressed before. At any rate, the F-86 is a joy to fly and I have spent a few hours in the local area flying closed patterns looking for that perfect approach and landing.

As an aside, flying your airplane is a bit of a coming home for me because I first came in contact with the airplane when I was 9 years old in 1953. At that time, my father was still in the United States Air Force serving as a maintenance officer for the Air Defense Command F-86D stationed at George Air Force Base near Victorville, California. This is just a few miles from Edwards Air Force base where the famous Chuck Yeager and the other test pilots were flying all the latest jet airplanes. The F-86D shared the skies with a Wing of F-51s whose pilots were transitioning to the F-86F day fighter assigned to the Tactical Air Command.

I remember very well the numerous sonic booms that occurred during the day as the newly-transitioned pilots would return from a training sortie and dive the airplane before landing. We lived on base, and my mother was not always happy replacing the dishes broken by these "booms". Other residents had windows broken. No one complained too loudly because this was "The Sound of Freedom".

Years later, I got a little taste of the F-86 when as an air force pilot I flew the T-39 Sabreliner. It featured the slatted wing just like the F-86E/F and was equipped with a speed brake. We were told it was essentially the F-86 wing. With passengers onboard, we flew the aircraft rather sedately but on training sorties it was a pretty hot airplane! A favorite trick was to configure the airplane for landing and bring it in high and side-slip it to bring it down to the normal glide path.

Thanks again for bringing me home....

Sam Barrick
 
Good to know you've got rid of the faulty VC, Sam, and thanks for the story ! Always great to hear a RW pilot can still enjoy flying a virtual plane. :cool:

Yes, there seems to be no simple cure for that pesky black reticle at the moment. A native FSX model is in the works currently so that'll be one of the things that will be fixed.

Wonderful to know that you flew the T-39 ! It is rather unlikely that, with our ongoing FS Sabre project, we'll ever get as far as to start rounding up scale drawings of the Sabreliner but *if* we do i hope you don't mind if i come knocking on your cockpit door. :)

It's no T-39 surely but i hope you have a lot of fun flying our F-86, Sam !

Cheers,
Jan
 
Thanks. I am having fun with it. It is a kick trying to fly a successful flameout pattern and landing with it.
 
One thing that gives a dramatic framerate boost in the F-86...

....is if you remove the smoke effect. It made a HUGE difference on my rig. I'm talking here about the F-86 with the FSX patch.

I'd love to see the smoke too, but this is one of my favorite three or four airplanes in FSX (The VS F9F Pantherjet is another of my favorites).

Kent
 
Kent,

The smoke from the F9F Panther is pretty nice (not as nice as the F-86 smoke) and it does not cause a frame-hit.

The Sabre smoke seems to be coded in a sophisticated (and difficult to find) XML gauge. This gauge, which I can't find, turns on and off certain light-effects which are actually linked to the smoke and engine exhaust effects in the aircraft.cfg.

What I've done to get more frame-rate friendly smoke is to replace the SF8 smoke with the Panther smoke in the aircraft.cfg. This really is not ideal, because it removes the flame effects, and it negates the different intensity of smoke at different RPM levels. It does, however, provide nice smoke without a frame hit. It looks something like this under the [lights] section of the aircraft.cfg:

light.8= 6, -19.10, 0.068, -0.02, fx_VS_F9F_engsmoke //fx_SF86_TotalXaust_max_Orange // JR 60% N2 flame and smoke
light.9= 8, -18.50, 0.068, -0.02, fx_VS_F9F_engsmoke //fx_SF86_TotalXaust_max_Blue_B // JR 77% N2 flame and smoke
light.10=9, -17.90, 0.068, -0.02, fx_VS_F9F_engsmoke //fx_SF86_TotalXaust_low_Orange // JR 90% N2 flame and smoke

I think this might be the best we can do until SectionF8 re-codes the smoke and flame effects into the new FSX format. I don't think it is a difficult process, but it is just a little beyond me.

I really really like the original SF8 smoke and flame effects, they look wonderful.... but as I usually fly the Sabre in a 4 ship on multiplayer -- I need all the frames I can get, so this solution works for now.

@Jan,

It's great to know that you guys are still pressing forward on the FSX Native Sabre. If you need any help with testing -- I can devote some time to it. Good luck to you on the Sabre project, and everything going on at MAAM-sim. Thanks again for all of your work on this piece of great art -- it is art because of the skill and mastery of those who crafted it.
:salute::salute:

Chris
 
Another request for assistance

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> This one has to do with instrument lighting in the VC cockpit for night flying. I know where the switch should be and what it looks like by having referred to the instrument panel reference "special clickspots and mouseover areas". I have used the keyboard commands "Shift-Enter/Return" and "Shift-Backspace" to bring the panel view down but I cannot get it down far enough to see the switch which remains covered by the black shield that runs along the base of the canopy. I have also passed the mouse pointer over the entire area near the switch to see if I could find the clickspot and that has not worked either.

I installed sf86fsx_fixup.zip and overwrote those files with those found in sf86efu1.zip without making any modifications.

I haven't seen this problem described elsewhere so the "fix" is probably something simple or obvious or both. If I have screwed up let me know--I can take it!
 
Marbled cockpit glass

I'm still unsure how to fix glass in cockpit of some retextures in the F-86. I have attached a few pics. Can see in not out, other textures have clear cockpit glass....
 
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