Junkers Ju-52/3m

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Ivan.,
I´ve read the 5 scans you sent about the Ju-52/3m´s history. Very interesting indeed!
There is data that confirms some details as regards motorizations for certain model
designations that I was still not sure of, and one or two performance indications that
clarify some contradictions. Thanks a lot!

Also, there was one totally new aspect, which would still need further confirmation:
It seems that there was an order of 6 units for South African Airways, that were
supposed to have the toe-out eliminated to increase efficiency.
Apparently the modification caused no big deal and 4 were modified, and 2 were not,
and these were accepted as well with no problem.

So there was not much controversy with the issue, but Junkers maintained their general
production without modifications, although the later Ju 252 and Ju 352 designs had their
engines thrusting in line with the longitudinal axis.

Then, the text goes on to say that the Spanish CASA manufactured units had their engines
aligned paralell to the longitudinal axis, i.e. no toe-out.

What is strange, however, is that photos of the CASA units look like they do have the toe-out!
Even the famous restored German Lufthansa D-AQUI unit is in reality a CASA-built one, and
looking at photos of it, I do get the feeling that they show a noticeable toe-out on the engines.

Anyway, we shall see...
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[aleatorylamp]

Sounds for Auntie Ju

Hello all!
After Smilo´s indication on Minuteman10´s Merlin Sounds in the Warbirds Library with their impressive smoothly progressing accelleration sounds, I used that sound.cfg to try out different .wav files.

I discovered that one rather fitting one was the BMW 801 radial engine sound pack I found on the Simviation page. I find the sound quite similar to the sound in the U-Tube videos of Ju-52/3m exhibition flights.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I actually have not done any significant research on the Ju 52/3m beyond reading a few paragraphs and specifications from the PDF I pointed you to.
My German even at its best was not very good and is quite poor these days. Lack of practice will do that.
Thus, it is quite a challenge for me to read narrative. Technical specifications are relatively easy.
Why are so many German birds rebuilt from Spanish production aircraft? The MBB Messerschmitt 109G (Registration D-FMBB) is yet another ex Spanish aircraft.

Anna Honey is actually on her way to your neighbourhood this evening (to Madrid). I wonder if she will find an ex Hispano 109 she can bring home?

- Ivan.

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Ivan,
The CASA factory aircraft production seems to have been, and still is, quite proliferous, as well as being quite good in quality.
So instead of Spain only importing aircraft from other countries, they prefered to also licence-build quite a number, I suppose.

It appears that since they were founded in the early twenties they have always been licence building aircraft from different countries - starting with biplanes from Breguet, Dornier, Vickers, and Polikarpov, and then monoplanes from Junkers, Heinkel, Polikarpov, and Messerschmidt too, I believe. Later they went into the production of American jets fighters, and nowadays also have own designs like the Aviocar and a twin turboprop airliner. They also play an important role in the production A400M and a model derived from that.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[aleatorylamp]

Tante Ju

Hello Folks,
Progress in the factory: Wings are 3D now, so I had to take out the provisional engine
nacelles to get the surfaces right. Then, also the "Doppelflügel" is ready - aileron and flap,
which are placed below the wing trailing edge - a means of increasing lift efficiency.

The tailplane has the elevator above its trailing edge! Strange - why not below?...

Anyway, the way these parts are built, prevents them from being incorporated into the main
surface body, which would be the classical solution to save on parts and to prevent bleeds.

Thus, there is no benefit whatsoever from doing without animated control surfaces, so I´ll
just put them in.

I was looking at photos of Ju-52 models built by the Spanish CASA factory and it is quite
noticeable that there is no toe-out on the engines - exactly as mentioned in the excellent
German .pdf document that Ivan so kindly provided. (Thanks a lot again!)

I had been in doubt about that, as one of the units flying at present, which came from the
Spanish Air Force and was believed to have been built by CASA, did have engine toe-out,
as did a number of other Spanish Air Force units.

Then I read that when it was restored, some metal plaques indicating it had been built in
Germany were found. It was one of the 20 or 22 German units sent to Spain as sample and
reference for the models to be built.

So, for the Spanish version, propellers will have their line of thrust parallel to the fuselage.
It appears that there was no modification to the engine nacelle and the wing bulge, only
to the portion ahead of the leading edge, which will make the modification quite simple.

OK, then, more soon!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[aleatorylamp]

Horn-balanced elevator

Hello All!
I finally got the right shape for the horn-balanced elevator, which is offset above the trailing edge.
It looks quite curious now, as you can see from the screenshot.

Each elevator cost 10 parts, but I´m on 101% parts count and have 7 components left over, of which 4 will go into upper and lower engine nacelles.

Quite another thing will be to get the hinge-supports in for flaps, ailerons and elevators, without messing things up with bleeds, so these may have to be ignored.

Then, as propellers are only flat single 2D parts, I think I´ll use the 3 restly components there, to make them have two blades at angles - it will look better.

I won´t have enough resources for a transparent cockpit, but in exchange, there are animated surfaces!

So, I´ll just texture the windows in shaded grey. It won´t look bad, and it is more important to get all the shapes right - like on the P-3 Orion, which also had cabin windows shaded in grey.

Note: Once I get the engine nacelles completed, I´ll post an untextured try-out look-see version, as an appetizer just for fun.
The .air file will correspond to the units with 725 Hp BMW 132A-3 engines.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[aleatorylamp]

Building the AF99 Tail

Hello again...
After all these years of building, I noticed a surprising thing in the tail
section: There are virtually no bleeds, and rudder and elevators are animated!

In this model, the aft fuselage is grouped in Body Main and goes all the
way into the tail section, ending under the tail-fin, just before the rudder.

There isn´t a Tail-fuselage structure or component that would normally go
into the Tail Group, and this is probably the reason for this pleasant surprise.
I should have noticed a long time ago... , but better late than never...

It seems that with this way of grouping Tail parts, the automatic glue
sequence separation created by the different Tail Groups does indeed
work - at least with a conventional tail of this type.

The Tail elements are:
- Tailplanes and Elevators, grouped in Tail Left/Right, separated by glue.
- Fin and Rudder, grouped in Tail Upper, also separated by glue.
- Lower Rudder and Tail-wheel, grouped in Tail.

I still have to see where to put the tailplane struts - I haven´t made them yet!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[smilo]

she's coming along very nicely.
am anxious to see the untextured beta.
no pressure, though.
there are plenty of holiday distractions.

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
Thanks for your good words.
It´s actually coming out quite nicely, once I figured out with a bit of patience, how to make the unusual shapes.

Now comes a more difficult part, the hand-made upper and lower wing bulges behind the engine nacelles.

I managed to get into Flightsim.com on the Windoze 8.1 laptop here just now, (I can´t on the WinXP tower, for some safety protocol reason), and I downloaded four Ju52 models of different older qualities, e.g. octogonal engines, etc. They are quite interesting in their own way.Two of them have transparent wire-strut cabins, and one of them has aileron/flap hinge-supports so they are not too bad really... apart from the bleeds... Definitely fine for the old days, but like you said initially, making an up-to-date one is well worth while! I also found a FS98 propeller sound called BigProp.zip, but I tried them out and they are re-worked Cessna-182 sounds, with lowered tone frequency - not really what we are looking for.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[aleatorylamp]

Getting the Nose

Hello Folks,
Another application of "Ivan´s Conga" here...

It never ceases to amaze me how you found that one out, Ivan,
how to glue things left and right after having glued something on
top or in front first.

The complex nose section has exhaust pipes stuck on each side,
nose-lid stuck on top, and the exhaust ring, cowl and prop stuff
further in front.

Also, as can be seen on the screenshot, the forward part of the
nose structure under the forward curvature is no longer a square
shape, but octogonal - as rounded off as a square structure can get,
so now it´s more correct with respect to the original, which doesn´t
have the sides going straight down.

I´m also trying other shapes like the Oval or the flat Octagon because
of the apex that can be seen on the side. Perhaps I can get it better.

For the moment, the exhaust is all rusty and unpolished, but we´ll see
about that later!

...procrastinating the engine nacelle bulges again, aren´t we now?

Update: Due to different central engine element bleeds through nose and outboard
engines, ALL elements in the Nose Group had to go into Body Main - and seem to be
working fine - the longest Fuselage with neither Tail nor Nose parts that I´ve ever done!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[aleatorylamp]

Another shape

Hello again,
Now the nose structure ends in an Oval shape. It seems to be better than the
previous flat octagon, that made the nose-top rounded dome part too narrow
and caused a rather sharp apex on the side, that I mentioned.

Here´s another screenshot to compare.
Then, Post #25 shows the nose ending in a square just before the nose-cowl,
leaving no space for the exhaust ring.

Update: So, the present parts 123% count leaves 216 pieces free for upper
and lower engine nacelle bulges - should suffice!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[aleatorylamp]

Trial Version Nº.1

Hello Folks,
This would be Textureless Try-out Version One, or TTV1 as it were!, to
get a general impression of the shapes, and also the feel of the .air file.
The provisional model is attached herewith.

The aliased Extra300 Sound.cfg should be changed to some good radial
engine sounds managed by Minuteman10´s excellent Merlin Sound.cfg file!

Panel is custom, to be used with the custom engine gauges that Ivan
and I made for the FW200 Condor. They are not attached here because
the file is so big it will gobble up my attachment quota.

Engine nacelle bodies are still structures! They will serve as a basis to
make all the parts for the necessary components later on, and this is
going to take a bit longer than I thought.

For the moment I have fine-tuned the structure shapes, and with a glue
sequence for Wing elements, I have managed to keep bleeds to a minimum.

Fuselage, vertical tail, tail gear, main wheels and central engine are all structures,
so as to keep as many components as possible free for the wings, flaps, landing-gear
struts, elevators, flaps and the parts-hungry horn-balanced ailerons and elevators
that are offset from the trailing edges.

Parts count at the moment at 146.1%, but should go down a bit as soon as
engine nacelle bodies are turned into components. That way, a dorsal, a forward
and two lateral machine guns will be added.

It is going quite well, and even the provisional engine nacelle bodies aren´t
looking too bad!

Note: The AF99 AFX is also included, should anyone feel like having a look.
There aren´t any textures, it´s all just coloured cardboard!

Well then! Enjoy!! I hope you like it.
...and suggestions and criticism will as always be very welcome!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[smilo]

got it...thanks, Stephan.
the screen shots look impressive.
am anxious to have a closer look.

i'll see what i can do
about a quick radial sound file.

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Smilo,
Thanks for your good words again!
I´m quite pleased with the shape of the model myself!

On Simviation there´s a really good (I thought) BMW 801 Radial
sound to download, and it works well with Minuteman10´s Sound.cfg.

I´ve attached the Sound.cfg here, and it will use those BMW sounds.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[smilo]

here we are, jumping topics again.
sorry about that.

i've spent an inordinate amount of time, lately,
futzing around with sounds and sound.cfg files.
actually, i think i've found some good ones.
there's a nice BMW132 set by Lawdog
and tweaked by OBIO here in the library.
of course, the trick is making them work in cfs,
which would entail adapting the Merlin sound.cfg.

in the mean time, i thought i would modify
the merlin cfg to work with the stock p47d.
it won't be spot on, but, should be close.
at least, it's a radial package.

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
Not totally a topic jump - it sounds very useful for the Ju-52, and it´s
something I´ve been thinking of as well. Then it would be easy to upload
a model with just the sound.cfg, without huge MB´s of the .wav sounds.

Should you finish by the time I´m done with all the Ju-52 textures, guns
and (uufff!) nacelles, I´d be interested in that Sound.cfg for P47d sounds,
to use on the Ju-52.

No hurry or rush intended!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[smilo]

never mind...your 300 sounds better

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
It´s not too bad though, but I´ll go into it in more detail on the other thread.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Sm ilo,
I ust got the BMW 132 sounds you said!
I´ll try and see how I to use them on the Ju-52.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[aleatorylamp]

Auntie Ju with Textures

Hello Folks,
I hope you have all had a nice time at your Christmas Dinners with the family.
Now we have to prepare for the New Year´s Eve indulgance, but remember:
It always tastes better than how you feel afterwards!

I´ve been very busy with Auntie Ju, and have made quite some progress.
Here are a collection of screenshots.

It is a Ju-52/3m g3e armed transport/auxiliary bomber with a 725 Hp BWM-132A-3
9-cyl radial engine, in green/yellow livery, as yet without registration number or markings.

As regards the oblique wing-bulges behind the engine nacelles, at the end, it
was workwise simpler, and shapewise better to use top and bottom half structures.
I tried and tried, with parts for components there, but my psychatrist recommended
using structures! After all, they don´t come out half bad now, with correct glue
sequencing.

I got a dorsal gun+gunner in, with his windshield, as well as the optional forward
firing cockpit machine-gun. Both are in the Dp file, along with three 500 Kg bombs.
The Radio-goniometer and the antenna are on the model too. All this except the
gunner´s head are is yet untextured. We shall see...

There was also provision for 2 lateral fuselage-gunner positions, but 149.8% AF99
parts count will not allow that.

The textures took a while to make, to try and give the corrugated aluminium panelling
a convenient look, but I think it looks quite plausible.

The cockpit windows are as yet untextured, and I am still experimenting with the best
way to do this.

The Virtual cockpit for the moment is non-existent, and I´m planning to add it via SCASM,
but, the model I think will be fun to look at and to try out. I´m just fixing the sound alias
and will attach the model in a moment.

Happy New Year to you all!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp