KA-3B Skywarrior

[gray eagle]

Made a change to the exhaust effect (little darker) based on Youtube vidoes I've seen of real aircraft ; pressing the "i" key will activate.

If interested Here is the smoke effect file and the change to the aircraft.cfg is as follows.

[smokesystem]
smoke.0 = 0.00, -13.77, -0.77, fx_cruz_jetsmoke_m.fx <<<< New smoke effect
smoke.1 = 0.00, 13.77, -0.77, fx_cruz_jetsmoke_m.fx <<<< Ditto
///smoke.0 = 0.00, -13.77, -0.77, fx_ALPHA_B66_smoke
///smoke.1 = 0.00, 13.77, -0.77, fx_ALPHA_B66_smoke

 

[tgycgijoes]

If interested Here is the smoke effect file and the change to the aircraft.cfg is as follows.

[smokesystem]
smoke.0 = 0.00, -13.77, -0.77, fx_cruz_jetsmoke_m.fx <<<< New smoke effect
smoke.1 = 0.00, 13.77, -0.77, fx_cruz_jetsmoke_m.fx <<<< Ditto
///smoke.0 = 0.00, -13.77, -0.77, fx_ALPHA_B66_smoke
///smoke.1 = 0.00, 13.77, -0.77, fx_ALPHA_B66_smoke

Thank you. I will update my cfg. The more authentic we can make this the better package it will be.

 

[Mike71]

When I was with VF-24 (F8-C) one cruise in '65 on Hancock and '66 on Bon Home Richard, I noticed that the A-3s would also carry mail, supplies and yes, the Zuni tubes (LAU 33 and 35) we used on the F-8's on Dixie Station.

The bombers were able to rig cargo bins and nets in the bay as needed.

Now that I cannot be UCMJ'd anymore, I admit to carrying large quantities of lobsters from NAS Brunswick, Maine to NAS Patuxent River for our annual base picnics! Of course all with the tacit approval of the chain of command

 

[tgycgijoes]

As you say...returning from WestPac in 1968 our hanger bay looked like a motorcycle dealership with all the Yamaha's and Suzuki's purchased in Japan. Our captain bought and hauled a beautiful teak Chinese Junk from Hong Kong for a yacht as he was retiring after the cruise. Masts were laid on its deck and it was on one of our unused boat dollies if I remember. I got off as quickly as possible and headed for Norfolk Airport and home to Chicago. I turned around and rode back with my friend from St. Louis and we hauled a trailer with all of our stuff and he took me home for the next four weeks of leave until 12/28 which is the Christmas/News Years split of shipwide port and starboard leaves. All the while I was on active duty I never missed a Christmas at home.

I bought my stereo equipment as did most of the guys in CIC and AirWarfare was the storage for all of it. LOL! All the memories triggered by this thread is sooooo much fun. For Thanksgiving I remember turkey with all the trimmings and all the boiled shrimp you could eat. We had good chefs in our galley. I don't call them cooks because they were much more. One of them was a trained pastry chef and he made fantastic cakes...one for every "centurian" shaped in the shape of the carrier and personalized with squadron markings and the pilot's name if I remember. Served to all in the hanger bay.

 

[tgycgijoes]

Yesterday I posted that I was working on a new texture that I found photos of online. This depicts an A3-B with the refueling drogue as part of CVG-1, VAH-11 Det 8 aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1960-1961. Here it is. I am posting a mediafire link first so that ya'all my "beta testers" can try it and comment. If there are any changes needed, then I can make them before sharing it here in the Resources. Here is a screenshot:


https://www.mediafire.com/file/n68crtnwvpvv41e/texture.VAH11.zip/file

 

[gray eagle]

A-3 Skywarrior Last Flight and Fly-by - NAS Fort Worth, Texas​

I read that later on in time the Navy banned the A-3 from carrier ops and used just for ground ops.
Also, I read that the USAF version had ejection seats while the USN version did not. I think big Navy was
looking to eliminate the extra weight for carrier ops so they opted to do away with ejection seats. That's the
way I read it.

 

[tgycgijoes]

That is what I read somewhere too.

 

[expat]

Those J-57's really do smoke!

 

[Mike71]

The B-66 DID have ejection seats, different engines and many other differences. If you walked up to one and had been around Whales at all you noticed they were not all that similar.

I was on the CNO staff in the Pentagon (OP-55 Carrier Programs) when VADM Bob Dunn took the A-3 off carrier operations; however he did direct that at least one EA-3B crew would stay fully CQ qualified at Rota in case of national need.

This was the result of the EA-3B that took the top of the barricade one night on NIMITZ - the plane went over the side killing everyone aboard.

This airplane was to be the next to last aboard - and it was the last recovery of the day. The remaining A-7 tanker had a "sour" buddy store. The water was cold and a bailout / rescue of 7 crew seemed like a very bad idea. They got waved off a couple of times as I recall and were really low on fuel - "Rig the barricade!"

I was directed to write a critique of the JAG review and the accident report, and give recommendations, because I had relative experience at Pax River as well as having just come from being the "Boss" on NIMITZ. My opinion was that the Navy was sending young pilots with lower grades to fly the airplane and they were not routinely being exposed to carrier night operations. The VQ / VAQ airplanes also had a very degraded pool of experienced pilots to keep things in line by providing decent turnover to the younger pilots.

When the A-3 got light on fuel it tended to "float" badly if it got a little fast, so glideslope corrections and speed control got to be a huge task if a young pilot got behind.

Some people might ask "why not send the best flight school graduates to the A-3?" Well, the system in any service, in any specialty, rewards good performance with good assignments. What is the alternative, in a practiclal sense? The A-3 community was not glamorous as far as pilots were concerned and career advancement would be troublesome as the A-3 community was dying out. Naval Aviation can be snobby as far as cross-community transfers for pilots and NFO's who did not start out in a particular type of airplane, and wind up competing for advancement within that community, leading to squadron command and more.

There are videos and some ignorant speculation about this crash on the web; it was a sad story but available here:

 

[tgycgijoes]

Yesterday I modified Lazarus' USS Coral Sea FSX carrier (I have his permission from him before he disappeared some years ago, just never did it) to the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt CVA-42 successfully so that I could use my VAH-11 Skywarrier posted above. I managed with some difficulty to get it to work in AI Carriers since I hadn't done anything in the aicarriers.cfg in a number of years but managed to figure out what is in the file to get it to work. When I located the textures for the WF-2 and the A-3B I repainted them to the CVG-1 Airgroup as you can see out the cockpit on the starboard side. It is an old model so the textures are not sharp and crisp like Javier's Nimitz or the Enterprise are. The textures are 1024x1024 but for the FDR I doubled them to 2048x2048 and it is a little clear. Here is a screenshot:

 

[gray eagle]

Yesterday I modified Lazarus' USS Coral Sea FSX carrier (I have his permission from him before he disappeared some years ago, just never did it) to the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt CVA-42 successfully so that I could use my VAH-11 Skywarrier posted above. I managed with some difficulty to get it to work in AI Carriers since I hadn't done anything in the aicarriers.cfg in a number of years but managed to figure out what is in the file to get it to work. When I located the textures for the WF-2 and the A-3B I repainted them to the CVG-1 Airgroup as you can see out the cockpit on the starboard side. It is an old model so the textures are not sharp and crisp like Javier's Nimitz or the Enterprise are. The textures are 1024x1024 but for the FDR I doubled them to 2048x2048 and it is a little clear. Here is a screenshot:View attachment 158345

I can almost smell the stack gas and see some of the soot on my clothes.

 

[tgycgijoes]

Last week I promised a surprise here in this thread. Phil at Virtavia thought that I had converted the A3_B from the package that is for sale at Simshack and gave me permission to do that and share it. The package is for FSX and yes it really is. The ALPHA A3B which was payware and is now freeware which is what I converted, is actually native FSX because it contains two mdl's: one exterior and one interior. None of the Simshack do. I am going to write to Phil and ask why. Disappointing to say the least. I guess it cost me $15.00 to find out I made a mistake. It says FSX and that is it. Not sure if it works in Prepar3D V3 but it doesn't matter. It is more important to have the tailhook work so I am going to use Lorby's Payload Manager for the drogue. That is how you will have to do it in Prepar3D V4.5. If I find out why it is different from the freeware I will let you know. PHOOEY!!!!

 

[tgycgijoes]

I got a reply to my email to Phil at Virtavia this morning and he confirmed that the A3B package being sold online like the one I purchased at Simshack is indeed a "portover" of the Alphasim FS9. Unless I can get a refund from Simshack I requested since I cannot convert or use it in Prepar3D I guess I just bought another "boat anchor". Fortunately it was not very expensive. I still have FSX(A) installed so that I can compare creations for those who still fly it and it DOES work in there though the VC only has functional gauges hardly any switches. In my setup to fly the KA-3B, the 2D panel works in Prepar3D V4.5 so I positioned it so that if I [SHIFT]+2 it pops up with all working switches and gauges and then when I have switched what I want I hit the keys again and have the VC back to fly with. I will probably program that to a button with FSUIPC to make it quick and easy. My CHS Throttle quadrant is setup for carrier aviation. Same for other popups like I will do with the RFN TACAN gauge before starting to fly out to the boat.

 

[tgycgijoes]

I have just uploaded the VAH-11 Repaint into the Resources for my converted KA-3B package which is available there.

 

[Mike71]

I also posted a convert to a TA-3B and an update to my RA-3 package. Both use your fine P3D base model conversion. Awaiting approval as of 130 EST

 

[tgycgijoes]

I may download the TA-3B for FCLP before I try and land it on a carrier. I'll give the ol' vLSO a chance to "beat me up", LOL!

I haven't heard anything from Simshack so maybe I threw away $15.00. This afternoon I found the Piesacki HUP-2 for my CVG-1 airwing and someone here did the repaint for it for HS-2 aboard the FDR in 1959-60 so I have it flying as plane guard 150 yards astern in aicarriers along with the FRAM I Gearing 500 yards off the starboard quarter. I couldn't see it so I opened it up in P3D and it goes crazy and I saw posts that in FSX it crashes the sim. I guess that it never got converted right from FS9 to FSX so I am updating my CVG-1 to CVW-1 and moving the calendar up to 1967 and the Med cruise for the Rosey and a new complement of aircraft. Will have to do some more repaints to the static aircraft tomorrow and make a repaint for VAH-10 for my KA-3B. Too bad the HUP-2 is no good.

 

[tgycgijoes]

I thought that the above was working but sadly it was not so I removed it and gave up. I HATE TO BE A QUITTER!. I searched on line and after a few hours I found a post in Flightsim by another dejected HUP-2 downloader that MrZippy and Sirrus gave the solution of merging the HS21 and the HUP-2 model files together and it works beautifully in FSX. I am now going to see if I can convert the mdl's to Prepar3D V4.5 and get it to work in there so that I can use it in 1959-1960 USN era on the Carriers the HUP-2 served on back then. Wish me luck!

 

[tgycgijoes]

From FSX to P3D the conversion worked about 98% because there are probably a couple of the gauges that are FS9 or EVEN FS2002 that are missing in the VC but that can be fixed in FSDS. I actually want this for the planeguard for my carriers in 1959 or 1960 so that is not a point. Now I need to see if I can get it to be the planeguard in AICarriers. But here it is in Prepar3D V4.5 on the runway at Eglin AFB. If anyone is interested I will tell you where to download the files since the HS21 has some restrictions about blanket sharing it. You can put it together yourself then if you want.

 

[gray eagle]

From FSX to P3D the conversion worked about 98% because there are probably a couple of the gauges that are FS9 or EVEN FS2002 that are missing in the VC but that can be fixed in FSDS. I actually want this for the planeguard for my carriers in 1959 or 1960 so that is not a point. Now I need to see if I can get it to be the planeguard in AICarriers. But here it is in Prepar3D V4.5 on the runway at Eglin AFB. If anyone is interested I will tell you where to download the files since the HS21 has some restrictions about blanket sharing it. You can put it together yourself then if you want.

View attachment 158440

FWIW, I was with that squadron when they flew Seakings embarked on USS Forrestal. They evolved to HSC-9
Here

 

[tgycgijoes]

I was able to get the HUP-2 as you can see active in P3D and replaced the gauges that were missing with others from the P3D Gauges. No matter what I do though it refuses to work in aicarriers as planeguard so I guess I am going back to my first plan and just fly CVW-1 in 1966 with the Seasprite which works beautifully. That's enough for today. Gonna go and take a shower and read a book until bedtime.