Legacy Aircraft

[Ganter]

Come on guys - sort it out.

Can't keep flying the 152. It's boring. . .

 

[bazzar]

Blanston12, the strange wireframes etc in your VCs are mouse clickspots and 2D gauge panels. The only way to remove those is with access to the original model. XML and 3D gauges will be OK. Quality of textures will depend on resolution of the originals and what kind of testure they are. Remember that in FSX, several types of DDS and bitmaps (BMP) were/are used to achieve different results and keep framerates down in that sim. Animations in legacy add-ons may behave strangely too.It's all a bit of a lottery.I wonder how our Duxford Mk1 Spitfire and the new Hurricane work. We are very busy on contract work at the moment so have no time to test. Anybody game?

BTW, I lived on Jersey for 17 years.

 

[OzWookiee]

Biggest thing to understand with these conversations is that all 2D instruments in the 3D cockpit will not work. This was a very common technique of previous FSX developers, both payware and freeware alike, so majority of aircraft converted will not work without a LOT of work.

At this point it is much better that they (the developers) break something's so that we can having some really amazing things going forward. Honestly there is 0 reason to have 2D instruments in a 3D cockpit in 2020. There are some instruments that you do need to draw on a 2D plane (glass instruments) and they have given us new tools to do that. Which requires the new 3D art format and some new coding.

 

[blanston12]

Baz, I hope when you said "XML and 3D gauges will be OK" that it means its something they have said they will fix in time.

I have the Dunkirk Spit but I don't have you latest Hurricane. Here are some shots from the Spit, they speak for themselves.

Then inspired I tried a couple older aircraft, first the AH B-17G, for the most part a success. It flew reasonably well and I managed to land without doing a nose plant (but it was close)

Then the AH C-46, I selected one with the more modern gauges and it looked promising.

Only as I few around did I discover that the AP and radio gauges looked like they were working when in fact they were not, they displayed stuff but you could not change it. It landed fine but could not steer on the ground even with left and right brakes enabled.

 

[keithb77]

Baz, I hope when you said "XML and 3D gauges will be OK" that it means its something they have said they will fix in time.

...

Then the AH C-46, I selected one with the more modern gauges and it looked promising.

....

Only as I few around did I discover that the AP and radio gauges looked like they were working when in fact they were not, they displayed stuff but you could not change it. It landed fine but could not steer on the ground even with left and right brakes enabled.

3D gauges work, they are in the MDL file. XML gauges don't work at the moment.

For the C-46 I prefer the older military model, the autopilot works and the radios are hidden in the roof so you don't see the cross-outs. They work though.
The AH/JF Lockheed Electra also works well, just the collins radios are crossed out, sadly in plain view.


For Ant's Tiger Moth you CAN get rid of the wire frame - they are in the panel.cfg as 'click-spot' XML gauges, just delete them.
Sadly though the controls (eg throttle) don't move in the cockpit but you do still control them with joystick etc.
But for me it is silent - do you get any sounds? I think they are all from a sound DLL.

Another one I've had success with is the Virtavia Islander, again everything except the radios, GPS and A/P display and everything works.

DC6 looks good but most of the instruments are bust



Cheers
Keith

 

[centuryseries]

Hoping to get this one native at some point.

 

[Navy Chief]

Come on guys - sort it out.

Can't keep flying the 152. It's boring. . .

Ditto! NC

 

[Navy Chief]

3D gauges work, they are in the MDL file. XML gauges don't work at the moment.

For the C-46 I prefer the older military model, the autopilot works and the radios are hidden in the roof so you don't see the cross-outs. They work though.
The AH/JF Lockheed Electra also works well, just the collins radios are crossed out, sadly in plain view.


For Ant's Tiger Moth you CAN get rid of the wire frame - they are in the panel.cfg as 'click-spot' XML gauges, just delete them.
Sadly though the controls (eg throttle) don't move in the cockpit but you do still control them with joystick etc.
But for me it is silent - do you get any sounds? I think they are all from a sound DLL.

Another one I've had success with is the Virtavia Islander, again everything except the radios, GPS and A/P display and everything works.

DC6 looks good but most of the instruments are bust



Cheers
Keith

Would LOVE to see the Just Flight Islander work in this sim!! NC

 

[Ganter]

Nice work lads, nice work.

If you were doing all this work together in a hangar I'd bring you all a cup of tea and tray of biscuits.

Keep going. Let's get all these birds off the tarmac and in to the MSFS skies.

 

[blanston12]

3D gauges work, they are in the MDL file. XML gauges don't work at the moment.
DC6 looks good but most of the instruments are bust


Cheers
Keith

Is that the JF DC6? An aircraft I have used a lot in both FSX and P3D (yes 64 bit compatible) but mostly it's mostly 2D XML gauges I figured it would be a lost cause.

I did try the JF Electra and it worked quite well, same issues as the C-46. Interestingly using the Sperry autopilot with the mouse, I could rotate the heading bug or the pitch one way but not the other, I would have to map a keyboard key to do that when it's time to fly it for real.

 

[Spook48]

Did anybody try this ?
I cant download it.

https://www.msfsaddon.com/2020/08/flight-simulator-2020-fokker-d21-plane.html

edit: Hmm , was browsing through that site and i seriously doubt if its all legit in there so nvm .

 

[keithb77]

I couldn't download the D21 either - looks like a lot of clickbait, I wouldn't trust the .com site at all - stick to https://www.msfsaddons.org/

Yes that's the JF DC-6 and no it's not really flyable with few working gauges.

The BoB Spitfire and Hurricane are pretty nice though just a few white textures (need converting to 32bit bmp I think) and very unstable on the ground, maybe the contact points or similar need adjusting?

The Virtavia / Flight1 Islander converts nicely - I'm not aware of a JustFlight version?

None of the later JustFlight models display properly, pretty sure that's copy-protection kicking in because a DLL fails to load in MSFS despite it being a legit licensed retail copy installed straight into MSFS.

Cheers
Keith

 

[anthony31]

Ant's Tigermoth Pro worked ok except for the strange polygons around the gauges.

Those would be the mouse rectangles. I map them to a virtual cockpit texture which uses a special blend to be invisible (or not). It makes development a lot easier too as the mouse logic can be put into a simple XML gauge instead of needing to be part of the model file. I guess MSFS doesn't like them.

 

[bazzar]

"Baz, I hope when you said "XML and 3D gauges will be OK" that it means its something they have said they will fix in time.

I have the Dunkirk Spit but I don't have you latest Hurricane. Here are some shots from the Spit, they speak for themselves."

Blanston12, you might want to try converting to 32bit bitmaps for the textures. If you used the FSX versions, they should at least show up I would have thought. Also there will be JF security on the originals.The security dll will be blocking out much of the model.

 

[musterpilot]

3D gauges work, they are in the MDL file. XML gauges don't work at the moment.

For the C-46 I prefer the older military model, the autopilot works and the radios are hidden in the roof so you don't see the cross-outs. They work though.
The AH/JF Lockheed Electra also works well, just the collins radios are crossed out, sadly in plain view.


For Ant's Tiger Moth you CAN get rid of the wire frame - they are in the panel.cfg as 'click-spot' XML gauges, just delete them.
Sadly though the controls (eg throttle) don't move in the cockpit but you do still control them with joystick etc.
But for me it is silent - do you get any sounds? I think they are all from a sound DLL.

Another one I've had success with is the Virtavia Islander, again everything except the radios, GPS and A/P display and everything works.

DC6 looks good but most of the instruments are bust



Cheers
Keith

G'day Keith how can I get the Virtavia Islander in the sim my favorite aircraft

John

 

[blanston12]

Some more tests:

Virtavia B-29, I sort of expected this.:

RealAir Duke V2, even worse:

I posted the outside shot just you can see it was not night time.

Then the RealAir spit, and to my surprise it seamed to work OK.

Like many of the aircraft tested quite hard to control on the grounds and when landing I again ended up like this.

 

[blanston12]

One last thing to try, in FSX and P3D if you run the engine too long at 100% it will fail on you and a very dramatic way and I wanted to see if it did the same thing in MSFS

It did!

 

[blanston12]

Just to continue a theme, the AH Typhoon. Again just about everything worked but very hard to control on the ground, nosed over just after I loaded the sim with the parking brake set and throttle at idle.

Ending up upside down in a field has become a pretty common way for me to end up when flying these 'Legacy' fighters, this does not happen to me in other sims I promise.

 

[FlyingsCool]

How long does it take you for each plane?
I think you said the GAS Super Stearman worked very well?

I suppose I should break down and follow the directions...

 

[ak416]

Nice to see so many models in the new sim, even if they aren't perfect.

I've also been slowly going through my library and have had mixed results.

Metal2Mesh Mirage - Had to bring over the engine.cfg from the Citation before it would even move, otherwise it would remain completely stationary. Difficult to get started, though I can't be sure if that's because I haven't been in it for a few years or what. Hud doesn't work and all the gauges have the triangle clickspot errors, I haven't tried removing them in the panel.cfg yet. It flies like a Citation because of the engine.cfg, I assume. I don't know enough about this stuff to change it (yet).

Lotus Simulations L-39 - I was pleasantly surprised by how well the L-39 worked out of the box. I had some trouble starting the engines, but once I did it was mostly fine. It flies well, maybe a bit more agile with the "Legacy" flight model selected in the options menu, but it was good enough for me to have some fun with. Cockpit sounds don't work because they rely on a .dll, though when I brought my gear up I did hear that and that sound kept looping. Most if not all of the click spots work, which was a first for me.

I very much doubt that either Lotus Simulations or Metal2Mesh will be updating either aircraft for the new sim, but it's fun to dream, right? Maybe the tools will be there for us in the future to make these ports a bit more seamless.