The NEW GAS Lockheed 12A Thread

[Spad54]

As I said in the earlier post:

Okay Open it. But lets keep the discourse civil. Also I would prefer like others have done that if you have an opinion and have not flown the aircraft, at least qualify your level of expertise so that your comments and observations can be judged in context.

We at GAS have attempted to advance our skills with every project and if anyone has followed us for any length of time, I think we've done a pretty fair job. We are still learning. Of the four of us 3 are licensed pilots, we all have active lives beyond what we do here. I am the project coordinator. We are for the most part all self taught. The work gets done on weekends and evenings for the most part and each project takes 4 to 6 months.

TeiscoDelRay is our lead texture artist and I have absolute confidence in his judgement in matter of defining the textures used on our models. He was part of Bill Lyons original "gang". As Bill's work is our inspiration we are lucky to have TDR on the team. He was instrumental in the Stinson and Dolphin projects as well. For the first time since we have been working together he worked with me as we built the exterior of the model making sure the fit and finish matched our examples.

I do not mind critiques of work as long as I am not expected to capitulate to any opinion or point. We will most likely take what is written and apply it to our next project. The Boeing 247

I think we've beaten the skin wrinkle reflective texture issue to death so lets hear about other observations. Who has flown it? How does it perform. Panel layout what works what does not.

There is a layered paint kit included with the model. I and my team would welcome another texture artist to do a repaint and perhaps add additional noise to the bump map. I'll even donate a model to a couple of members who can demonstrate to me that they have the talent and desire to do the work. As a matter of fact, lets make this a contest. I'll put up two models and those that want to bid on a prize submit screen shots of their work and e-mail me. the TDR and the GAS team will make the decision. Contest ends July 8th Roger knows my e-mail address.

What say folks, lets have some fun with the topic.

 

[Sieggie]

OK, you screen shot artists, how bout some cockpit screen shots so we can see the instruments in the civi and military flavors. Seems to be only two teeny weeny cockpit pictures on the website.

Dave

 

[OleBoy]

Spad, I would like to join that group of volunteer texture artists if I may. I love to help whenever possible, and learn from others when the opportunity is there.

And to add, I like your direction in what your group is doing. Not to mention, the following of Bill Lyons. Of which is my general outlook in this hobby.

Edit: As for my qualification, I think I have shown my drive in that particular field amongst my past work on Piglets SUS 4-P Scrofa, and N2056's Thorp T-18. If that will suffice, I would be happy to participate, though I don't do contests. Sorry.

 

[Spad54]

Spad, I would like to join that group of volunteer texture artists if I may. I love to help whenever possible, and learn from others when the opportunity is there.

And to add, I like your direction in what your group is doing. Not to mention, the following of Bill Lyons. Of which is my general outlook in this hobby.

Edit: As for my qualification, I think I have shown my drive in that particular field amongst my past work on Piglets SUS 4-P Scrofa, and N2056's Thorp T-18. If that will suffice, I would be happy to participate, though I don't do contests. Sorry.

My idea was to have those that want a shot at showing off their stuff using the Lockheed as a platform would first present their "bonafides" by submitting some examples of their work. My team would determine two folks to get a copy of the model with the expectation that they take develop some liveries for the plane and hopefully some new texture effects. We're in no way unhappy with what we put out, but with so much discussion about alternative texture styles and effects I thought it would a kick to have folks take a try at it. I would not recommend placing the shots on the forum but rather e-mail to me at admin@goldenagesimulations. My team will evaluate and we'll make the selection behind the scenes. No one need know who applied. If its a bad idea, then we can forget it.

 

[OleBoy]

Understood. Thanks. I probably should have not replied due to my FSX involvement is about to get real busy anyway.

Jump on it texture artists. Now is YOUR chance to strut your stuff!!

 

[warchild]

Well, I'm impressed.. I just took the L-12A up for a SPIN.. Naturally i paid the most attention to the flight model. The rolout was god, rotation was gentle and clean. The climb rate was amazing. I've been working on a fighter so long that i had to think about clearing fifty foot obstacles and plan for the mountain in front of me.. Roll rate was nice and easy.. quite civilized, but not to be taken for granted as the nose will pull itself down in a bank just as it should.. With a top speed around 200 mph she was beautiful to fly.. I guess the only criticism i can make isnt about the plane, but well, you see, its a tail dragger, and if you land a taildragger a little too fast, a little too hard, it'll happily bounce you from one end of the runway to the other.. I am seriously out of practice ::lol:;..

Someone asked to see images.. Ok.. here's some.. completely unretouched, they are what they are.. Hope you enjoy them..

Pam

 

[Cirrus N210MS]

i am Thinking of geting This lockheed anyone Here have it

wanna hear a little bit about her befor i order it


1.what do you think
2.sounds
3.3d vc and model
4.textures and multiplayer friendly?


i watched the Video on Pilot shop with the music makes it hard to tell how good the sounds really are i look for planes with Great sound packs! how does this plane handle in flight how much lag do you get from it?:salute:

 

[OleBoy]

Warchild might be a good source to talk too, and I think you know where to find her

 

[imn2sims]

Nice series of shots Pam. But, the last shot show kinda a pet peeve of mine. I don't know why so many developers overdo the touchdown effect. I know it is easily changed but that last shot looks more like a funny car burnout to me.....or maybe the brakes were locked up. Not trying to single out GAS...just saying.

Steve

 

[Meshman]

Nice series of shots Pam. But, the last shot show kinda a pet peeve of mine. I don't know why so many developers overdo the touchdown effect. I know it is easily changed but that last shot looks more like a funny car burnout to me.....or maybe the brakes were locked up. Not trying to single out GAS...just saying.

Steve

From Warchild's posting;

"but well, you see, its a tail dragger, and if you land a taildragger a little too fast, a little too hard, it'll happily bounce you from one end of the runway to the other.. I am seriously out of practice ::lol:;.."

She might have blown a tire or two? Wait... is that the Fire Department coming out?

 

[warchild]

Well, to be honest, that wasnt really a touchdown.. More like a controlled crash.. I hit pretty hard and bounced it this was the second time it touched.. and it still hit hard but didnt bounce. That could easily account for the extra smoke.. As far as the rest of it goes, the VC is good. Very nicely done, As you can see in the pics, the lettering is nice and clear and easy to read.

The Flight model is a joy to fly.. Takeoff and landing speeds are about right, which is a whole lot slower than i'm accustomed too ( about 80 mph i think ) and although she banks like a heavier plane, she still feels light, which the L-12 did and was.. Over all, I'd say they got the flight model very spot on..

Easy to fly, and easy to look at, i think its worth every penny of the price. Even more.. For me, what qualifies that is the flight model.. The plane doesnt have to be visually complex, because the older the plane, the more complex the flight model becomes in making it accurate.. These folks did a great job..


Sounds might have been a touch better, but not much, and the engine at full rev inside the cockpit is smack on.

I cant answer about multiplayer friendly. I simply rarely am ever in multiplayer..

Textures are awesome.. yeeah, some people can complain about the bump mapping, but I would invite them to look up Amelia Earhart and try to find a bump on her L-10.. And she was the crash queen of the thirties.. You wont find a bump. Lockheed wouldnt be caught dead with a bump or a dent.. As for the comparison of bump mapping on the goose to the L-12, not a good comparison.. Also, The Grumman Goose's bump maps and normals took Gizmo and butch about three months to do.. And we were specifically modeling that plane to replace the original default goose which had rather badly bumped skins..

What do i think?? I think i now have two planes i really love, my own P-61 and the GAS L-12A.. Considering the number of aircraft I've developed flight models for, thats saying a lot, and i didnt work on the L-12A..

 

[mmann]

So Pam, you're saying you didn't grease that landing!

Regards, Mike Mann

 

[warchild]

From Warchild's posting;

"but well, you see, its a tail dragger, and if you land a taildragger a little too fast, a little too hard, it'll happily bounce you from one end of the runway to the other.. I am seriously out of practice ::lol:;.."

She might have blown a tire or two? Wait... is that the Fire Department coming out?

MIGHT HAVE???? ::roflmao:: no doubt about it.. I could feel that landing all the way through the computer to my chair.. Not the worst landing ive ever made. But uhhh.. I aint gonna brag about this one, thats for sure..

 

[pilottj]

lol yep definately don't drop it in I try to land it like the B-17 and do ok then. I got it in and out of Bear Gulch with out too many problems. Great plane:mixedsmi:

Cheers
TJ

 

[warchild]

So Pam, you're saying you didn't grease that landing!

Regards, Mike Mann

::roflmao:: That would be a most definite understatement ::lol:::

 

[OBIO]

Just had the GAS Lockheed L-12 up for it's first flight in FSX....first flight for me at any rate. And it WON'T be the last flight. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. From start up to landing....and what a landing it was, film at 11. I had Snapper running so I could take screen shots, but for some reason my keyboard was acting up and I could not zoom in and out. But I did get a couple of shots, which I will share in this post.

Fired FSX with the L-12 at KBFI (the Boeing strip in Tacoma/Seattle...my fave strip in that area). For some reason, and maybe this is an FSX thing that I am not used to since I have maybe 6 hours of flight time in FSX, when I jumped to Spot view to check the plane out from the outside....the sim had we way out in Bob Eucker territory....WAY outside of the fences, out beyond the parking lot, back a few rows of houses...then it slowly brought me in to the plane. And it was a breath taking sight. The Lockheed L-12 in all it glory, with a gleaming aluminum finish only found on lovingly restored and maintained vintage Lockheeds. Now, I am a Lockheed fanatic....if it was built by Lockheed and had 2 radial engines, I love it. L-10, L-12, L-14, L-18. I believe that this line of planes is the most visually stunning line of aircraft of ALL TIME. The L-10 Electra....the finest looking aircraft ever designed and built in my book. I have hundred and hundreds of pics of this line of planes saved to my HD and to CD/DVD....I know what an L-12 is supposed to look like, even though I have NEVER seen one in real life. And my first sight of the GAS L-12 did not set off any alarms at all. Everything just looked RIGHT from every angle.

I fired the engines up (I'm a Shift E kind of guy, and am glad that this bird had the Shift E capabilities). The purr of those Pratt and Whitney radials coming to life...just does something to me every time. I like my plane engines the way I like my women....round and loud!

Only after firing up the engines did I jump inside for a real look at the VC. Wow. Nicer than my living room. It "felt" like I was in the cockpit of a twin engine, small airliner. The VC did not feel like I was being swallowed, nor did it feel cramped. Close quarters, not not stuffy. Every thing, again, looked and felt "right".

It was time for me to get this bird into the air, so I called for a push back. Now, I am an avid FS9 simmer and spend 99.9% of my flight time in that sim. So, I was a little taken aback when a push back tractor thingie actually came up to my plane to push me back. Though I don't think this is how it would be in real life:

View attachment 41440

Would be little tough on both the plane and the tractor.

Once I was pushed back enough, I "gave birth" to the push back tractor...that is what it looked like as the tractor came out from under the plane. I hit some differential braking and gave those PWs some go juice. The plane turned as sweet as you please and I made my way to the runway....without getting ATC clearance....I'm a rebel that way. Take off roll was sweet, though I did run off the runway as I was too busy checking out the VC again to pay attention to where my plane was going. Take off, even without flaps, was sweet...yeah, my take off was less than by the book.

I flew the L-12 for about 20 minutes....long enough to get a feel for her. Responsive, but without being too nimble. It felt like I would imagine a plane of that size, weight and speed would feel (though I really have no clue since I have never flown a plane nor ever flown IN a plane....I have been land locked my entire life...except for those few times I jumped off the room as a kid...which my wife says explains a few things..whatever that means). I didn't take the L-12 through my usual flight pattern...meaning upside down, 200 feet off the ground, full throttle, under a bridge or through a barn. Not something you do with a plane on the first date...save that heavy kinky stuff for after the honeymoon.

It was time to land. I pulled up the GPS...and this was the first thing that I saw about this package that did not feel right. The GPS was too small to be easily readable. Now, this is a teeny tiny "problem" that really may only effect me since I rely on GPS to find my way from the living room to the kitchen and back..my navigation skills are CRAP. If I were a migratory bird....God help me! I'd spend my winter in Canada wondering where the rest of the flock went and why it was so butt cold. I was able to find a strip not far away and headed toward it.

At this point, I was spending so much time outside of the plane looking at the details and trying to zoom in to really get a good look at things...but my zoom in and out buttons were on strike. They work now ----=====-----=====...but for some reason had stopped working in sim. At any rate, I nearly over flew the airport. I happened to look down and there it was. I jumped back into the cockpit, cut power, went into a 40 degree downward dive, popped full flaps, extended the landing gear, did a couple sweeping S curves to bleed off air speed and managed a beautiful 1-bounce landing with the left tire on the asphalt and the right one in the grass. Hopped back out to Spot view, hit the brakes...and was rewarded with actually seeing the wheels lock up and stop turning. Let up on the brakes and the wheels began to turn, hit the brakes and they locked back up. Very nice!

Here's a shot of the plane on the ground after my daredevil landing:

View attachment 41441

Now, aside from the undersized GPS unit (easy fix..not an issue at all)...there is one other thing that just didn't seem totally right...and this may be my unfamiliarity with FSX. The engine sounds seemed a bit weird. The start up sounds....killer. Idle sounds...killer. Various RPM sounds...killer. But the way they transitioned from one level to another and the way they did that wooshy around doppler effect thing....just drove me batty. Again, I believe this is more FSX that GSA L-12. The way FSX sound packs are set up with the direction cones or whatever they're called....just seems odd to my ears. It's one of the glaring things about FSX that I don't like.

Okay....wonderful package, great detail, amazing VC. Great value for the money. I got 25.1 FPS away from the airport...and I have FSX locked at 25FPS...and have not tweaked the sim in any way other than cramming every slider full right. SP2 installed. Yeah, I have a killer system but have done NOTHING to FSX to tweak it for optimal performance or to configure my system to run FSX at its peak ability. I don't fly FSX enough to bother with all that yet.

OBIO

 

[TeiscoDelRay]

Landing the 12a: Bring it in with plenty of power and dial in some up trim before touchdown. It will not flair like a light plane so use the throttle and try to wheel land it but the trick is power and trim.

 

[SADT]

I would like to give some 'observations', after having purchased this fine model:
First of all, you did a great job all round! I especially like the flight model, it captures the feel of the aircraft, and replicates what I read in the L12a PiRep: Lockheed 12a PiRep
Now, what I would like to see implemented here, is a sound gauge, like in the Uiver DC-2, which adds clicks to every switch. Also, on my Windows 7 32 system, the sounds stick, badly - I can make a video to illustrate this if need be.

But apart from these two very minor niggles, I am very satisfied by this product. It is well worth the $24.95 USD GAS is asking for. Good job! :salute:

Craig Tatley

 

[Spad54]

I would like to give some 'observations', after having purchased this fine model:
First of all, you did a great job all round! I especially like the flight model, it captures the feel of the aircraft, and replicates what I read in the L12a PiRep: Lockheed 12a PiRep
Now, what I would like to see implemented here, is a sound gauge, like in the Uiver DC-2, which adds clicks to every switch. Also, on my Windows 7 32 system, the sounds stick, badly - I can make a video to illustrate this if need be.

But apart from these two very minor niggles, I am very satisfied by this product. It is well worth the $24.95 USD GAS is asking for. Good job! :salute:

Craig Tatley

Hi Craig

I would be very interested if you could make a video demonstrating what you are seeing. It will be helpful with new projects. Thanks

 

[FSX68]

L-12 SOunds

Are the sounds authentic to the real Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior engines?