• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

Tuskegee Airmen Update & Fine Tuning

Devildog73

Devildog73

SOH Staff
Staff member
All,
With Rami here at my house and rain and fog all around, not to mention that in Germany nothing is open on Dec 31-Jan 1, (oh does that mean I DID mention it), we are working the Tuskegee Airmen Campaigns into ONE Campaign with updates from the 2, too amazing, Jean Bomber and Achim scenery and airbase developers. With my restrictions on positioning and movement of my strong side shoulder and arm since major surgery in the middle of November, I have been restricted in what I can do on computers. BUT, it has been six weeks now and I am able to finally rid myself of the abduction pillow sling for hours a day. I can operate a joystick now, though Rami says my landings are much improved since I cannot "manhandle" that device now and have to be more gentle in my movements. Seriously though, I LIKE bouncing when I land! I also love roller-coasters..............

Oh, back to the OP.....

Rami is going to be moving out on a train tour of Europe shortly to visit other CFS2ers around the area. His Tuskegee install and mine now mirror each other and while he is gone I will be test flying some of his modifications and making my own modifications to the missions. When he returns from visiting around Europe, we will have enough time, I think, to finalize the full campaign. The only thing left is some final mods that Jean Bomber is doing to some of the Med scenery he has created. Once we all finish our final touch ups, we should be ready to release an improved Tuskegee Airmen Campaign. It should be more pleasing to the eyes and frame rates.
 
Rami,
I test flew the Alpha A-20G, the FDG2 A-20, and the TR A20G in FF and monitored the FPS from inside and out, max speed, speed at 80% throttle, speed at 66% throttle, @ 10,000ft fully loaded with heavy bombs. I got the AI bombs to go into the TR A20G, but the top 2 and bottom 2 were outside of the aircraft. The top 2 were on the fuselage above the wings, the bottom 2 as if on hardpoints on bomb bay doors.

Using the FDG2 A20 with SopwithC's SAAF skin and heavy bombs is quite pleasing. The AI bombers drop on target and completely destroy the wharf and several barges, boats, and ships. Very nice lookiing from the follow the bombers position. Nice ground explosions and smoke.

FPS on all three A-20s were between 29 and 62 unless warping into the next action. Then, it drops to 17 until the sim catches up and comes back up to the mid to upper 20s.

So, unless someone wants to create a South African Air Force multi-LOD skin for either TR's A-20, or Alpha's A-20, I am going to stick with the FDG2 and Jim's skin. The AI bombs for all three are a bust. They just will not fit into the fuselages. With 32 A-20s in 4 rows abreast of 8 and heavy bomb load, they drop 4-6 bombs each. It is impressive looking when they hit the targets.

I will zip up the Sardinia Escort mission and get it out to you in an email this weekend. It is done, except for your flight and any tweaking you might want to do. I will also zip up the Anzio mission and send it. FPS are much better now.
 
Reply...

Devildog,

It sounds good to me. What about the Salerno landing? :ernae:
 
Rami said:
Devildog,

It sounds good to me. What about the Salerno landing? :ernae:
Click to expand...

I am working that one tonight and tomorrow. It is still a little low on FPS and high on objects.

Also, working a Catalina escort to pick up a downed aircrew.

Having trouble getting the PBY to land on water. Then, I also need one to take off from water. In this case, CFS2 is sucking BIG time.
I am using one to go to the spot, escort circling, different PBY with same name taking off from "near" where the 1st one is supposed to land.
Have a sub or enemy fighters to occupy the flight so that I can slight of hand the new PBY to take off as the original.
I may have to scrub this mission. CFS2 may not have a way to get it done.
 
Hi Devildog73,

If you want a PBY to land on water you need to set up a runway.

The problem with the PBY is that it has landing gear. So it will want to put the gear down.

You will need a dedicated PBY with the "Wheeled landing gear" locked in the up position.

The other problem is that the outboard wing floats would need to be linked to the "landing gear variable" in the model file.

What PBY are you using. I could most likely mod it for you.

Regards,
B24Guy
 
The B24 Guy said:
Hi Devildog73,

If you want a PBY to land on water you need to set up a runway.

The problem with the PBY is that it has landing gear. So it will want to put the gear down.

You will need a dedicated PBY with the "Wheeled landing gear" locked in the up position.

The other problem is that the outboard wing floats would need to be linked to the "landing gear variable" in the model file.

What PBY are you using. I could most likely mod it for you.

Regards,
B24Guy
Click to expand...
Thanks B24Guy,
I am using VB_Catalina. I am not locked into it, but it was one of the three I have in my storage files. The other 2 are night versions and I did not think they were appropriate for the Med. When I researched "flying boats" online, I found that PBY-5As were used in all theaters. Problem being that they were all black and white photos. I also found that PBYs were used by the USAAC as well as USN. We also used a Grumman W-44 Widgeon in the '40s for rescues.

My next problem with this mission project is finding a raft to place in the water. I think I saw one either in our SOH library or in Simviations. I will research it and find it.

Now, as to putting a runway on the water.......won't it show in a color other than blue?
Or, do I put it there and then manipulate the elevation to make it lower than 0 Feet?

I just found some PBMs from Jim Jacobson on Simviation that look interesting and might fit the missions. At least they have enough skins to change the colors to grey or light blue.

Found the life rafts there also.
 
DD

You will need to make the runway with FSSC. You can make the runway invisible and don't use a background bmp. That way the runway will be there but the player won't see it. You'll need an entry into the airbases.dat file to use it.
 
Captain Kurt said:
DD

You will need to make the runway with FSSC. You can make the runway invisible and don't use a background bmp. That way the runway will be there but the player won't see it. You'll need an entry into the airbases.dat file to use it.
Click to expand...

Thanks CaptK,
I will look and see if I have FSSC downloaded and installed.
 
FSSC

I was gonna post a link for DD for FSSC but both links I have are dead, Anyone have a current link to this utility? DD if you need it I have it archived here on my laptop. Just PM me with your email address and I'll send it to you (4.72 mb).
 
Jean Bomber said:
Here a link to download fssc

http://leung-software.software.informer.com/

JP
Click to expand...

Jean Bomber, the only things for download on that site that I get are not FSSC. They show 2 FS Scenery Creator for download, but when I click on either they take me to another page where the only buttons are for other software that I know nothing about nor have use for. I will PM Shadow Wolf or I could send one of you scenery guys my mission file which has two steel mat runways 10 feet below sea level in the location I need them. They flash on and off as the scenery files conflict with one another, but they are there next to the 2 rafts of flight crew with dye in the water.
 
Jean Bomber said:
Hi Devildog,

You're right ,I've not try the link,thought it was more simple but today it seems not easy to find this tool in the net,i've tried some links I've just only found an old version fssc 1.2.5 and update 1.2.7 at simviation ,the other way is the PM.:kilroy:

http://www.simviation.com/fsdesign_scenery1.htm


JP
Click to expand...

Jean,
I found FSSC version 1.5.11 on my FS2004 utilities folder.
I created 2 invisible runways with it and added them as SP bases in the airbase data file.

I cannot get the aircraft to land at them in the water. All the sea planes lower landing gear and begin final approach and keep flying and circling around but do not land.


B24Guy,
Here are the DPs on each of the 3 sea planes I tried. Can you modify them to allow water landing?
Thanks,
DD73

View attachment 56691
 
Hi Devildog,

Sorry, been away for a day.

You don't need to create a "real" runway. Just add one in your "airbases.dat" file.

I know I managed to do this with the Coranado in the past. I will see what I can do.

I will be gone on Thur. and return Sun. if you don't here from me before then.

Regards,
B24Guy
 
Reply...

The B24 Guy,

I had a similar problem in the DOA update in a mission like Devildog's, and if I recall correctly, that is how I handled it. :icon29:
 
Hi Guys,

I got the PBY to land. Taking off afterwards is a no-go.

You will have to split mission into two. First one ending with the PBY landing. The second one starting with the PBY taking off.
If you reverse the takeoff numbers (ie. from - to +) the aircraft will take-off in the same direction as it landed. (Thanks Bob) "Plug".

Anyway here are some PBY airfiles files, Airbase info and a test mission.


Regards,

B24Guy
 
Devildog73 said:
Thanks B24Guy,
I am using VB_Catalina. I am not locked into it, but it was one of the three I have in my storage files. The other 2 are night versions and I did not think they were appropriate for the Med. When I researched "flying boats" online, I found that PBY-5As were used in all theaters. Problem being that they were all black and white photos. I also found that PBYs were used by the USAAC as well as USN. We also used a Grumman W-44 Widgeon in the '40s for rescues.

My next problem with this mission project is finding a raft to place in the water. I think I saw one either in our SOH library or in Simviations. I will research it and find it.

Now, as to putting a runway on the water.......won't it show in a color other than blue?
Or, do I put it there and then manipulate the elevation to make it lower than 0 Feet?

I just found some PBMs from Jim Jacobson on Simviation that look interesting and might fit the missions. At least they have enough skins to change the colors to grey or light blue.

Found the life rafts there also.
Click to expand...

Hi Devildog,

I just happened to read this. I think either Colin Glendinnig, Tom Sanford or Psullykeys did a set of very realistic looking life rafts. Search their sites, while Tom Sanford's (aka Tango) materials are available over at Lindsay Watt's CFS2 website.

Does the water landing problem with the PBY happen when it is flown as an AI plane? This is out of curiosity, because I was always able to land both VB's and VN's PBYs in the water with no problem.

The only problem I have with them is that, sometimes, they do not take off from water in FF but start already in the sky.

Switching subjects, do not forget that several 1944-45 air battles were fought in the skies over Northern Italy. Tipically to USAAF formations returning from missions over Germany, when the box formations were all scattered and many bombers had already sustained heavy damage over their targets. The other battles involved bomber formations attacking Northern Italian tactical targets like rail yards, railway intersections, bridges and crossroads.
They were usually attacked by both Luftwaffe and Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI) fighters all based in Northern Italian airports.

Rami and I had our first lunch in a small country restaurant wich lays only a couple of kms away from the field were a B-17 crash landed in late 1944. Fidenza's railyard was hit on May 13th, 1944 by a formation of B-24s based in Puglia. I can give you better details on the squadron number, their flight path, and rendezvous spot with their fighter escort if you want me to.


Cheers!
KH :ernae:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top