USS Coral Sea courtesy of Lazarus and V Navy

navy81

navy81

Charter Member
I've been playing around with Coral Sea (thanks to Lazarus for bringing the Virtual Navy's CFS2 model to life in FSX) and have a new video out on youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCi6E4WsK14

It's in 720 HD vice 1080 due to trouble uploading. Please pardon the length - it's 11 minutes - I just got carried away.

As Lazarus pointed out when he brought this out - this "Ageless Warrior" could use some additional development/refinement - which would be of great benefit to all who enjoy Carrier operations.
Those refinements include:
Replacing the 2D deck crew with 3D crew (Gary has added some to his latest Oriskany release - awesome)
Fixing the Elevators (they are not quite placed correctly - and have gaps with the flight deck)
Adding a "meatball" (FLOLS) and Landing Area (LA) lights - making night operations possible
Fixing the JBD (Jet Blast Deflector) on CAT 1 - if you try to taxi over it, you end up falling through the flight deck, hangar deck and down to the bilges...

Unfortunately, I have little to no dev capability (other than adding smoke to the stack and modifying wakes through MCX). Is there anyone out there who would like to take the "plunge"?

If anyone (Gary?? - know you have a ton of projects on your plate) can refine this beauty (with the appropriate permissions of course), this would be of great value to those who love flying the Phantom, Skyhawk, Whale, Crusader, Fudd, Corsair and Intruder.

Once again - Thanks to Lazarus and the Virtual Navy for bringing Coral Sea, regardless of sim standard, to FSX for all of us to enjoy.
Fly Navy.

Deke
 
Masterful, stunning video and editing work Deke! Whales, Rhino's, Scooters and Gunfighters - Yankee Station in the mid '60s with real-deal combat ops - what more could one ask for?!:cool:

Midway is great to have as you can have Phantoms, as well as the other varieties of aircraft on the Essex boats. Were Vigi's on the Midway too or were they too high impact to trap??. Key upgrade for the boat would be a higher res deck, and probably the island or at least the number 43 on the island to be sharper. Otherwise, I am usually either leaving or arriving too fast to notice much else! Is that VA-155 paint posted anywhere?

Once again, great job.

expat
 
I only spent one week on the Coral Maru (on a det); not long before her last deployment. She was the cleanest carrier I'd ever been on, and the crew was so friendly. I am happy to see this become available for FSX. Thank you for the great video as well! Navy Chief
 
Thank you from an old salt for posting the vid. Great work. Pulled a westpac on the Coral Sea in 1979/80 with the Nimitz battle group while attached to VQ-1 (EA-3B Whale). Cross decked to the Nimitz during that same cruise. Was like going from the Motel 8 to the Saint Francis Hotel. Popcorn and ice cream in the aft gedunk locker....who knew?


Again, good work on the vid and thanks.


ADCS Tom "Louie" LeBlanc USN (ret)
 
Expat and Chief,
Thanks for watching and the kind words.
I did the VA-155 repaint of the Virtavia A-4E as well as the VF-154 repaint for the Crusader, specifically for the video.
I will get those uploaded to the library ASAP.

Deke
 
navy81 said:
If anyone (Gary?? - know you have a ton of projects on your plate) can refine this beauty (with the appropriate permissions of course), this would be of great value to those who love flying the Phantom, Skyhawk, Whale, Crusader, Fudd, Corsair and Intruder.
Click to expand...

Cracking video Deke, as always.
I was going to start work on Forrestal after a few of my RN projects are finished....however I had a quick trawl through my hard drive and I have enough reference material, source photos, and a few options with some Phantom and Intruder 3D models, that I could work on a midway class and make that a priority over USS Forrrestal.

As per Oriskany it'd be a basic model (i.e. no animations, rotating radars etc) but i'll add arrestor gear, catapults and a default IFOLS.

Let me get Ark Royal and Illustrious compiled, tested and uploaded then i'll have a crack at USS Coral Sea in a week or two if no one else fancies it. (i'll use my own base model but may want to use some bits and bobs from the VN Coral Sea if they are okay with it)

Cheers
Gary
 
gp183601 said:
Cracking video Deke, as always.
I was going to start work on Forrestal after a few of my RN projects are finished....however I had a quick trawl through my hard drive and I have enough reference material, source photos, and a few options with some Phantom and Intruder 3D models, that I could work on a midway class and make that a priority over USS Forrrestal.

As per Oriskany it'd be a basic model (i.e. no animations, rotating radars etc) but i'll add arrestor gear, catapults and a default IFOLS.

Let me get Ark Royal and Illustrious compiled, tested and uploaded then i'll have a crack at USS Coral Sea in a week or two if no one else fancies it. (i'll use my own base model but may want to use some bits and bobs from the VN Coral Sea if they are okay with it)

Cheers
Gary
Click to expand...


Gary,
Thanks for the note back and thanks for upgrading her to a better spec! I certainly dont want to take away from Forrestal - a great carrier there as well - and like Coral Sea and Oriskany, served the US Navy well!

A note on your Forrestal project - are the island and flight deck numbers (59 for Forrestal) hard coded into the model, or can a 60, 61, and 62 be substituted easily (along with names - Ranger, Saratoga, and Independence on the fantail)?

You choose the direction and priority though - I am just pleased that you are at the helm. Looking forward to Ark Royal and Illustrious as well.

Liberty Call! (It's almost 6PM here on the east coast - work is over - time for a beverage!)
 
WillyVic said:
Thank you from an old salt for posting the vid. Great work. Pulled a westpac on the Coral Sea in 1979/80 with the Nimitz battle group while attached to VQ-1 (EA-3B Whale). Cross decked to the Nimitz during that same cruise. Was like going from the Motel 8 to the Saint Francis Hotel. Popcorn and ice cream in the aft gedunk locker....who knew?


Again, good work on the vid and thanks.


ADCS Tom "Louie" LeBlanc USN (ret)
Click to expand...

Senior Chief,
Thanks for the note. I understand! I did 3 deployments on Nimitz, then TR (Roosevelt) during Desert Storm - followed by 2 deployments on JFK - in my case it was going from the St Francis to a 1 diamond rated, non-AAA flea-bag. Well, that may be a bit harsh. The heads didnt back up and overflow all that often...

I grew up with the Whale community in Whidbey during the 60's - love that aircraft.
Thanks for your service.
Cheers,
Deke
 
Good stuff Deke! I was never on Coral Sea, and while I did a West Pac on Nimitz, my first carrier, on which I did two, and from which my fondest memories come from is the one in my avatar pic. Love the Final Countdown music too. A classic!

OT: I was at Whidbey in 2011 when they flew in an A-3, which they will plant on top of a stick outside the gate. It had been years since I'd seen one of those flying. very cool.
 
Terrific video. I was whistling the Final Countdown theme all day! (Was that a Horner score? I must look)
The library has the general release version of Coral Sea, which has the FLOLS active. Given here age , the old girl looks pretty good!
 
Deke, you did a super job on the video. I made my first two Vietnam deployments on Coral Sea (1968-70), then back aboard for the 1979-80 Iranian Hostage Crisis cruise. She was a top-performing ship. Nice to see her resurrected in FSX and conducting flight ops once again. :salute:
 
Apologies for my earlier mixing up the Coral Sea with the Midway :isadizzy: - same class at least!
 
lazarus said:
Terrific video. I was whistling the Final Countdown theme all day! (Was that a Horner score? I must look)
The library has the general release version of Coral Sea, which has the FLOLS active. Given here age , the old girl looks pretty good!
Click to expand...

Lazarus,
Thanks for the H/U - I found it. Didnt realize the beta release was different - looks better - particularly the deck crew.
Thanks for liking the video - everyone - you, PRB, TarpsBird. I hope it helps to motivate all the great developers/converters/modders to see the enjoyment we all get out of their fine (and free) work. Can never thank those who take the time to bring these to us, enough.

Cheers and best to all.
Deke
 
navy81 said:
Gary,

A note on your Forrestal project - are the island and flight deck numbers (59 for Forrestal) hard coded into the model, or can a 60, 61, and 62 be substituted easily (along with names - Ranger, Saratoga, and Independence on the fantail)?
Click to expand...

They are not going to be hard coded. I left the hard coding into Oriskany as I found that when I tried to remove them, because of the way the model was created I lost half the flight deck, and lots of the island, which I would have to then redo. So to get the model out quickly I just left the numbers in. I have been working since then on another Essex reworking the flight deck and island and have removed the hard coded pennant numbers and built it into a texture sheet....so when I upload that if anyone else wants to change the pennant to another Essex class they can.

I'll be doing the same to Coral Sea, and Forrestal.
Just gathering reference material for the Midway class at the moment whilst I complete HMS Illustrious (decided to add some deck figures so will be compiling and testing tonight)

Cheers
Gary
 
gp183601 said:
They are not going to be hard coded. I left the hard coding into Oriskany as I found that when I tried to remove them, because of the way the model was created I lost half the flight deck, and lots of the island, which I would have to then redo. So to get the model out quickly I just left the numbers in. I have been working since then on another Essex reworking the flight deck and island and have removed the hard coded pennant numbers and built it into a texture sheet....so when I upload that if anyone else wants to change the pennant to another Essex class they can.

I'll be doing the same to Coral Sea, and Forrestal.
Just gathering reference material for the Midway class at the moment whilst I complete HMS Illustrious (decided to add some deck figures so will be compiling and testing tonight)

Cheers
Gary
Click to expand...

Beautiful!
Thanks Gary. I can see an entire 7th Fleet with 6 carriers steaming off the coast already!
Deke
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top