North American RA-5C Vigilante

[TimC340]

How did you convert it?

In fact, I can see from the file dates that you haven't converted it. You have the FS9 airfield files, which won't display in P3D.

I don't want to monopolise John's thread with your issues, so you might want to start a new thread in 'Scenery Design'.

[Victory103]

Flight controls seem sorted now John, I have the Osprey book as well and a mini In-Action, neither go into flight manual detail of flight controls. I did reach out to a SOH member who volunteers at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL as he has provided other flight manual documents (NATOPS) to me in the past.

[John Young]

Thanks Chris. I think I'm Ok from what I have learned. I'm deep into texture mapping at the moment and I don't really want to disturb anything in the mesh unless I have to.

John

[John Young]

The Vigilantes are all modelled and painted for 4 sim versions, including "wet" Carrier versions. I just have some flight planning to do and then the manual and packaging.

I have managed to get the MAIW Key West scenery working in the 4 sims, including all the buildings. I have not though tackled the coastlines. This is what the real thing looks like:



The interpretation in the 4 sims is quite varied:



I'm not going to do anything with the water, even if I could fathom the differences in sea and swamp areas. I think in any case, many users will already have Key West set up for their sim version, with a mix perhaps of retro US Navy aircraft, like the Intruder and Prowler. I have though, tweaked the AFCAD to enlarge 10 parking spots that now accommodate the Vigilantes.

I'll post some screen shots of the aircraft shortly, once I have the flight plans done.

John

[expat]

Terrific stuff John - thanks for this.

I am at the moment setting up some DIY AI depicting VAQ-33 which had an unusual variety of aircraft and was based at KNQX.

[TimC340]

The Vigilantes are all modelled and painted for 4 sim versions, including "wet" Carrier versions. I just have some flight planning to do and then the manual and packaging.

I have managed to get the MAIW Key West scenery working in the 4 sims, including all the buildings. I have not though tackled the coastlines. This is what the real thing looks like:



The interpretation in the 4 sims is quite varied:



I'm not going to do anything with the water, even if I could fathom the differences in sea and swamp areas. I think in any case, many users will already have Key West set up for their sim version, with a mix perhaps of retro US Navy aircraft, like the Intruder and Prowler. I have though, tweaked the AFCAD to enlarge 10 parking spots that now accommodate the Vigilantes.

I'll post some screen shots of the aircraft shortly, once I have the flight plans done.

John

It's worth noting that the MAIW KNQX is based on the FS9 stock airfield. In P3Dv5.X, the stock layout has been changed to better represent reality (as can be seen in your screenshots above), and so using the MAIW airfield will fit poorly with the background scenery.

I'll have a look at knocking up a P3Dv5 airfield layout with parking and placing for the MAIW buildings based on the new stock airfield.

I have the Orbx Florida True Earth addon which gives a very decent representation of the Keys and the lagoons around this and other airfields. It's on sale (30% off) at the moment, but it's still about £23 so not cheap.

[John Young]

Thanks Tim. That would be very useful if you can spare the time.

John

[flyerkg]

I couldn't help but notice the comparison between the more recent versions of MS Flight Simulator and P3D and had to post this for a little laugh.

[John Young]

That's certainly a blast from the past, but I can't quite go back that far.

This is the current state of play with the Vigilante's. All shots are from FSX, but the last is P3Dv4.5:



























The manual is written, but Steve and I are trying to resolve an issue trying to set up an overlaid AFCAD that hopefully will enable the Carrier model to make practice landings on the short carrier markings on one of the Key West runways, while the land-based models use the main runway.

Tim is also kindly looking at the Key West scenery in P3D to see if that can be improved.

Nearly there, but not quite in time for Easter.

John

[f47420]

Looking good John .Thanks for the work you've put in to this ..

MW

[gsnde]

Take all the time you need, John! It looks fantastic.

[TimC340]

John, that looks great! Can you let me have the parking layout you're using? Or at least the parking codes (in fact that would be better). I've done an AFD for v5.X which is totally based on the modern layout. Of course, that's not appropriate for the Vigilante, but there's not a lot of info to go on for the 1970s/80s, so I decided to do it as it is now and I'll add parking for the RA-5 as I can. The user can either mix and match old and new traffic (as I quite happily do!) or recode the parking to suit the era they wish to view.

Sadly, many of the buildings depicted in the legacy MAIW scenery are no longer extant (and some never existed!) so using the currently accurate airfield layout means that several have to be deleted. There are acceptable substitutes for most of them, where they have been replaced, in the MAIW libraries, and I've created a photoreal background that I'm refining to try and make it look as good as I can in vanilla P3D. If I get it right, the various lagoons and islands should be present - though the colouring might, as it is in the default scenery, be a bit more tropical beach than salty swamp! I'll continue playing with that - it'll need some serious engagement with Autogen Annotator to look as I'd like it to, so I'll throw you the basic airfield next week and continue to play anon. Every airfield needs more learning!

[John Young]

Thanks Tim. This is the parking I have allocated for the Vigilantes in the MAIW AFCAD:



The spots are 46ft radius and one row is coded (V3), the other V12. I may need to tweak that coding depending on whether we can get the carrier overlay to work or not.

I'll send you over the FSX/P3D Vigilantes and traffic file so you can have a play.

Just for the benefit of our Painters. The 3 squadrons I have depicted were the last to use Key West (1976-1978'ish) before the aircraft retired. There are plenty of other interesting schemes around the mid 1960's, including the camouflage scheme used in the Vietnam war. Plenty to choose from I think, although home airfields will need researching for that time period.

John

[TimC340]

That would be great John. This is the layout so far:



And this is a detail of the current parking. I can allocate 12 of the slots at the east end to V3 and V12 quite happily.

[John Young]

Excellent Tim. Thank you.

I've just sent you 10 Vigilantes and a traffic file.

John

[TimC340]

Thanks John. I'm away for the rest of today and much of tomorrow, but I should be able to get a working copy of the airfield to you tomorrow night.

[John Young]

Thanks Tim. No rush.

John

[Bora]

Stunning piece of art again !!

[Manschy]

Superb!

[John Young]

I should be ready to upload the Vigilante packages this weekend, but I need a small piece of information to complete the manual. That's a link to the package that has the "Florennes_Object_Library.bgl" in it. I would have thought the Belgian Alpha Jets package, but not so, I think.

Could anyone tell me the package please?

John