Military AI Works

Unfortunately John, the JASDF has made things complicated for trying to make an accurate retro package. First of all, all 31 aircraft were built and in service by 1981, so they all wore silver at some point. Second, a couple of the C-1s have changed serial numbers during their service histories. At some point 18-1001 and 18-1002 became 28-1001 and 28-1002 respectively. 38-1004 became 48-1004. When exactly these changes happened I don't know, but from pictures I have seen, the numbers changed before they were painted in the camo scheme. The good news is that even though the first digit seems to change, the last five stay the same so it's easy to track an airframe. Standard JASDF serial number system in play:

First digit is the last digit of the year the airframe was funded in the budget
Second digit is the aircraft type (8 is shared by C-1s and UH-60s)
Third digit is aircraft role (1 for transports)
Last three are production sequence.

68-1050 is an airframe I accidentally created last night by fat fingering 68-1020... so, let's pretend it always said 68-1020.

88-1027 was destroyed in a crash in June of 2000.

The list I provided is only aircraft that I can confirm through pictures of them in silver paint with tail flashes on. That would place them in the time window I mentioned. Silver paint without tail flashes would be before that time period and camo paint would be after it.

Since there are only 12 in your list Brent, should I pick another 6 from the list of 31 to give 18 silver plus your special paint schemes. I'm not sure anyone is going to worry about a wrong number or two that far back.

I don't want to paint more silver than the modern number because of parking constraints at the 3 airfields.

John

John, all the retro special paints that I have been able to identify so far are 40th Anniversary and forward, so 1994 to present. Well after the silver jets were repainted into camo. Parking shouldn't be too much of a problem because the aircraft assigned to 401 were based at Nagoya Komaki during the silver jet period, so that opens up a fourth airbase.

At this point I think the two options are: 1) Randomly choose some serials to fill in the squadrons -or- 2) leave the unknowns with blank tails as they were before the tail flashes were introduced.

Also, as a note, the roundels were much bigger on old silver paint scheme:



I'll send you over the retro tail flashes tonight.

Thanks Brent.

Superb John.

That's a fine looking ship there John.V fine indeed.

MW

John, I cannot express enough gratitude, impressive worck, as usual.

Jeanpy

Any word on the silver birds yet? Just Askin...

Larry, I've done half the silver paints and I'll continue with the other half. Brent advises that during the silver era the jets were based at Miho (403 Hikotai), Iruma (402 Hikotai) and Nagoya Komaki (401 Hikotai) with the 001/prototype at Gifu. All of these airfields are available with modern scenery, Nagoya Komaki is in the process of being refinished with some updates from the version he made in 2012. None of these airports have retro versions nor do we think they can be made.

We can't be completely accurate with the serial numbers, so the modern flight plans could be used with the silver paints, but we will need some more FPs for Nagoya Komaki if you want to use that airfield. Would you like to contribute those?

John

It is no problem John, I was in the USAF during 76-86, and I was stationed at Yokota (76-78). I attended the airshows at Iruma (formerly Johnson AB), and we always chuckled when the C-1's would fly over, or when they attended Yokota's airshow. They were referred to as "baby C-141's" or "baby lizards". Nice aircraft, but badly limited in range. I am setting most of my JASDF with F-104's and early F-4EJ/J Kai. Blue Impulse of course are F-86's.

Many thanks for the early versions, they look and act great. I can work on some extra flight plans this weekend.

Larry I've created 27 silver paints. The aircraft are divided into 3 folders for 401st, 402nd and 403rd Hikotai. The allocation of serial numbers to each folder is what Brent has determined from historic photos and whatever lists are available, but to even the balance I have spread the remaining numbers into each folder. Each aircraft in the folder carries the correct tail badge, but there's no guarantee that the serial numbers are all correct.

You will need flight plans for Nagoya Kamaki and you will also need to adjust the modern flight plans for the different allocation of aircraft. Brent's scenery of Nagoya Kamaki is in Nagoya_kamaki.zip at Avsim if you don't have it already.

I'm going to PM you a link to the silver paints next.

I'm away for a week from this weekend, but please let us know how you get on.

John

An updated Nagoya should be in our own Download Hangar in the next couple of days. I just need to finish the land class adjustments to make the airport in the middle of a city instead of the middle of farms. I also have 4 of 6 planned retro/anniversary paints ready.

I should be uploading these in the next 24 hours:


402 Hikotai: JASDF 50th Anniversary blue and gold versions.


402 Hikotai: 40th Anniversary:


403 Hikotai: JASDF 50th Anniversary


403 Hikotai: Miho Air Base 50th Anniversary:

WOW! Those are sweet paint jobs! Nice work!

When you see these you have to take your hat off to painters that can produce these masterpieces.
I also tip my hat to the modellers that think about painters and what they might have to do in the future when they create their models.

I concur.

That is the true genius of John Young, his painting skills are also not too shabby either.
Not to detract from Clicks results.

When you make a model that anyone can paint, everyone will want to paint it.

John

Until, perhaps 12 months ago, I wasn't always mindful of what Steve and John are kindly saying. I mapped textures for AI aircraft on the scenery design basis that the fewer the number of texture vertices, the better the performance in the sim. That entailed sharing areas of the texture sheet of the same colour or design, with different parts. That was fine for the specific aircraft I was painting because I knew what could be shared without conflict and I could see the result in the sim.

It wasn't until I got more involved with the painters here and we explored together what causes problems, that I realised that I could do things a bit differently. I now use much less sharing of parts of the texture sheet and I tend to test the mapping more to help ensure versatility. I don't always get it right, but I have gladly tweaked the mapping for Brent and others so they can produce the outstanding paints that they do.

John

Hello

Are you intested in doing this new paint?

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Japan-A ... /5230761/L

If we can get a good look at the top of the wing.

I already have very good squared side on pictures for both the left and right side.

Not the best angle, but it's a start https://flyteam.jp/photo/2646825/L