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JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Previews, discussions and support for projects by John Young.
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by jimrodger »

I believe that bomb dump was still there in 1979/1980. Our Airmen Aircrew Initial Training Course had us running up and down them for what seemed like hours on end.

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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by John Young »

These are green C-type hangars in FSX native code at my test airfield Tim if you would like to use them. There is a third model with the doors open at both ends. All 3 should be fine in P3Dv4:

Image

Image

I'll package these up for you next along with the Finningley Jet Provost T.5B's and some simple instructions on how to lay down ground light splashes in ADE for use in FSX.

John
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by Firebird »

It is so nice to see Finningley updated. I still can't bring myself to have Robin Hood Intl in my sim.
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by TimC340 »

John Young wrote: 31 Dec 2019, 11:59 These are green C-type hangars in FSX native code at my test airfield Tim if you would like to use them. There is a third model with the doors open at both ends. All 3 should be fine in P3Dv4:

I'll package these up for you next along with the Finningley Jet Provost T.5B's and some simple instructions on how to lay down ground light splashes in ADE for use in FSX.

John
John, that's brilliant - thank you!

Bomb dump. This is a 2002 satellite image of the bomb dump area.

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My first interpretation of it suggested that the storage and fusing areas were pretty much as constructed in for WW2. However, a closer look at the top half of the area shows that the bund immediately south of the 'crossbar of the A' contains a number of entrances, and the shelters to the left of that are rather larger than they would have been in the 1940s.

A close look at this picture, from the 1977 Queen's Jubilee air parade (at which I was the observer in the JP5 'whipper in' for the '25' formation, being flown by my late friend Garth Bennet) shows that that bund has the characteristic square tops of the 1950s nuclear bunkers. I assume that the area has simply become overgrown between 1977 and 2002, and thus it's not possible to distinguish the shapes of the individual bunkers.

Image

It's frustratingly difficult to get useful pictures of the area - doubly so when I think that I spent so many years based at the airfield!
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by hschuit »

John, which Domini model and paints are you using in the Finningly screenshot? I found the HTAI HS-125 700 but can't find any red/white training paints for it.

Thanks, Henk.
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by TimC340 »

hschuit wrote: 31 Dec 2019, 14:16 John, which Domini model and paints are you using in the Finningly screenshot? I found the HTAI HS-125 700 but can't find any red/white training paints for it.

Thanks, Henk.
It’s not a Henry model, Henk. It’s a JBS Dominie V2 available here with the later black paint job, and I found the red’n’white repaints somewhere or other! When I remember where, I’ll post a link. I converted the models to P3Dv4 format myself, I think from the FS9 version, but I’m not sure. I can check when I’m back at my main computer. I think John has re-converted them to FSX for his testing. Obviously, these conversions aren’t authorised and should not be redistributed, unless you can find an FSX version on one of the download sites.
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by hschuit »

Thanks Tim. That JBS model is really nice.

Henk.
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by TimC340 »

John Young wrote: 31 Dec 2019, 09:04 I agree Tim, I've studied all the GE Historic imagery and the store is not there. However, two clues:

The first is an extract from Wikki re Finningley in the Cold War:

"The Cold War years and after

Unit stores for atomic weapons were also constructed to house Green Grass in Yellow Sun, Violet Club and Blue Steel weapons. The airfield became known as the home of the 'V' Bomber after Avro Vulcans, Handley Page Victors and Vickers Valiants had all been stationed at the base. Finningley maintained its nuclear weapon storage facility for many years".

The second is a video I found that is set just prior to the closure of the base. Have a look at frames around 20:39. The store could be the mound in the background below the departing Tucano. It doesn't show the cell doors. The frame is blurred, but they could be on the other side:



Finningley is really difficult to research. There's not a lot of information on the net. What is sometimes useful are the various airshow videos shot around 1990. I've spotted the Watchman radar and the lighting towers on the ramp.

I'm just repainting some green C-type hangars for you. I'll give you 3 models: closed both ends, open both ends and open one end.

John
Hi John, I missed this post as it was on the previous page on my browser!

I don’t think the bunkers are depicted on that video - see my satellite image on my post above. The area you appear to be looking at in the video is beyond the airfield boundary, which is hard up against the dispersal (Delta) seen next to the parallel taxiway. The WW2 bomb dump, which is I suspect where the nuclear storage is, is north of this, and west of the WW2 runway layout.

I’d be very interested in what you have of the Watchman. I thought, as I said, that it was off-site, so it would be fascinating to be proved wrong! Flickr has given me a host of images of aircraft at FY between 1977 and 2010, which give circumstantial evidence of the lighting. There appears to be two types; the tall lattice ones by the main pan with a circular multi-lamp head, and the slim aluminium posts by the single bomber pans that parallel the hangar line. The hangars themselves were never painted green; they remained natural concrete until painted white by Peel when they took over the airfield.

The airfield underwent a major reconstruction in 1989. For a good while, we at YUAS were the only resident aircraft as the main runway was rebuilt and only the grass runway was usable. It was during that period that a number of new buildings (particularly the new Nav School now known as Armstrong House) went up, and much of the parking and lighting was revised.

My intention is that my version of the airfield will represent Finningley as it was in 1990, or thereabouts, as that is the period I remember it best - and, for me, this is an exercise in bringing alive old memories. Along with my 14 years at Lyneham (which I will tackle next), Finningley is where I spent a good deal of my RAF career.

One of the things I have fondest memories of is doing the Dawn to Dusk competition in 1989, which was an exercise in using a light aircraft (a Bulldog in my case) to achieve something interesting in the daylight hours. Me and my good mate Nick Stein flew to, and photographed, 70 (yes, seventy!) WW2 airfields in Yorkshire and Humberside (as was) - landing on more than half of them - in a day involving around 6 or 7 hours flying, and the support of lots of people. Not least, Graham Pitchfork (the then Stn Cdr) and Ken Delve (then a holding student, IIRC) who are both now heavily involved in keeping RAF history alive. I’d love to get hold of the full set of photos we took, but I do have the albums we produced which contain both historical and contemporary pictures of almost every airfield we visited. One day, those albums will probably find their way to the Yorkshire Air Museum at Elvington.
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by John Young »

Great discussion, if not a bit frustrating with the difficulty of the research.

In the video link I posted above, frames around 6:27 show a green C-type hangar. You can contrast that with the big windows. I assumed it was the same treatment that Scampton got when their C-types were definitely painted green because I saw them when I was up there on a visit. I've always wondered though because Finningley's were a more natural colour at the time Robin Hood airport was constructed. In 1977 they were the original red brick.

The Watchman radar is visible around frame 5:50, behind the Jaguar, in this 1992 video, but looking at it again, it could indeed be outside the airfield perimeter. It's certainly behind trees:



John
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by TimC340 »

In those videos 4 and 5 hangars appear to be green, the rest rendered. To be fair, I never went up that end of the line under normal circumstances! But, having looked through the hundreds of Finningley airshow photos on Flickr, that appears to be the case throughout the period we’re interested in. I suspect that any attempt to make the place more warlike fell foul of budgetary pressures at some point!

The radar appears at a number of points in that video (and can be heard on the soundtrack), and it looks to me like it is very close to the southern end of the bomb dump. The camera appears to be at a crash gate on the eastern perimeter near the NDB, which means the trees at the northern end of Delta dispersal mask that part of the airfield. I’ll see if I can find anything from another angle that would allow us to triangulate its position. It’s funny that I can’t remember it being there, but it may have been added during the 1989 improvements.

Edit to add: the finish of the hangars is a concrete render with a hint of pebbledashing, and the green was simply painted over that if it’s like Scampton. I didn’t know that the finish was originally plain brick; I assume the render was added to protect the (probably poor quality) brickwork.
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by John Young »

You have to remember that C-type hangars date back to the 1930's so the brick is indeed going to suffer by the 90's. I've just sent you a link to a "goody bag" Tim.
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by TimC340 »

John, I’ve just started watching those videos in full. The first thing that strikes me is that, in 1995 ALL the hangars are green. In 1992, just 4 & 5 are green. Both of these dates are after my time. I find it bizarre that the hangars were painted green after the Cold War was over and we’d stopped caring about toning-down our assets, but that appears to be the case. I will do a bit more digging to see if I can confirm exactly what the situation was in 1990, but the pictures I have so far confirm that most of them, at least, were in plain concrete render.
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by TimC340 »

John Young wrote: 31 Dec 2019, 17:30 You have to remember that C-type hangars date back to the 1930's so the brick is indeed going to suffer by the 90's. I've just sent you a link to a "goody bag" Tim.
I suspect the rendering was probably part of the 1950s update for the V-Force. It’s probably relevant that these bases are close to the coal mining and industrial centres of the post-war period, and pollution and acid rain will have taken their toll in those years. I do remember C-types at various other airfields I used in those days still being in a brick finish.

Oh - and thanks! I’m in Atlanta right now, and will be getting ready to operate back home shortly, so I won’t get a chance to look at what you’ve sent until late tomorrow. Happy New Year!
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by John Young »

Cranwell and Church Fenton now complete the JP T.3A and T.5 paints, having previously done Linton-on-Ouse and Finningley:

Cranwell:

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Church Fenton:

Image

I have also made alternative models with a singleton pilot to add to the mix. These solo models have a canopy that's permanently closed to give variation on the flight lines.

All of the anti-pushback nodes have been added to the FSX/P3Dv4 AFCADs and the next job is to create the definitive flight plans to replace the block departures I was using for testing and to make these screen shots.

I also need to finalise the LOD values in the models. Tim has been testing with his screen resolution and I think I need to make them less fierce.

John
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by VulcanDriver »

Thanks John for these. Lovely job.
John

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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by DaleRFU »

They look cracking John
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by btaylo24 »

Great work John, the JP is sure a cute looking jet.
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by John Young »

The Strikemasters that I'm going to include in the Jet Provost packages are all done. There are 16 for each of the Royal New Zealand and Royal Saudi Arabia Air Forces, all numbered up at my test airfield:

Image

Image

There are two models - loaded and pylons only. The latter has the canopy permanently shut to give variety on the flight line.

I won't be including scenery or flight plans for these aircraft.

That now concludes the modelling and paint work for the Jet Provosts and Strikemasters for all 3 sim versions. I'll make a start today on writing the manual and packaging up ready for upload. I'll post when I've done that.

John
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by ado4567 »

is they anyone that is going to done the flight plans
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Re: JYAI Jet Provost and Strikemaster

Post by John Young »

With what scenery ado4567?

John
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