Military AI Works

Stunning model, John, and absolute lovely color schemes.

Sure hope we get to see XW336 (NX78SH) that lives in the Denver, CO area at BJC.

https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=xw336
https://www.airliners.net/search?keywords=nx78sh

Looking great John

Firebird wrote: ↑15 Dec 2019, 16:28 There you go. They were there at Brawdy all along and I never knew it.

The JP4s at Brawdy were mainly used for Forward Air Controller training, as I remember. Both Army and RAF students were trained in guiding battlefield support missions, in those days mainly flown by Harrier GR1/3 and Jaguars.

I've been working on Finningley. I use P3Dv4.5 with a full suite of Orbx, so I need to check whether it'll work in a vanilla installation. I also need to find out how to apply an airfield background that will obscure Orbx's photoreal layer. Here's a couple of views of what I've done so far:

Overviews:







METS line:



Yorkshire UAS (Alpha Dispersal):





Nav School Apron:



One of the overviews illustrates a problem with the fact that, even back in FS9 days, Finningley had become Doncaster (Robin Hood) and had changed ICAO codes from EGXI to EGCN. I've compiled the airfield as EGCN, as going through the process to wipe out the stock EGCN felt a bit OTT. However, it means that any civilian traffic package (UTL, MyTraffic, Traffic Global) that has schedules to Robin Hood will still provide traffic for that airport, which kind of spoils the military vibe! I believe it's possible in these packages to delete the ICAO as a destination/origin, but it may be easier in the end to delete the airport from the sim (the process is covered on the FSDeveloper site).

That's looking very good and a very welcome sight because it means I don't now need to do it. Is it possible to compile the .bgls for FSX too? FS9 users can still use my old FS9 scenery.

Any idea how many JP T.4's were used at Brawdy? So far I've only found 3 serial numbers.

Brent came up with an easy solution to prevent modern traffic arriving at a retro airfield, in this case Carswell, Texas. He just created a blank AFCAD file with the modern ICAO code and placed it in the same scenery folder as the retro scenery. The blank AFCAD will override the default one and since there's no runway in it, modern AI won't land there.

John

I was hoping someone could help me with the serial number information for the JP T.4’s please – I’m fine with the T.5’s.

According to the serial number ranges for the T.4 in the Warpaint book, 183 examples were in service between 1961 and 1989, a span of 28 years. Of those 183, I have found 7 losses. I’ve also found photographs of 30 that I can associate with the squadrons I am interested in, but only at one or two points in time – the airframes could well have been recycled through other squadrons over such a long period or retired early. There are another 28 aircraft-squadrons that I have also identified but they are for units I'm not interested in. That leaves 118 serials that I have no information for at all.

I know Henk mentioned year books that have RAF serial number information and maybe reference to these might help. I’m interested in JP T.4’s for the following squadrons (the serials all begin with either "XP", "XR" or "XS") :

RAF College Cranwell - 1971 (last year of T.4 use)

1 FTS at Linton-on-Ouse – 1971

79(R) Sqn, Tactical Weapons Unit at Brawdy – 1984 to 1989 (aircraft would have been re-painted from camo to grey in the final year).

If I can’t get any better information, I can use what I have and then pick from the serials I can’t identify. A bit random, but they at least will be JP T.4 serials.

John

John Young wrote: ↑16 Dec 2019, 15:13 That's looking very good and a very welcome sight because it means I don't now need to do it. Is it possible to compile the .bgls for FSX too? FS9 users can still use my old FS9 scenery.

Any idea how many JP T.4's were used at Brawdy? So far I've only found 3 serial numbers.

Brent came up with an easy solution to prevent modern traffic arriving at a retro airfield, in this case Carswell, Texas. He just created a blank AFCAD file with the modern ICAO code and placed it in the same scenery folder as the retro scenery. The blank AFCAD will override the default one and since there's no runway in it, modern AI won't land there.

John

Ooh - that's a good idea - I'll try it. I don't have FSX on my system, so I don't think I can compile it in ADE for that sim just now. I do have it somewhere, so I'll see if I can sort something out. In fact, it would be useful to see what it looks like in an installation with no other addons.

This version uses mostly MAIW library objects, but there are a couple of IJS and MSFS objects too. As I use the ADE method of compiling with a single separate OBJ file, I would presumably need to take the IJS objects out before it could be distributed.

I can't help with the Brawdy numbers or serials; I only ever visited - I went to 2TWU, which at that time was at Lossiemouth. I don't think there were more than a few there at any one time, but I've no data to back that up.

John, I took pictures of the relevant pages from the 1987 edition of Military Aircraft Markings (by Peter R. March) and uploaded the 5 jpegs into your personal FTP folder. Let me know if you need anything else. Lots of T3/T4 JP's found with their code, unit and base.

Henk.

Henk, thanks ever so much for the jpg's. I did a quick count of JP T.4's and I think there are round about 50, which is probably quite fair given the late stage of the aircraft life.

Tim, if you would like me to test anything in FSX or in a clean P3Dv4 I can do that for you. If you also need any standard RAF buildings, let me know. I have quite a few that I made for airfields like Wattisham, Marham and Waddington, all in FSX format with .dds textures.

John

[/quote]Ooh - that's a good idea - I'll try it. I don't have FSX on my system, so I don't think I can compile it in ADE for that sim just now. ...............[/quote]

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threa ... ed.438858/

Instructions for running ADE without FSX installed..

Jim

Thank John. I think that, for now, the airfield will work adequately using the objects from the MAIW library. The very few objects I've used from the IJP libraries are available to anyone, and the project stands up perfectly well without them, so I'll freeze this version of the field at that point - and as 'EGCN'. There are a few mods I still need to do - 22/202Sqn parking (has anyone updated the Sea King HAR3 to P3D?) for one.

Having had a play and done a bit of research, as far as I can see, re-naming the airfield to EGXI requires starting pretty much from scratch - at least as far as the basic layout of the hard landscape is concerned. I think it's worth doing in order to address the civilian AI problem, and if so maybe I'll have a look at what I could purloin from your catalogue! I have all your ACG airfields, so I can have a good look and see what might be applicable.

I may also have a go at doing a few buildings myself. Off the top of my head, the only airside buildings that really need to be bespoke are ATC, the METS/LLADTS bulding, and YUAS. I've used buildings from the Euromil library to represent these, and they're perfectly acceptable as stand-ins. It would also be good to have the Officers' Mess plus its Annex, the old and new Nav School buildings, and the Main gate, which would all need to be new.

I've reinstalled FSX:SE, so I can have a look and see if it works on that. If you'd like to have a look at it and point out any errors or improvements you think would be worthwhile, please feel free. It's about 90mb as it stands (uncompressed), so I can put in a Dropbox folder and let you download it that way?

Jim - thanks! I've reinstalled FSX:SE, and I have the P3D v1.4 SDK, so I think I'm covered.

Beautifully done thanks John

EPTS at Boscombe Down had JPs for spin training, once they mastered them the students went onto the hunters for swept wing spin training.

Henk, those pages you sent me were very interesting. Although there were a lot of T.4's listed, apart from 3 TWU aircraft at Brawdy, they were all in storage or used as instructional airframes at Halton and Shawbury in the main.

There were none found at Linton and Church Fenton, but the pages did however list a large amount of T3s/T3A's present at those two airfields at that time (1987). That's consistent with what I've just read, that T.3A's and T5's types were both used together until 1989 (Church Fenton) and Linton (1992). The T.4's apparently developed early fatigue problems and most were withdrawn in the mid 1970's.

As a result of that, I think I'm going to produce T.3A/T.5/T.5B packages plus the T.4's at Brawdy. I don't need to make an additional model for the T.3A. It was the same as the T.4 apparently, apart from a different engine and avionics. The EPTS T.5 aircraft that John mentioned, are also consistent with that period too, so I'll include the "Raspberry Ripple" aircraft also. Ill also have a look at present day airworthy examples being flown in different parts of the world today.

Would you mind sending me the 1987 pages for the T-5/T-5A's (all "XW" serials) please? I'd just like to check those against what I've found before I start numbering up.

Tim, you are doing a great job. Press on with what you are doing for the time being and I can test later if you would like me to. You can change the ICAO code in your project easily, but you need the ADE "Pro Key" to do it.

John

Hi John. I have the Pro key, but it won’t let me change the ICAO code! I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong, but the field doesn’t come up in the Raw Data as I’d expect it to from looking at Scruffyduck’s pages. I’m using v1.76.

The T4 and T3 were the same airframe. The T4 shared the T5’s 2500lb-thrust Viper, which made it quite a hot ship as it didn’t have the T5’s pressurisation to drive and its extra weight. I think it ran out of fatigue life because pilots loved throwing it around so much - but also because it spent much of its time on 79 Sqn at low level. One of the big problems with all JPs was their stupidly low gear retraction limit speed of 115kts (IIRC), which meant it was regularly overstressed! The lowering limit was a much more sensible 140kts (again, IIRC). The difference was because the nosegear retracted forwards, and the hydraulics basically weren’t up to pushing against the airflow. Mind you, the JP3 was so underpowered that the whole aircraft had trouble pushing against the airflow...

Having set FY up in FSX:SE, it would appear the sim is treating the airfield as though it's a modified stock airport (it's not; it's built from scratch). The stock buildings, taxi signs etc are showing through, and the CVX is the stock one. That might explain why I'm not getting the ICAO field in Raw Data View. Very odd!

I've just tried changing the ICAO code and it worked fine. Select the Airport Reference Point in your AFCAD and then press CTRL+ Enter. That should bring up the Airport Properties dialogue. You should be able to scroll down to the ICAO code and then change it.

I was surprised at how fast the JP gear retracts, just a couple of seconds, including the door movements. Perhaps that was to get the gear out of the airflow as soon as possible because of the damage speeds as you mentioned.

Thanks John - I'd missed that method of bringing up RDV!

Having gone through the process, and deleted the stock EGCN from FSX using Scruffyduck's process, I find that, somehow or other, some parts of the stock airport code seems to have got into my airport - so I have some stock buildings, runways and taxiways on two different elevations, and my CVX is still being ignored. It's very odd, especially as it's working fine in P3D. I'll have a good look, but I think I may have to create a new airfield for FSX.

Tim,
Try the simple process of creating an exclude for the FSX version. Create an exclude for the whole airfield and make sure that you at least exclude default buildings. That should clear the decks for you.

John, I just dropped another 6 jpegs in your FTP folder:

- T.5 serials from Military Aircraft Markings 1987 (note: XS230 and XS231 are on yesterdays jpeg page 46/47)
- Complete Jet Provost rundown from the Euromil 1986 edition

Henk.