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JYAI Westland Wessex

Previews, discussions and support for projects by John Young.
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John Young
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by John Young »

Manfred, would you like any Wessex examples that were based at any of the German Cold War bases you have made? My Warpaint books shows 18 Sqn at Gütersloh from 9/1970 to 12/1980. That fits the Harrier time frame of course, although in the earlier years.

John
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by Manschy »

Would be more than an honour, John.

To be honest, I have to say since MSFS came out, I was more than frustrated - just at that moment when I did release RAF Brüggen. So suddenly almost all interest was gone immediately for P3D or FSX. I have to say, I didn't recover from this disappointment so far...

From this perspective, I am not sure if I will invest any time to complete RAF Gütersloh for FSX or P3D with all those details like RAF Brüggen. Motivation is lost, but I can envision currently to release my WIP version of Gütersloh for P3D, although it will come without any seasonal textures so far...

Didn't want to hijack your thread, John. So seeing 18sqn's Wessex would be fantastic, and maybe this will be initial to bring back RAF Gütersloh in use. Especially for the late EE Lightning's and early Harrier's era.
I would appreciate it very much.
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by John Young »

No problem Manfred. I understand the frustration of deciding which sim to design for at this time, if any.

I'll put some 18 Sqn paints in a version 2 of the RAF Wessex zip and upload it with the Royal Navy package when it's ready. There's no rush to do anything with the paints, but least we will have them available.

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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by Manschy »

So cool, thanks a lot :D
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

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18 Sqn Wessex for Gütersloh:

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The RAF Wessex package is still in the Hangar processing queue, but I’ll add the 18 Sqn examples to the next one. That will feature the Royal Navy Commando (HU5) Wessex, based at RNAS Yeovilton in 1981, also for FSX and P3D. That was an interesting year for the airfield when it was awash with different aircraft types. You know how one thing leads to another and having made many of the required AI models already, with a few new paints in the process, I’ve had a go at representing what was there.

I needed to tweak the Yeovilton scenery that Brian Clarke and I produced for the modern Merlin/Wildcat version by deleting the new control tower, producing a retro model and deleting a few objects that were not there in 1981. The Fleet Air Arm Museum had a different frontage at that time and at the bottom of the entrance steps was a static Buccaneer that some people may remember:

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These are the Wessex HU5s of 707 NAS and 845 NAS. I wish I could change the white golf ball tower to green, but I don’t have the means to delete it:

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Also present were the Sea Harrier FRS1’s of 800 NAS and 899 NAS in their high visibility paint schemes. The following year, the aircraft were re-painted in dark sea grey with the advent of the Falklands war. In 1981, the Royal Navy had not yet received its black T8 Harrier two seat trainers and instead relied on the loan of a T4 from the RAF, also present on the flight line:

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The Sea Harrier ski jump had to be re-instated using a model I already had. The flight plan has one Sea Harrier programmed to simulate a ski jump take-off at intervals throughout the day:

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The aircraft behind the ski jump, south of the main runway, are the Hunters of the “Fleet Direction and Requirements Unit” (FRADU):

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There are also 6 Canberra TT-18s of FRADU located on the north side of the main runway:

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The Lynx HAS2 was flown by 702 NAS in 1981, operating from the apron behind the museum, before moving to Portland in the following year. I didn’t have any Lynx models, so digressed from the Wessex for a while to make some. Here are the HAS2s in the Oxford blue paint scheme of the time – one clean model and another with torpedoes:

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I couldn’t really just get away with the HAS2. 3 Commando Brigade Air Squadron, Royal Marines, were equipped with the AH-1, but didn’t move to Yeovilton until 1982. They were previously based at Coypool, Plymouth, but I took the view that Yeovilton might have been a good place for them to have visited in 1981. There are 4 examples in the flight plan using one clean and one TOW-armed model:

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The scenery uses a number of AFCADs to cater for this mix of traffic. The most straightforward is the main EGDY AFCAD that enables the Hunters and Canberra’s on the main runway:

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The helicopters and Sea Harriers use 4 different overlaid ACADs. It’s probably unlikely that the aircraft operated in the fashion I have designed, but overlaid AFCADs are difficult at the best of times, never mind 4 of them. They tend to conflict with the main AFCAD with aircraft switching paths after landing and freezing. They really need to be kept apart and after much trial and error, I found a workable solution for the 4 files:

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I will press on next with definitive flight plans for the 64 aircraft operating in the scenery so they don’t conflict with each other direction or taxi-wise. Once I’ve done that and packaged everything, I intend to move on to tackle NAS Portland with Wessex and Lynx. Now that I have the base models, I will probably also make the later versions of the Lynx before its retirement, for FSX and P3D users to paint and place as they wish.

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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by Delboy99 »

Wow. Looks like a bit of project creep there John. Not that I'm complaining, Yeovilton is one of my favourite places for AI watching. The Lynxes are a pleasant surprise and been on my wishlist for a long time. Thank you John, I look forward to adding them all to my sim.
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by jetpilot1980 »

WOW!!!!
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by Pipercub1 »

Thanks for all this work, its much appreciated
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by Firebird »

Now that is the Yeovilton that I remember.
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by John Young »

Me too. I remember FRADU Hunters behind the Museum and Sea Harriers on the south apron, but I was recalling a different time frame that Dave Burrow clarified for me to give the parking you see in the screen shots.

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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by TimC340 »

My goodness, John - you've been busy!

I have very fond memories of Yeovilton in these years. The airfield now is a pale shadow of what it was (though that's true of many, many military airfields). It would seem that we are getting a bit of momentum up with the retro 1970s-80s depictions, and I rather like it!
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by Garysb »

What can you say :)
I believe that every human has a finite number of heart-beats. I don't intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by Jim »

Aw nuts! Where am I going to put your Sea Vixens now? :smt005
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

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The second part of my Wessex project has been uploaded to the Hangar queue this morning. The zip, for FSX and P3D, contains the Wessex HU5’s of 707 NAS and 745 NAS at Yeovilton in 1981 and the complete scenery, apart from 3rd-party libraries. Users will already have these if they have previously installed the modern version of RNAS Yeovilton from Brian Clarke and myself. Also in the zip are the new Lynx HAS2 and AH-1s.

To make life easier for the user, my original Hunters, Canberras and Sea Harriers, plus the new paints featured in the screen shots above, are also in the zip. The included flight plan covers everything.

Also in the zip are the 18 Sqn HC2 paints for the Wessex at Guttersloh in the early 1980s.

I wish I could say when the zip will be made available. Part 1 was uploaded nearly 4 weeks ago and is still awaiting processing.

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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by TimC340 »

Love your atmospheric shots, John!

It's a shame that we appear to be losing momentum in MAIW. Perhaps it's time that a conversation was opened about how the group moves on from where it is now, and what the future looks like. This isn't the topic under which to have that discussion, but I hope we can have it soon.
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by John Young »

Yes indeed Tim. At the moment, sadly, there is little point in spending further time on this hobby when we can't get by the barrier of uploading. I could use the Avsim library, but I dislike the constraints and don't really want to go there.

There has been some discussion, but it's in the Team's section, which is restricted. It needs to be widened if we want to seek new library staff, but the issue of ongoing funding for the server, I think will need resolving first. As you say, this is not the topic here.

John
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by Firebird »

I have been trying to get hold of Greg but so far he doesn't seem to have responded.
If anybody has an email address for him, not the militaryaiworks one, then I will try to get him on that.
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by Delboy99 »

Those pictures look awesome John. Really look forward to adding them to my sim. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into this.

I hope we can resolve the issues with Library, as it really is at the heart of our community. I appreciate that everyone seems to be busier than ever these days, but I'm sure there must be some of us here who could help out in some capacity.
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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by John Young »

I hope so Del and thanks for your kind comment.

I'm not intending to do anything complicated for now. I'm in the process of modifying the early Lynx models I used in the Wessex Part 2 package, to the HMA8 and AH-7 and I'll upload the files to Avsim as an experiment. I don't really want to do the same with the Wessex because there is no composite upload category there. I might put them on the cloud server that comes with my Broadband package for a short time for people to grab while they can and see if my provider remains happy. They are big packages but within my storage limits. I don't know what else to do to get them out while the MAIW hangar is bottle-necked.

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Re: JYAI Westland Wessex

Post by Trevytt2004 »

These Wessex looks amazing..just wish fs2020 was behaving more for AI as would love to see these at Culdrose.

Please continue the amazing work you and the others do here and as Delboy stated, theres many that hope issues of real life and servers etc can be resolved somehow to allow your creations to be out there. Love the screenshots all the same
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