AI BlackHawk

[Ripcord]

These all look really good. I'm quite excited to have the Hawks in the sim. They're going to be everywhere!

You got that right. They are going to spread like wildfire.

[John Young]

Forget that last question Chris, I've just spotted the tell-tale hinges of the folding stabiliser.

John

[mins]

Really great.
It is very detailed. So that the work is expected.

[Victory103]

I 2nd the CBP versions as well, I know they recently upgraded many of their older "A" models to "L" standard, but CBP has purchased new "M" models as well.

[John Young]

I've managed to get the two "M" models done, both with top mounted engine exhausts:



UH-60M:



MH-60M (160th SOAR) with Miniguns:



The MH-60M overall colour is a bit hit or miss. I've researched it on the net and discovered both in text and photographic examples that the tone varies enormously from medium grey through to almost pure black. I've settled on a tone a bit darker than the Pave Hawk to distinguish it. It's probably the most common tone I've seen for this Special Ops variant.

So that completes all 14 military models I had in mind. I'm going to work towards getting a test pack out for people who have contributed to this topic, if they'd like it - hopefully for the weekend. I'll then do the Firehawk and CBP variants after that.

John

[clickclickdoh]

Army colors can be a pain to nail down, mostly because they really suffer a lot from fading before they get back to the paint shop. New, the MH-60Ms are pretty close to Graphite in color. That and the markings vary wildly in placement and orientation, especially the Army titles on the tail boom. They leave the factory with the labels straight and level in the middle of the tail boom, then by the second maintenance cycle they've migrated to the top of the tail boom and now are mysteriously canted at a drunken angle.

John, you have really outdone yourself on these models. The original goal of six or seven total models seems to have suffered mission creep and now seems to be stated as "I got this".

One detail that I know is going to cause you to throw things at me though.... UH-60Ms don't have the winch. The winch equipped Army -60Ms are HH-60Ms... which are a special Medvac sub-variant which are most easily distinguished from their UH-60M brothers by the lack of windows between the cockpit and main cabin.

Example:

UH-60M:


HH-60M


Now, I'm going to go take my nitpicks and go hide for a while and be completely amazed with what you've accomplished.

[John Young]

That's fine Click. Deleting things is OK. If you were to ask me to reposition a window that would be a pain. Consider the winch on the UH-60M gone.

John

PS: Just checked the models. The first screen shot above of the two "M"s shows the UH-60M without the winch - it's an FS9 shot. The second shot is of the FSX model with the winch I should have deleted.

[Victory103]

Just keep in mind most of the special ops version will have the hoist as we call. For your texture sheets, the dark spot or hole behind the exhaust should only be on the left side, this is the APU exhaust. The color codes are correct for the 160th SOAR, they all look almost black or a very dark gray, all airframes seem to share that shade (AH-6,MH-47).

[Weescotty]

Just to further confuse things.....

Guy who did a kit conversion states....

"mix of two parts US Army Helicopter Green (FS34031) and one part Flat Black"
That's was from the horses mouth - Night Stalkers!

Mid way down the page...

http://www.wernerswings.com/MH-47Build_18-19.html

[hermit]

I'm no modeller but I was really pleased at the progress I was making de-poly'ing Jordan Moore's H60 model plus Matthew Lue's additional parts. Even Nick Black sent me some of his heli FSC source for pilot figures and inspiration with take off animation and I devised XML for things like airspeed based stabilator animation (much better than standard flap animation). I posted a teaser of each of the models under a different user with a play on my usual name:

http://www.militaryaiworks.com/newforum ... php?t=7027

Anyway, real life kicked in and my parents needed looking after. That was 5+ years ago, they are both sadly gone now and I'm slowly coming back to simming.

I'm so pleased that someone has stepped up to do this family. They look great John.

My FSDS parts are probably of no use now in Gmaz and you've probably done all the XML but if you need any of it give me a shout.

[John Young]

Thanks Hermit. I've done most of the modelling now. I'll end up with 16 model variants I think. I'm just writing the manual for the test package then people here can have a play.

John

[merlin101]

looking forward to them all John!
Dave

[John Young]

Got there and the worms are all in the can!

This is the FS9 flight line of 14 models (15 paints) of the Black Hawk family so far:





I’ve done a frame rate test at my FS9 test airfield with this result:



I know there are no scenery objects, clouds or autogen present, but all settings are maxed right for quality. Most of the aircraft are displaying at maximum LOD quality too at that range. My average of 355 fps (I7 3.4Ghz processor, 16 GB RAM 1536 MB GTX card in windowed mode) should give more than enough scope for detailed scenery for the AI I would think. The results in FSX with native code are very good too.

I’ve written the manual and a short test brief and zipped up everything done so far. I’ve included my test scenery (just a single .bgl) and traffic file for the 15 examples in both the FS9 and FSX Beta zips, so anyone wanting to have a play at this stage can see the aircraft without having to create their own flight plans. I’ve also included 3 files to add to the existing MAIW (F-15) Lakenheath package to operate 6 Pave Hawks from there.

MAIW Staff members and Contributors will find the FS9 and FSX zips in my personal folder on the FTP. I’m going to PM the links next to ahs06, click, dworjan, hermit, merlin101, Ripcord, Woogey and Victory103. If others who have previously posted in this topic would like to have a play with the files at this stage, please PM me and I’ll send the links.

Please, please, don’t share the links or the zips at this stage. Apart from the premature release, I don’t want to overload my Cloud server.

I look forward to your feedback and in the meantime I’ll make the USC&BP and Firehawk models.

John

[jeanpy]

[MIKE JG]

That is an impressive lineup! THANK YOU JOHN!

The White Hawk looks really nice sitting there!

[aerogator]

Thank you John. Just downloaded from FTP and can't wait to see in sim.

Love these helos and still playing with my UH-1. Someday maybe...

[halcon501]

This is a very impressive work you have done Jhon...Im astonished about i've just seen it....You rock mate!!!! [CLAPPING HANDS SIGN][CLAPPING HANDS SIGN][CLAPPING HANDS SIGN][CLAPPING HANDS SIGN][CLAPPING HANDS SIGN][CLAPPING HANDS SIGN]

[John Young]

I've really enjoyed this project in particular because it was good to involve people here and get their input. Don't forget Kevin and Mike Mac's work though. Kevin's xml trigger for the animated lift and Mike's helicopter FDE make the things fly.

It was a small can of worms, but I'm glad I declared it at the front end rather than trying to accommodate requests after trying to second guess what people wanted. Knowing what people wanted, made it much easier to plan the model transitions.

John

[MIKE JG]

I can't wait to see where people take this, there are so many possibilities for traffic packs and repaints.

[hermit]

I've had a quick peek at the Navy R's and S.

I didn't see any lights in FS9 whereas in FSX nav and strobes (or is it beacons? I can never remember) were working. In FSX the S underside strobe is aligned but the flashes on the R's are aft of the actual position of the light post (possibly aligned with its position on the the S model).

Possible mapping issue on the left fuselage of the R_Sonar model? Doesn't seem to occur on the other models and only in FS9 (FSX screenie included for comparson).