Military AI Works

To put you in the picture, I recently changed my FSX to a different era, I've now got it in the 50's - 60's.
So I have been busy populating it with aircraft from those years, added lots of AI and got them flying etc.
I also started to add some military aircraft, plus a few helicopters. I had some stored from FS9 that I converted years ago to work as AI, I got them flying OK, but I downloaded a Sikorsky S-55 heli, it was a flyable but I also had one from years ago that I made in to an AI, so I tweaked this one using the same parts from the cfg plus the air file.
Well it shows up and it will taxi and take off but here is my problem, the rotors will not turn, I've tried various other cfg's and air files but got the same result.
My other AI helicopters are flying no problem but this one has me stumped. Like I say I already have one of the same type but I fancied having a variety, so any ideas please?

Col.

I am trying to think of the exact cause but this does ring a bell.
The problem is of course that it is a flyable aircraft that is converted to AI.

It maybe that it is to do with the model itself, it wants a switch to flicked but I would say try two things.

Firstly try a simple thing. Copy the entire [electrical] and [hydraulic_system] sections from another AI helo and see if that works. Sometimes the simple things work. I mean a true AI helo like our S-70.

Now the other thing that can cause things to not work is if you only have one engine. If you only have one then add a second one in the same location and then you are going to need to halve the thrust on the engine as you will now have two of them.

Hi Steve long time no chat mate.
Yes I've converted a few flyable ones in the past, I know to add an extra engine as you say, I've copied various cfg's from other ai helicopters, including ordinary aircraft, tried changing the weights, engine type but no joy.
Like I say I have others I've done and they work, plus I copied the cfg's from them as well, including air files etc.
It shows up and will taxi and fly as you see from the pic, I leave it for a while then think of something else, I googled for an answer but in the end I thought I will ask, sometimes it is something simple that I've missed.

Col.

Hi Col.
OK it sounds like there is a disconnect between the animation and the mdl. Which S-55 is it that you are using I can have a look to see if there is anything obvious in the doc.

If you have tried selecting the aircraft in game and physically tried pressing the start engines and nothing happens then what I think might be the case is that as its an FS9 model that the animation will not work in FSX. It would need to be converted.
This is something that I found out when looking into FSX model conversion. A lot of the animations are renamed in FSX and therefore won't work, props being one of them.

If this is the case then somebody could convert the model so that it works in FSX but unless the model has been made freeware they wouldn't be able to make it generally available. There is nothing to stop somebody modifying it for their own means.

Hi Steve it is a flyable FSX model, I got it here:

https://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads ... whirlwind/

Col.

OK so its the old alphsim model. Can you confirm that it works OK in flyable mode?

Hi Steve, I just checked in again, I'll take a look and get back to you, I suspect it will work there are plenty of pics of it in Google images.

Col.

Hi Steve, Yes it flies with rotors spinning.

Col.

OK, so the rotors spin but you can't get the rotors to spin even if you select the aircraft and start the engines. All your helos work OK.

It has to be something that the AI engine in FSx doesn't control or recognise. It would seem that alphasim converted the aircraft to FSX standard, or the rotors wouldn't work, but the AI engine doesn't recognise the situation. I am wondering if they used non-standard animations for the rotors that were OK for flyable but fall foul of the AI engines.

Im getting into summizing here, as I don't have FSX and therefore can't check or try anything to fix it.
However, what I did do is load the mdl up into MCX and look at it. The normal problem is that the animations have not been converted but here they have been.

I did find a thread on SOH that mentions that a lot of the alphasim helos have the same issue, The Sea King, being a common one. What I think is happening is that the original modeller did not use a propdisc for his models he just rotated the blades. In another thread they talk about having to export the model into .3ds, create a prop disc, create a prop disc animation, export both as .x files you then need to modify the .x files and import them into MCX and so on.

It does seem like this is the issue and you need somebody with conversion skills to take this up.
This is the link that I found about this sort of conversion https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threa ... 512/page-6 I have no idea if it will be useful or not.

Wow thanks Steve for all your trouble, I really do appreciate it.
I won't bother with trying anything else with it, I do have another model, I will see if I can find and other textures for it, if not I'll get busy doing a few myself.
Thank you once again, you found something out that might help others as well.

Col.