NZFF

By way of an introduction, this is my first post on this website having just joined. Alas for some of you I am an Aussie but do most of my sim flying in the Pacific Region, Australia, NZ and the Pacific including Japan. I am a keen flight simmer having been involved with Flight Sim since it first began but have only recently returned and taken up FSX (I opted out at FS98 for various reasons - mostly PC issues etc other commitments). My main interest is the flight era between the late 1930's and up to about 1980, which I think was the golden age of aviation. I would say my favourite aircraft are the flying boats, PBY's, Sunderlands, Solents and Sandringhams and some of that is personal nostalgia and a fascination with this period and era of travel. This began as a youngster with trips in the PBY in PNG and then seeing the RNZAF 5 Squadron Sunderlands come and go from Tonga, where my parents lived for a while.

Now for some reason a really good Sunderland seems to lacking in Flight Sim world. I have the Jens Christensen flying boats and give that model creator 10/10 for his models which are just wonderful but I find the VC's very basic but workable. I can only fly sims now using VC's so that is always a challenge getting good VC's in any sim model. I have had a go at repainting the JBK Sandringham but this is a steep learning curve given the models and textures are from MS2004 and probably earlier re-ports and are difficult to either repaint or adapt to FSX but I am learning (I will post some Sandringham pics that I put on the Rex site for those interested but alas they are the Ansett Beachcomber colours, I have added a good Dc-4 sound package and updated the prop textures and may release it as a total package for those interested once I get permissions from some of the other authors, one and all)

I am also working on tidying up and making the Shorts VC's more authentic in terms of colours and instrument panels etc. this too is a work in progress but I am making steady but slow progress. I must say I was very disapointed in the commercial Sunderland by Just Flight that appeared a couple of years back and while a good effort was made with the VC and interior the basic model was terrible and inaccurate to the point of being almost grotesque, it gets my Edsel award.

I was wondering whether any on here know if any progress had been made in NZ with a repaint of the JBK Hythe to a 5 Squadron RNZAF colour scheme. I did see some earlier pics of the repaint but no release or finish yet as far as I can tell.

Hi ya Blendy and Welcome to NZFF and a big welcome to the "First Class Simulations i want my moneys back Hate Club" , I hang my copy above me like a trophy to remind of my dumbness !
Yes indeed a good Sunderland is sorely lacking , would it not be nice to get a quality model along the lines of the Aerosoft Catalina .

I believe Adrian Brausch did a paint of the JBK Hythe to a 5 Squadron RNZAF colour scheme but i am not sure if it was released , this was around the same period that Horrid other one was released , ironic Adrian's father along with a few members here who few the type when in service also got the sucker punch ... BUGGER ! but i am sure he may have that paint hidden away somewhere .

Working on an update and cockpit textures , now that would be great , i do have a few colour and b/w photos of the internals and other details here if required .

Cheers Ian

Thanks Ian, yeah they also caught me on the DC-3 and that was my vow to never buy anything from them again. The DC-3 was adequate but the VC cockpit was all wrong in terms of pilot perspective and did not matter how I reset the view up/down, back/forwards I could not get it right. compared to the Manfred Jahn C-47 it was not that good and when placed in perspective on overlay against the real aeroplane it was well how shall I say not quite right either in dihedral or engine shape. Enough of that.

The VC cockpit adjustments are not so easy given that the panel in the Shorts aircraft is probably modelled in 3D for instrument placement so a lot of trial and error at the moment to fit different guages and placement of the same. The VC cockpit textures are also tricky but I am slowly learning about shadows etc. so it will be awhile before I can get it together. I did manage it with the DC-3 (FSX Default) and the C-47 so it is not impossible but best done when one is not tired at night. The hard part is the overhead levers etc but generally the Sunderlands and civil variants Solent and Sandringham were not that dissimilar except for colouring and the addition of navaids later on in the late 50's and early 60's when the got rid of navigators generally everywhere.

Some good colour photographs so I could match colours would be great to have later on especially of the exterior, the ones on the web are a little washed out, understandable given the lack of widespread colour photography generally then, I am not sure whether the effort to get a weathered exterior is worth it but the whole painting repaint thing is a really steep learning curve for me.

Thanks and will keep progress up to date on this forum. I just finished getting some Air NZ colours onto the CLS DC-10-30 from an earlier repaint now working on the cockpit lighting and INS functionality.

BendyFlyer wrote:

QUOTE (BendyFlyer @ Jul 3 2013,8:09 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks and will keep progress up to date on this forum. I just finished getting some Air NZ colours onto the CLS DC-10-30 from an earlier repaint now working on the cockpit lighting and INS functionality.

If i was Auckland based i would have made sure i live close by MOTAT .. been ideal to get cockpit textures for the types , had a chance to climb thru both in the mid 1980s unfortunately simply did not have a quality camera but to that's changed .

The CLS DC-10 , this first big liner i brought for FSX on its release , i did have a good play with the INS but now lost the real use currently , be looking forward to your Air New Zealand paint , i only flew on the type once in 1980 , my first OZ trip . be looking forward to your paint .

Il make the repaints available maybe today or tommorow ,..in the meantime here are a couple pics..

Adrian , ill install this myself , its amazing how well modeled this is by compare to that atrocity sold earlier and funny mention off praising work i did mention the one that really got my goat YUuuuUK

Adrian. great stuff you have done a really good job on the repaint, guess I might just continue working on the VC and Gauges mods. Really looking forward to having this one. You have to admire the work of JBK he really has done a great job on all the Shorts Flying Boats.

Don't think it is possible to model interiors but I did see an interior model done of one of the early flying boats by JBK by some other chap but he has not responded to my emails on how he did it especially as I understand things you need the original model code to be able to do this sort of stuff.

Thanks AB .. slight digress from the Sunderland and specific to your works and your Skydrive folder , the Virtavia Seasprite cockpit texture replacement to increase frames to which was very noticeable !

I thought the Sprite VC Textures were on my Skydrive but they arent,..there were so many textures I edited for the VC I will have to go through the Texture folder of the sprite and figure out which ones they are then copy them to a folder,...I thought I sent them to ye ?

I did have them a few years back , were i put them i don't no .. with the recent Sprite interest with photos from Sean i've in the search for them .

Oh,..they are on Flightsim.com lol

Adrian Brausch wrote:

QUOTE (Adrian Brausch @ Jul 5 2013,11:18 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh,..they are on Flightsim.com lol

, Cripes .. Now where is my push this button to find for the ole pineapple chunk ! ... i did not even think they were released

I was at motat last week, my fiances uncle works there and managed to smuggle me in on the Solent which is undergoing an interior restoration. these photos were taken on my phone so sorry for the quality and the cockpit photos were taken in the dark I have a nice egg on my swede to prove how dark and tight it is up there. enjoy!

GB .. GoingBoeing , you bloody ripper .. It s friggen amazing , the last photo really shows and gives a real feel to the 1950's Special flying boat feel .. I no you no you want to go back just to collect super close ups .. JUST so pleased you posted these !

yea i was like a little kid in a candy shop, I cant believe that it was largely intact and that things hadn't been stripped or pilferred. It must have impressive to fly these, both as crew and pax

GB I can almost hear the .. (Wife/Girlfriend) wha wha what do you think your doing , .. The Sunderland almost like this was and typical a shell .. being Military , I'm sure they would open the place up for me ....

yea she was on the ground (a long way down) getting photos of me waving from the flightdeck

I was impressed climbing up into the Sunderland , i missed out on having a girl wave to me ... blimey ... had there been one .. would i have noticed ..