Armed Observers for First Eagles

When World War I began, airplanes were designed strictly for reconnaissance. They were unarmed and built for stable flight rather than maneuverability. Within a very short time air crews began to carry weapons. Observers with pistols or rifles became common until armed aircraft were produced.

I have made a set of armed observers for First Eagles. The observer carries a rifle "at the ready." He moves his head, but does not shoot the gun. There is one for each stock pilot color, and one for each of the helmeted pilots I made before. A total of six observers.

You will need to install the observers into the game, then make a change to the data.ini for each plane to make them appear in the game. The center point matches the center point of the FE Gold and FE2 stock pilot, so they should swap into your plane without any adjustment. If the plane uses the old style FE1 pilot, some minor tweaking may be required.

Note that this only replaces the stock pilot and will not replace a gunner built into the 3D model.

My thanks to Whiteknight06604 for suggesting the idea and for beta-testing the observers.

Installing the observers into the game:
For FE1 - Open my folder named "FE1" and copy all twelve files into your "Aircraft" folder. Don't put them into any of the other folder. The LOD names are the names of the new "pilot." The numbers match the FE pilot numbers so uniform colors will match.

For FE2 - Open my folder named "FE2" and copy all six folders into your Objects/Pilots folder. The folder names are the names of the new "pilot." The numbers match the FE pilot numbers so uniform colors will match.

Putting the observers into a plane:
For both FE1 and FE2 - Open the plane's data.ini file. Find the section for crew (about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way down). The Observer should be in SeatID=2. Change the PilotModelName to the name of one of the new observer. Save the file and fly. (You might want to comment out the original name and type in a new line, like in my example, in case you want to change back.)

Example:

// Crew ---------------------------------------------------------

[Pilot]
SystemType=PILOT_COCKPIT
SeatID=1
PilotModelName=WWIpilotNew2
PilotHeadNodeName=head
Position=0.0,-0.2,0.70
MinExtentPosition=-0.32,-0.41,-0.26
MaxExtentPosition= 0.32,0.36, 0.82

[Observer]
SystemType=PILOT_COCKPIT
SeatID=2
//PilotModelName=WWIpilotNew2 <--old pilot name
PilotModelName=WWIObserver2 <--new pilot name
PilotHeadNodeName=head
Position=0.0,-1.0,0.70
MinExtentPosition=-0.32,-1.28,-0.26
MaxExtentPosition= 0.32,-0.50, 0.82