Geezer

Thanks! Will give it a shot. Might even adjust the corresponding light intensities a bit, as I am not 100% happy with my current settings.

On a whim, I dropped Jan Tuma's snow art into gterl's Italy map. Despite a few rough edges, the combination of art, map, and VonS' atmospherics looks pretty good for a 1999 game engine.

More test shots - enjoying gterl's map and VonS' atmospherics.

Lovely stuff, VonS. I really look forward to your update! Does anyone know where the sky color can be adjusted? Its a bit too saturated - vivid - on my rig, but VonS' clouds look great.

Got it - thanks. Some atmosphere shots below of the Nieuport 24.

Progress shots show the endless hours spent testing and tweaking.

For a change of pace, I started mapping the Dewoitine D510.

Took a break and worked on some ground objects for 1940 Africa.

Concerning the spent cartridge ammo chutes, Mike Dora got a reply from an associate at The Vintage Aviator: “The spent cartridges on German lanes like the Albatros were expelled through a downward chute or tube that exited the bottom of the fuselage. The German V strutters like the Albatros did suffer from “flutter”. This was identified many years later when the phenomenon of “flutter” was actually understood. The case that exemplifies this is that of an Albatros crash, the Pilot was Von Hippel and the lower wings separated (suspected to be because of flutter) and he managed to crash land the rest of the plane some distance from the lower wings and lived to tell about it. The Nieuports were much stronger and could handle much higher g loads. The issue of flutter is not always directly related to G loading but is an aeroelastic effect that depends on the structure, the material and the geometry of the aircraft and also its resonance, for example the flutter event can be started by flying through another aircraft wake or simply flying through turbulence. There are also a number of other ways to “excite “ the aircraft structure and start the flutter event….. There is also the sheer structural strength or lack of it inherent in V strut designs I don’t have enough scientific data to comment on this and I certainly haven’t flown many aircraft to their structural limit to test it ! I would suggest researching flutter a bit more and use that for your comparison.” Mike: It is _very_ interesting that Gene advises that the Nieuports were _stronger_. From my previous research, the Nieuport design was alleged to have exacerbated the aeroelastic effect (and perhaps the flutter effect?) by having a non-rigid lower-wing attachment point for the V-struts, in effect a loop through which the lower-wing spar was free to rotate. Or - thinks - perhaps this arrangement actually _alleviated_ the negative effects, by allowing that spar to twist temporarily without breaking anything? Looks like we may have to reconsider all those lower wing MaxG settings for the Nieups. I did find it a bit hard to understand how eg Guynemer, Nungessor, Bishop (well the first two at least) were so successful with a design that was allegedly prone to fall apart? Jeanba had some excellent comments about aeroelasticity: This is the old discussion stiff vs soft. Both designs have their pro and co but none is really superior unlike what was "believed" in the years 50-60, where planes were usually designed as "stiff" As a lot of aircraft literature roots back to those years, this misconception is still widely spread among "amateurs". Most of the time, flutter is the result of a combination of very fast change from "stiff" to "soft" and concentrated masses Paradoxically, the failure of the French to produce good two-seaters in the years 1916-1917 (until the Breguet and Salmson say) was indeed due to the belief by Dorand that to be resistant, the structure had to be very stiff "everywhere", this resulted in too heavy structures. Boeing was one of the first aircraft companies to really exploit aeroelasticity, when they introduced the B-47, B-52, and 707 in the early/mid 1950s. A great deal of weight was saved by designing wings that would flex under load, rather than traditional wings that were stiff but heavy.

Maybe some ship guys can assist me? The only color reference I can find for the Italian monitor Faa di Bruno is a dirty khaki, suitable for coastal waters. Is this reliable?

Thanks. Recognition and thanks is owed to Mike Dora for his assistance with researching a technical question concerning spent brass disposal on German aircraft. Some famous German aircraft, such as Fokkers, just dumped the expended cartridges into the slip stream. This often resulted in hot brass showering the pilot so it was a less-than-ideal solution. Other aircraft manufacturers took a different approach, which caused endless confusion. So Mike, who is an associate of the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in up state New York, drove to the airfield and photographed their replicas. Unfortunately, the replicas ignored that detail - but Mike gets an A for effort! Some snippets from our development thread: ...Also, a word of explanation for my earlier skepticism. I am one of the fast disappearing group of guys who have real-world experience with aircraft machine guns. First shot shows the old B-52 gun turret I worked on during 'Nam. Note the rectangular slots of the ammo chutes that disposed of the empty cartridges - typical of most 1940s-1950s aircraft. Second shot shows guys maintaining the four .50 Brownings clustered in the rear turret - I was one of those guys. We had endless problems with ammo feed and empties disposal because cartridges almost never behave in a predictable manner - they twist and tumble and cluster in unpredictable ways that drive engineers crazy. The higher the rate of fire, the worse it gets. Now you know why the first thing I looked for was rectangular ammo chutes in the belly. When I did not see any, I naturally concluded that some German aircraft did not dispose of their empty cartridges. It never occurred to me to look for what appear to be drainage tubes, located next to aft-most circular door.

More superb work - I look forward to your map update. I will try and get some of the maritime objects you requested finished in the next few weeks.

Gorgeous! Eventually, we will get this stuff packaged up and released. Unfortunately, back end packaging takes just as long as front end development - and isn't any fun.

The answer is yes.....probably. There is little differentiation between FE and FE2, like in Strike Fighters. Having said that, understand some of the earliest mods (aircraft, effects, etc) may have problems running in FE2 because of changes to the code over time. VonS runs most all aircraft, old or new, in FE2 and gets them to work. Good luck!

Been quietly working away on a lot of stuff, such as Pfalz D3 (not D3a) LODs and ships. In middle shot, the top aircraft is LOD2: 7,720 polys. The bottom aircraft is LOD1: 22,400 polys. Also trying to get the damage textures to look realistic. Test shot below shows bullet holes that are too large.

Another excellent testing platform is gterl's re-worked Vosges map, originally by Gepard. Aircraft shots depict my 1938 stuff.

Mike: we both have the same GPU, so you should be able to achieve results similar to below. Shown is gterl's excellent WW1 Italy map, with VonS' atmospherics and some of my own visual tweaks to the lighting and map art. If you want to modify your install accordingly, contact me by PM and I'll send you the necessary files. They are still WIPs, but we hope to package them up and release them in the next few months. You could provide invaluable assistance by testing some of this stuff. If not, that's OK too.

Improved the windjammers. and completed the Cappellini. Next is the di Bruno.

Progress shots of the Br14.

Home on a wing and a prayer.