Chronocidal

About the hud level.. I have noticed one thing about a few aircraft, mainly the F/A-18E... If anyone here has flown Janes F/A-18 sim, you'll probably know what I mean. Since the plane doesn't fly perfectly level, the hud is actually below eye level when sitting on the ground. When you start a mission on the ground, your view is pointed down quite a bit, aimed at the center of the hud, and not at the horizon. Planes, especially delta wing designs like the VF-4, tend to fly at high angles of attack naturally. I've built quite a few model kits of various planes, and the hud usually is not centered in the pilot's view. For many planes, it seems that the top edge of the hud is level with the pilot's eyes. Some aircraft it's lower, some it's higher, probably depending on the AOA needed for level flight. Aside from that, this model is shaping up beautifully.

K, thanks, I'll see if I can make it animate that way... gonna be pretty complex. I need to add that book to my christmas list for this year...

I'm in the process of building a YF-19 model for Flight Simulator 2002, but I can't quite figure out the landing gear. I'm going from the Hasegawa kit, and it seems they kind of used a placeholder type of landing gear. There aren't really any hinges visible on it, so I can't see how it would ever fold into the wheel well. I could always just make up a set of landing gear to use, but I'd like to be accurate if it's at all possible. Does anyone have any reference pics of the rear landing gear that show how it folds?

Ooooohhh... I'm gonna have to try that one... I like big.

Heheh.. I know a front view exists somewhere of the YF-19... I saw it in someone's model pictures in the 3d thread. I'll have to check back in there...

Of which fighter?

Hi, I've been working on a similar project as of late, but there are a couple of different versions for pics of the YF-19... You can either use the canon schematics, or use the instructions from the Hasegawa model kit.. I found that the hasegawa diagrams are more consistent overall, so I stuck with them. I could never find a decent front view, but I do have top, bottom, and side views, as well as NUMEROUS shots of the plane from various angles. I also have a nice full top blueprint in high res that comes from one of the Mac+ books, and shows all the dimensions of the plane, so that can be helpful, but if you use that, don't expect anything based on the Hasegawa kit to line up correctly. I'll post some pics later, as soon as I find them.

Well, leave it to loads of math homework to leave me incredibly bored...It's pretty blurry, but I like the look the airbrush tool gives when you color stuff with it. Just needs to be cleaned up a little.

I heard there was one video done to "Christmas at Ground Zero" by weird al... and maybe another to "Trigger Happy," but I'm not sure.. I'd love to see em if anyone could find a link.

True, they couldn't really use the actual teams.. I just thought it was funny to combine the names like that, instead of coming up with something entirely original.

Heheh.. neat idea. Only thing is, they wouldn't bother painting all those little yellow panels, and the plane wouldn't carry the gunpod for demonstrations. Personally, I always thought they should've done this.. combining Thunderbirds and Blue Angels to get the "Angel Birds" is a horrible pun.

Ahhh, another ST modder Never played SFC though, just Bridge Commander... Looks really detailed though... what project is it for?

LOL... What's funny is what that decal would actually say on a real plane.. Considering the position, it'd probably be some kind of warning about getting sucked into the intake....O_o

Well, I finally got my YF-19 in the mail, and finished up the main model.. still got lots of details to work in, and no textures yet, but it should look great if it actually runs in any games.

Well, with nurbs solids, you can use boolean operations and perform subtractions.. see, you draw the panel lines on with a curve, then make a small square at one ene, and run it the length of the curve to make a square rod.. then you subtract that shape from the solid, and you've got a square indentation in the surface I've never actually done it that way, but it should work. I never did much with nurbs, since most of my work is game oriented anyway... simpler to make them in the correct format instead of converting them. Btw, Rodavan... what program are you using? The toolbars look like Rhino.. but I imagine those are kinda standard. If so, you HAVE to tell me how you're doing that. I never could get the nurbs commands to work for me, they always give me nasty distortions. I'm probably doing something wrong, but I don't know what.. so I've been sticking to polygons. But I would like to see what else I can do.

Whoops... yep, you're right that is just about the later differences.. oh well.. that explains why you see so many C model tails with the old engine.. I think the Thunderbirds still use the old engine, or they did the last time I saw them fly (which was a while ago), as does the airbase near my home, so that would explain that. David, I'm guessing you work with aircraft in some way? Either that, or you've got an incredible memory for aircraft trivia.

Mainly, most C models upgraded to a new engine... can't remember which.. but the nozzle is visibly different. They also enlarged the intake ducting for the newer engine, and enlarged the base of the tail, making it wider to hold more stuff, and longer, and added a small fin-like antenna to the leading edge of it. Edit: k, this link pretty much sums it all up: http://www.f-16.net/reference/versions/f16_cd50.html

Jawjaw, I heartily agree.. the canopy is really the only feature I dislike on the YF-21... But then, I don't think the VF-22 is any better. I still don't understand that idiotic canopy frame. It would make much more sense to replace the whole thing with a single frameless bubble, or at least something streamlined.. that nasty bulging dome on top just looks ugly, and kills the sleekness of the design... not to mention the aerodynamics of it.

I still love that design.. I'm holding my breath that they'll pull a "Cobra" maneuver (in a different way) and revamp the F-23 to be a carrier based fighter... they could do it. It's not any bigger than a tomcat, I'm guessing... it's shorter too.. shoot, the tomcat's old, as much as I love it, what better to replace it than the F-23? They'd have to adapt it to work as an interceptor, but it could probably be done...

Well, remember.. they had to replace the dish after ROTJ

Heheh.. I wish I could be paid for this. This is actually a model that I made to put in some games I have. It kind of went a little beyond that, but it still works as an in-game model, although it makes most games run like a slug (it's 13,000 polygons). I don't have any actual renders of it up, but there are a few in-game shots of it I can link to. I'll just have to zip up the big renders and attach em. There are a few screenshots of it in Bridge Commander as well, at these links: Shot 1 Shot 2 Shot 3 I've got more shots as well, I made a full 5 view plan set. I just couldn't fit the rear and bottom views in the zip. Renders.zip

Here's a perspective view of it.

heheh.. I gotta go shrink the pics.. they're huge.. hmm... well, he'res one that used to be about 1600 pixels across... lost a lot of detail, but I think you can get the idea.

True, true... But damn, wouldn't it be nice to have the Tie Fighter storyline in the XWA engine? Oh, BTW, does anybody knows why they changed the design of the Missile Boat so much? (Defender of the Empire had a kinda streamlined, eaglebeak looking one, everything else had a WAY blockier one. And no, it's not because XWA meshes were sucky). Actually, I don't think there was really any reason why they changed the Missile boat. But, yes, the models in XWA are absolutely craptactular. The engine is capable of much more. If you miss that old missile boat though, go to www.xwaupgrade.com They're replacing all the stock models with beautiful works of art.. and the missile boat is back to its old design.

Personally, I wish they had made this kit a little bigger... I was hoping you could do things like pasting film cells in the windows. I have one of the old Ertl Ent-As, and it just doesn't compare to this thing's details. Sheesh, all that engraving, and still none of the panels had any reason to their arrangement. I did notice some things about this kit though, and being absolutely broke after buying the thing, went the ghetto route to fix them. The lights in the windows are way too bright for one... they just look blinding. That's really easy to fix.. I just put a layer of masking tape over the clear inner parts before snapping on the outer hull panels. It dimmed the lights noticeably, and also helped to diffuse the light on the windows closest to the bulbs. I did nearly the same for the deflector. I put two layers of carefully cut wax paper, and a layer of blue cellophane between the lens and the clear light diffuser. I also put some of that blue cellophane in front of the bulbs in the nacelles to dim them a bit.. they were a bit too bright for my taste as well... I kind of wish they could have put the lights near the front, actually, instead of at the back.. looks kind of backwards somehow. I really do wish that the parts had fit a little better, mainly the nacelles and pylons. Frankly, though I didn't want to risk gluing this thing. I think they used mixes of duck-egg blue and air-defense grey to make the panels, but I didn't want to try painting the seams myself, and possibly ruining what was already so nicely done. But the seams aren't too bad.. I can live with them. Maybe someday I'll get up the nerve, and glue it together.. besides, I wanted to be able to take this thing apart and rebuild it better later.. I may yet do it. The one thing that has really continued to bug me is the way the panels cover the stand mount.. They gave two kinds of one panel, allowing you the option of mounting the model, or possibly hanging it.. The problem is swapping the panels if you want to plug the hole for separate display. Once you put the stand in, and snap those panels in, you're better off never removing the model from the stand again. Those panels don't like to come out, and you can scratch the paint horribly trying to. After my first couple of tries, I just don't use the front panel while it's mounted on the stand anymore. Just too much of a pain to remove. I kind of was looking forward to the -E kit, but after spending the better part of two years making a CG model of that ship, nothing is going to stand up to the detail I would like to see.