Testing the waters, London Zeppelin raid. 01/20/18 ; 17:00 UTC

[LesterBoffo]

OK It's officially on: Zeppelins Over London! Flying either for the Imperial German Naval Airship fleet, located at Merelbeke/ Wevelgem EBKT. Or the British Home Defense RFC squadron out of Stow Maries/Southend EGMC.

January 20, 2018 at about 17:00 UTC or 9:00 AM Pacific I'll be uploading links and directories for the scenery additions for those wanting to add them before the event.

The default launching spots are Kortrijk-Wevelgem EBKT and Southend with optional parking at an alternate scenery mod at Stow Maries Great War Air Museum's private airfield.

I would like to extend a invite to those who do not want to fly, there will be a Thornycroft AA truck with a '6 pounder' AA gun on the back. The AA gun tracks with mouse look in the turret view and shoots live ammo that should at least explode when it intercepts an MP object in it's path. I'm hoping to also have a searchlight truck, depends on how well the light beam animations work in MP.

[LesterBoffo]

So if you haven't checked in the Aircraft modeling part of this forum, we have a new member, who also models very nice WWI era Zeppelins in FlightGear.





Franz Schmid, welcome to FreeFlight and FGMember's clubhouse. I hope you can join this event.

We should be using my new, (Josh installed, thanks again..) Belfort Aerodrome Virtual Hangar channel on Itouchpad's own server @ itpns.ddns.net.

It might be good to show up a bit earlier than the official time just to get the briefs before taking or floating off. From Merelbeke it's about 160 some odd Nautical Miles to London City Center Airport, and @ about 50 knots average speed it may take a while to get there. Get some stick time in on both the planes and airships so you are a little familiar with their quirks.

[LesterBoffo]

If I could get a little help here, could someone load in one of the Dirigibles at EBKT and fly to EGLC London City Airport and tell me if FG crashes part of the way into the Thames estuary?

[IAHM-COL]

Hi Lester.
I renamed the topic to make clear the date and time for everyone

I'll join. Need to figure out what I'll float with.

[SkyBoat]

I'm in! Since I've missed a couple of events, I've been hankerin' for a multiplayer flight. I will admit, however, I'm going to have to decide whether or not to fly a Zeppelin. My experience thus far with them has been, shall we say, stressful and nail-biting. Nevertheless, please make sure I get the aircraft and the scenery.

I'm especially interested in this new light system you mentioned. If it works effectively as AA flood lights, illuminating the giant dirigibles at altitude, maybe there's a chance it could be incorporated into a landing light, giving us a much needed replacement to Rembrandt.

SkyBoat

[SP-BAN]

Hello from where I can download AVRO504.Regards

[LesterBoffo]

Hi all, ( Thanks to Israel for the title fix..)

Planes are in the works, I can release them both, they may have some dependencies I've not fixed yet, if you don't mind being Guinea Pigs to test them.

The scenery can also be released now, but it's going to take some manual installing of a new materials call .xml for the UK terrain and possibly some of the new textures from the old LFGG-WWI scenery patch I made 3 years ago. Both will require that you update the old LFGG-WWI folder in scenery/models to incorporate the new .stg's and 3D models for Merelbeke/Gontrode Zeppelin base, and Stow Maries Home Defense airfield.

I will post a link to the new Scenery/Models folder.

Use of Stow Maries will demand that you have the UK materials patch, otherwise Stow Maries 'airfield' will be really bumpy and a pain to taxi on. This is why I'm letting you have a choice of using EBKT Wevelgem and EGMC Southend as alternatives to the custom airbases, it also means you don't have to struggle with manual scenery installs on your machine.

I'm hoping that all involved can at least get their Ambient Light Scattering shaders turned on so you can have a moonlit evening to navigate with, as it would be really helpful in finding the Zeppelins.

Zeppelins: Are being a big problem right now, at least for my machine. As I have been having random FG game crashes when getting within about 40 n-miles of London City Center airport. I'm pretty certain it's mostly because London's scenery, nearby big airports and models are overwhelming my limited free memory.

So-o, that's why I want someone to test fly one of the Zeppelins from EBKT Wevelgem to EGLC London City. This is going to be crucial for whomever flies the Zeppelins as it's looking like I won't be able to without some radical paring away of a lot of the nearby big airports like Heathrow and Gatwick in addition to reducing the city scenery models. I could use some help here also if someone is so inclined.

Regards,

Lester.

[LesterBoffo]

Heavier than Air-craft for the event:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/s9eb50w8e8195kb/AVRO-504-D.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ech5w2zz333abq0/RAF-BE12.zip

Plane Notes: If not already mentioned these are both CC no commercial use. The AVRO 504 is a two-parter, the regular 80 h.p. 504 trainer, and the new 110 h.p single seater 504-HD with twin Lewis guns on an elevatable Forster gun track, that you can elevate by selecting the gun view and panning with the mouse. Pretty trick as it lets you elevate the gun's aim to 70 degrees from horizontal. The engine has a Coupe switch using your trigger on joystick, ( button 0..) not necessary to use but you will have to mouse click both ignition bell switches on to start and run the LeRhone, optional fuel pump handle start routine, click the pump handle 20 times and you have fuel to start and run with.

The BE12 is the RFC home defense BE12a which has a 180 h.p. Hispano-Suiza aero engine V8. It's not much faster than the AVRO HD but it climbs better, approximately 1000~1200 feet per minute average to 12,000' altitude. You will have to trim your fuel mixture leaner to keep the performance up as you climb, same with the AVRO. The BE12 has fixed guns aimed upwards at 45 degrees so you will have to make your approach and attack run below and behind the Zeppelin. Caution with both planes is to not start shooting while you are 500'~800' from the target. It's best to close on an angle and concentrate your fire in one spot for a few seconds, watch out for the dirigibles own guns.

[SkyBoat]

As I write this I have the AVRO 504-D in the air, flying basically north up the east coast of England. I haven't tried the 504HD yet. We're at 10,000 feet with a KIAS of 74 Kts and a Ground Speed of 88 knots. I think I like it better than the RAF-BE12, even though the BE12 was pretty easy to take off and land. It's slower than the 504 and not as stable. The best performance I could get out of her was a climb rate of 300 fpm at 68 knots and a top speed of 83 knots at 8000 feet. The Avro can climb at 500 fpm, although it's climing rate KIAS was 64 knots, it was easier to maintain using the mixture.

My one challenge is to get the Avro to take off in a straight line. I changed the weather from real to "Fair Day" for both planes so I'd get a consistent atmospheric environment in which to test them. Incidentally, I noticed the fuel consumption is static; the fuel tanks do not work, which will be convenient since it means you never have to land just to refuel. But maybe that should be fixed before the event for the sake of realism.

I'm now going to switch over to the 504HD and see what the differences are. I love test flying! More later.

[fschmid]

Hi Lester,

just did 2 test flights from EGMC to EGLC with the L30 and the SL20, no problems here with FG 2017.3