Conventional Attack Version Info

The CF-104 has slightly evolved from what I first had in mind... slightly being a huge understatement.  First I had just planned on adding a couple of bombs to drop as you get with the demo version (see link above) but now we've added all of the new sub-panels for the conventional attack version.  Luca has made huge modifications to all of the textures and interior and exterior models so it's turning out to be almost a completely new project which brings me to the next point.  The new CF-104 conventional attack aircraft is going to be sold separately as we've put a few hundred hours of development to it.  The 64 bit plugin for the current nuclear strike version will still be free though for current users and that has some nice updates too with a better adjustable gun sight on the HUD.  With the conventional attack version though, you'll be getting a couple of new goodies too for free:

• X-HUD which will work on any X-Plane aircraft to give you a HUD which finally works in the X-Plane virtual cockpit focused to infinity.
• X-Combat - I'm factoring out the combat functions into a separate plugin which will allow you to fire air-to-ground weapons of various types at ground targets and have them explode.  It has SAMs that fire at you too and a radar warning receiver.  It works with X-HUD so you'll have a HUD with weapon modes to fire the weapons and it works with World Traffic so you destroy World Traffic aircraft, vehicles and static structure.
• Included flight plans for an air base or two that work with World Traffic so you can see aircraft of a similar era flying around.  I just finished the conversion of a F-106 and a Tu-95 from FSX AI models and have a lot more planes to convert.

I found ou a problem that before never noticed. I select the fuel, turn on the APU car all is workin, Then i start the both engines and at 10% i add the fuel , engine starts  normal and the APU wagon takes the cable off , a message appears  NORMAL ENGINE START and just after this the engines go out. If i start teh Starfighter with engine running all is ok.

What could it be? Thanks MartinDE

But I am very frustrated with this characteristic of the CF-104: it seems that when taking off in a crosswind, with any kind of aileron and/or yaw input, aileron trim is completely deranged. It takes a ridiculous amount of trim to cancel it out, to the extent that although it is possible to land the aircraft, any flight beyond the satisfaction of having recovered safely with a dangerous fault is rendered quite unenjoyable and thus pointless.

I'm using a rather archaic setup - Windows XP 32-bit - because there isn't a Linux version of the CF-104 yet (my preferred OS), and Windows 7 64-bit doesn't support gameport controllers (I have an MS Sidewinder FF Pro that is perfectly sound and doesn't need throwing out just yet).

I'm not sure this has any bearing on the situation, though: It seems to be in the CF-104 plugin somewhere, because when I take off with no crosswind and controls absolutely dead center except for a little elevator, the aileron trim is sweet as a nut, such that positive then suddenly zero aileron input = instantly zero roll, every roll manoeuvre is crystal clear and absolutely stable (with such crude control surfaces - no spoilers or tailerons to transfer roll authority to with increasing speed - it's a credit to Kelly Johnson that the thing flies so well.... KISS, simplicate, and add lightness.)

I hope it's not just me, I've been trying to characterise the nature of this bug for ages and it only just struck me the other day, that control surface positions on takeoff might be affecting the trim. I tested it a few times and it seems indeed to be the case: the position of the ailerons at the moment of lift-off seems to be taken as the centre position.

(I'd also add that although it is possible to assign cf104/aileron_trim_* to keys, the keys don't repeat when held down, and adjusting aileron trim to any sensible degree is lengthy and impractical when you have to keep repeatedly hitting the key: after a crosswind takeoff, it would take about half an hour to get to the necessary +/-0.500 or so aileron trim. I'd like to avoid using up precious joystick buttons for this - pitch trim and view functions take precedence.)

Sometimes also the nosewheel engage becomes locked on and has to be pressed to disengage - not sure if this has any bearing on the aileron trim problem.

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F104 + J79 = dragster in the sky: a terrifying machine, you KNOW you have a date with it

2 seat D -- Side View

http://www.lieuwedevries.com/profiles/starfighters/CF-104D_Starfighters3.jpg

Thanks

Scott

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jygXTQd7P2c&feature=youtu.be

The Tu-95 Bear aircraft is animated via World Traffic which now has an interface to let its aircraft be destroyed.  If an impact is detected, the standard model is replaced with a specified "destroyed" model.  Structures may be destroyed as well.

The CRV-7 are custom weapons.  The CF-104 code models the trajectory and calculates the impact point displayed on the gun reticle.  By creating my own weapon system I can support the entire weapon configuration and the X-Plane weapon interface is bypassed.  This way I can also manage explosions better.  The standard warhead for a CRV-7 rocket is 10 lbs but if it hits an aircraft, the explosion effect is increased, in this case to 500 lbs and it is configurable for each aircraft or structure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKgc6rRFb8Q&feature=youtu.be

Thanks to Luca for the MK-82 Snakeye model and other upcoming weapon type.  This update features a custom weapon system using custom objects as weapons using my own ballistics code.  This way I can animate the bomb fins and also track the weapon's position so that my custom weapon camera works to follow the bomb to the ground.  It was a bit tricky trying to figure out to make them explode but I sorted that out.

Next up is modeling of the CRV-7 rockets and the addition of the Radar Warning Receiver.  This photo shows one of the threats that you can detect with the RWR.  It will fire at you.

I'm searching for graphic glitches in the hope to fix them all it would really helpful if all of you could fly the CF-104 in xp10 with pixel shading on hdr on and spot any corrupted flickering polygons which appear through the fuselage.

If you find any please take a screenshot and reply to this post so I could get a visual list of the most affected areas. I've already found a few by the way, see attached pics.

Here's a bit of background info on the issue. There is a known problem in the xp community where some polygons might show flickering and through the fuselage in xplane10 when the following conditions are met:

normal maps are used

uvs are overlapping

pixel shading and hdr are on

only happening on nvidia cards (?)

Thanks for your help

Luca

[attachment=185589:CF-104_1.png]

[attachment=185590:CF-104_2.png]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXy6udHPKck&feature=youtu.be

As you can see it mostly works.  I just have to improve the clipping algorithm for other FOVs and view angles so that the gun sight reticle doesn't display outside of the HUD frame.  It's a shame that X-Plane doesn't support HUD displays as there are so many aircraft that use them these days.  Some aircraft do draw HUD symbols on the HUD glass but they are not focused to infinity and the view angles are wrong.  

I was wondering if there is any word on the Lockheed T-33 (scheduled for Summer 2012 on the classicjetsims website). I would love to fly a T-33 in X-Plane...

(I know this is not the right forum, but it is hard to choose the right forum for a plane that does not exist :-) )

Regards,

-peter

I still plan to add conventional attack capability to it, now that I found a pilot who used to fly the plane in this role.  He lives just a couple blocks away from us and has provided me with a ton of manuals and he'll help me with testing too.  The guys name is Bob Wade, which should be a familiar name to any Canadian who has attended air shows up here over the years.  He flew Starfighters in Europe, flew with the Snowbirds, was a CF-18 pilot for years and was also the demo pilot for one season.  He was also the first western pilot to fly the Mig-29.  Here's an interesting article on how the Mig-29 flight came to happen:

http://www.capa-acca.com/canadian_mig_flight.htm

Here's also a video of Maj. Wade's CF-18 demo routine (featuring a loop on takeoff, the high alpha 360 degree turn at 4:30, and the square loop at 2:45):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgO6rhyA2FA

Anyway, a new problem to add to my list along with the continuing supersonic flight issues with X-Plane 10.20+.

Thks