Griffon345

Many thanks huppel I too had this issue and the above was how to resolve it.

Very nice. Following with interest!

Great steer thanks. I had to delete all instances (VRK, OpenKneeboard and Necksafer) got the Tolls app back again.

Nil I'm afraid. Nobody out there....

Bump

Agreed, good manual for reference available (at cost - reasonable): https://www.flight-manuals-online.com/product/dassault-mirage-f1/

Nice mod. Helps a lot. Installed in the root installation.

A long one. Taken from memoirs of Kobus De Villiers, I believe he is working on or has already published a book on his experiences: Chaff and Flare & EW development. Since the SAAF was not too happy with the Mirage F1 performance with the Station 0 Chaff/Flare pylon, I was put in a very awkward position. A senior SAAF officer had previously asked me, unofficially, to work on an alternative design since I had doubts about the pylon design. During a later heated meeting, where the flight test results of the station 0 design were being discussed, he asked me to present my alternate design proposal. There was a stunned silence in the room, and I knew my career might be on the line. I first need to give some background that led to this alternate design: The Mirage F1 has two ventral fins under the aft fuselage. These were a design fix for a fin flutter failure experienced on the F1 prototype. The vertical fin was reduced in size & the two ventral fins were added for directional stability during high aoa turns. These fins were mounted via 2 high tolerance pins that were bolted into the machined fuselage frames that carried the vertical fin’s loads into the fuselage. The ventral fins were constructed of machined frames and riveted skins. They were placed under the fuselage as dictated my aero requirements, but this also put them in an area which is subject the very high sonic loads leading to metal fatigue. The screeching sound of a fighter passing overhead consists mainly of the hot supersonic air from the exhaust, forcibly mixing with cold atmospheric air. This causes high frequency sonic vibration and any harmonics to the natural frequency of metallic structure nearby is amplified in attachments between structures. The result of this was that the ventral fins started cracking. We developed repair schemes, but the SAAF tasked Atlas to come up with a long-term solution. In my team were two very bright young engineers, one a graduate from Cranfield in the UK and the other an ex- Witsie with a MSc in carbon fibre structures. The latter technology was very new in aviation at the time. I asked them to design a new ventral fin. This was an official project with funding etc. It turned out to be more complex than anticipated since the sonic loads were difficult to measure during flight tests and we did not have enough knowledge about fatigue resistance in carbon fibre structures. I had a meeting with them one afternoon and the problem kept recurring in my head. At about this time I was unofficially asked to do an alternate design on the chaff/flare issue. While listening to Bob Dylan while tinkering with a Formula Vee in my garage, the sound of his harmonica suddenly gave me an idea. If we could combine the design of the new ventral fins with long narrow rows of chaff/flare cartridges, we might just have a solution. The following week the guys started layouts and we could nearly fit the required number of cartridges in a ventral fin that has the same area as the original fin. The new ventral fin and the cartridges would be quite a bit heavier than the original one, so we had to add an additional mounting point to each fin. This changed the natural frequency of the fin and it appeared from first calculations, that we would then avoid the harmonics that caused the metal fatigue in the first place. So now we had a metal fin, slightly wider but with the same area as the original and it could carry nearly the number of cartridges the SAAF wanted. The only problem was that the electronics guys would have to redesign their cartridge holder and its printed circuit board. So, when I presented this at the meeting, the big brass quickly asked how long it would take to build a prototype. The electronics guys were not happy, but we were already building 2 experimental ventral fins. Not to long after the meeting, we had an aircraft fitted with the new ventral fins and instrumented for flight testing. The increase in drag was so low, we could not measure it! The electronic guys came up with a very good plastic injection moulded casing and the cartridges fired perfectly from it. The sonic fatigue problems also seemed to be resolved with the new ventral fins. A contract was issued, and the fleet was fitted with the new ventral fins. Of course, my boss was not impressed with my ‘gekonkel’ behind his back, and I knew I had to leave Atlas. At this time, I was also finalising the Cheetah R2Z prototype and the SAAF asked if we could add a new chaff/flare installation on it that would carry more cartridges than the planned system. Soon after the Cheetah R2Z completed it successful flight tests, I was advised by someone in the SAAF to consider moving to a small company in Pretoria that did special projects for the SAAF. I went for an interview, got hired and we received the contract to design the chaff/flare system that would fit all the different Cheetah models. Below is image by Herman Potgieter (RIP) I believe the display fitted in the space left: Installed in the F1AZ as well and looked as below. Controller left and display right:

Once the major issues have been ironed out: consider the addition of the following systems as modified on the SAAF F1CZ https://www.facebook.com/groups/BorderWar/permalink/6800928493313439 More modern type RWR (similar to F16C) and elegant Chaff and Flare solution.

Is there any chance for a 'Title Bar' type of area that would remain visible regardless of tab selection for items such as Callsign, Freqs, NAV Info etc? Perhaps selectable per kneepad (L/R) and/or visibilty. Thanks for a game changing app.

Very jarring at night. Turned the city lights orange from yellow. Might be why I've not noticed it before. Only started night flights recently. I very odd glitch. Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Saw this as well. In NTTR at night, from cool to neutral back to cool again. Thought it was Lead's taxi light. Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Can you point me towards this report? Been searching but cannot find it. Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Many thanks. Searched but not enough I guess.

Compare the images attached. I find the ASE target range arc very thin. It would appear it needs to be larger according to image 1 although the authenticity of this image is debatable. Bottom line is I finds it hard to make out even in 2D.

Many thanks fella. Realistic or not, it makes no sense to display if no advisories are active. Mandatory mod for me.

Apologies for the long turn around as I've been wrestling with the project since. Thanks for the steer. I tried this and it worked to an extent but still wasn't to my liking as some of the layers upon other layers hid detail (fasteners and relief shading). I've installed a set of scripts that replicates the 'filters' in Krita (and I guess in photoshop) as this seems to be the disconnect between the different apps. It's easier (a bit). I'll wrestle further as I've gotten no answers from Polychop on request for the rest of the files or for an updated set. Also did you get the SA342_Camou_ADT_8 file to open? Mine is corrupt. Next will be picking apart the single layer files not included in the package! Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

My bad ED: Deactivate all mods. Clean, repair, update. It works. It appears it was the shader mod I had in place. Deactivate this and it works, activate and it breaks. Just glad it's sorted. Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

That, good sir is the gold I'm looking for. I'll try this and get back. Thanks! Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Problem mentioned before but my issue is opening the .psd files in GIMP, not older Photoshop: Fig 1: GIMP left/Krita right. Note the lack of pseudo 3d shading in the GIMP example. These are virgin untouched .psd files from ED forums. The layers are present as shown isolated in GIMP in Fig 2 but the way GIMP handles these vs Krita/PhotoShop must be different as they do not show for GIMP (I'm by no means a boffin with any of these software packages). The end result once exported to DCS is shown, in game for comparison in Fig 3. I'm slowly muddling my way through finding filters that work in GIMP for a similar effect but the going is slow due to my grave lack of expertise. And very painful. I someone would share their converted .XCF files it would be much appreciated.

Nice skin. I'd love to get hold of these as well but it looks like he didn't build these for the package. I'm trying to find SA342_Camou_ADT_8.psd as this appears to be corrupt in the package as well. As far as the rest are concerned, looks like we're stuck with hacking the .dds files.

It's all about the diffuse layer/s: comparative example shown Below:- Fig 1: GIMP left/Krita right. Note the lack of pseudo 3d shading in the GIMP example. These are virgin untouched .psd files from ED forums. The layers are present as shown isolated in GIMP in Fig 2 but the way GIMP handles these vs Krita/PhotoShop must be different as they do not show for GIMP (I'm by no means a boffin with any of these software packages). The end result once exported to DCS is shown, in game for comparison in Fig 3. I'm slowly muddling my way through finding filters that work in GIMP for a similar effect but the going is slow due to my grave lack of expertise. And very painful. Any help with this would be appreciated. I'm guessing you use PS for your skinning?

Looks like no one skins this helo any longer? Or am I asking the wrong questions in the wrong place? Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Really enjoying this little helo and am trying my hand at skinning it for a South African and UK bush scheme. I use GIMP and when importing the skin psd files the bump mapping and shading of panels and fasteners etc are missing. If anyone has the time and are willing I'd appreciate a quick (if there is such a thing) steer on how to show these from the template in the user files. Failing this, if it's that's a huge mission would anyone be willing to share copies of the virgin files in xcf format as many have obviously managed to have the above shown correctly. Including the SA342_Camou_ADT_8.

Still no reply from ED. Hopefully next patch will help?