SlimJimIV

Are these available to download anywhere? Was looking at doing my own Gannet, but won't need to now hopefully!

So it's been ... a while since the last Scim update. Work has continued, mostly on the research side for the last couple of months, but a little 3D work here and there. As is the way with many DCS modding projects, it all takes much longer than one expects, and learning an entirely new way to do 3D, as well as working from some pretty questionable documentation has made this much more challenging. I've also been much busier with the unavoidable "real life" (which I am now quite convinced does exist and wasn't just made up to stop me practicing case III recoveries), and a couple of other projects which I've been splitting my time with to avoid burn-out. It's about a year since I started this project, and although I have definitely not progressed at the speed I had hoped, it's been a lot of fun so far. The Scimitar isn't going anywhere, but for the time being it's going on the back burner until I can get better 3D reference, be it more detailed plans or scans of models perhaps. I will be working on the cockpit here and there, and might even finish off the current 3D model for AI use only over the next couple of months (pretty pictures will of course be provided where appropriate). In the meantime I have a couple of other DCS mod projects that will be announced in due course so stay tuned in the forums and discord.

A short update today - hopefully with some pictures to follow in the next couple of days. Progress continues, albeit slowly thanks to external pressure taking up more of my time than I'd like, the 3D work is slowly coming together. Sadly, only three Scimitars survived into preservation in any condition, so getting decent reference material is quite the struggle. This is really holding up the cockpit work at the moment, although I have a plan to get better reference in the next couple of months. I am also beginning work on a couple of other projects, DCS and elsewhere that build on the skills I've developed so far with the Scimitar, which might end up being out before the Scimitar given how much better referenced they are!

Good to see the Lightning is finally coming to show us all what true climb rate is! Did the F2/F2.A have RedTop capabilities or just Firestreak, and could it mount the overwing fuel tanks of later marks?

Well, I'm back from holiday and I was right - there are too many issues with the 3D model for me to be happy with it, as such I'll be completely reworking it over the next couple of weeks. I'm also looking into a couple of 3D models I've been working on to become part of a wider project to provide 60s and 70s RN flavour to DCS.

No pretty pictures for you all today I'm afraid, but perhaps something approximating a roadmap. I am currently less than three weeks away from the final hand-in for my dissertation and so my entire focus is on the degree at the moment, and will be until the end of the month. I then intend to take a couple of weeks holiday, which after six years of university through pandemics and other challenges, I think I've earned. When I come back, some point in mid-August, I'm going to take a review on the 3D model I've built so far and see how I feel about it, as keen as I am to get the 1.0 AI Tanker version released ASAP, if the 3D work is going to need a complete overhaul anyway before the 2.0 flyable release, I might as well do it this summer whilst I have time between Uni and entering industry. Additionally, when I return from my summer break I'll hopefully have some help to make the 3D work go faster, and although I won't put dates on anything yet in terms of when I think releases will happen, systems engineering is my dissertation, so hopefully that and the flight modelling will go significantly faster! I would like to thank everyone for their interest already, what started as me being very bored in January and buying some flight manuals online has now lead to a bunch of strangers on the internet actually taking interest in something I'm doing! Jim - Spearfish 1-2

I believe the attrition rate was 51% of all airframes lost, from what I hear mostly thanks to the undersized tail and rudder, as well as the RN carriers of the day being a bit undersized for jet aircraft. It wouldn't surprise me if they did see a bit of action in and around that bit of the world in the early 60's, especially if it was ...politically problematic... for RN aircraft to be involved in such activities, we might never hear of it. My understanding is that the Scimitars were out of frontline service by October '66, with the last four years of the type's service life being in the FRU/FRADU, where they were replaced by Sea Vixens I believe. Speaking of Sea Vixens, I'm sure you've got a couple of good stories from controlling them, but perhaps that's a conversation for a later date and a different thread.

The Scimitar is the tanker! Scimitars only served front line attack duties for a couple of years until that role was taken over by the Buccaneer. Once the Buccaneer hit the fleet, Scimitars were relegated to tanker duties or second line a2g duties. @Mike Force Team The SDK is needed to implement any kind of guided A2G weapons besides ARMs, as well as a lot of other things. It's unfortunately only available to 3rd party developers, so the modding community have to put up without guided weapons. Many mods get around this by calling the A2G avionics from FC3 modules, but given this would only enable one weapon that was barely used, it's not worth it for this project.

@Mike Force Team Probably not, for a number of reasons. This is a hobby for me at the moment. As it stands, I'm the only person working on this, with possibly one other person joining me in a couple of months, it's not realistic nor something I want the pressure of doing to keep up with DCS updates at the rate that's expected from a paid-for module with that few people. The aircraft wouldn't benefit a huge amount from SDK access, the only thing it would really let me add would be bullpup capability, which were barely carried in service, and not renowned for being accurate or easy to use. I simply don't have the money lying around to do things to the level I'd want to ask people to pay for something. I'd want a much higher quality 3D model than I'm currently capable of, probably with laser scanning or photogrammetry, both of which cost a fair amount. I'd also need more people on the project, which would also cost money. All of the above said, I'll never rule it out, but if I were to ever think about trying to take a mod 3rd party, the Scimitar would probably not be the airframe I'd do it with.

The key thing will be to not have too many projects going at once...

As promised, the bulk of the progress is being shown on the Discord server - flight controls, canopy and the main fuselage are now through the first stage of modelling, with follow-up work to come once I've completed work on the landing gear, flaps and arrestor gear. After that will come a very basic cockpit for the AI version as well as the MK20 HDU. At that point the SFM will hopefully be ready as I'll have had some help getting the AI 3d work over the line, and the AI tanker will be available. Once this stage is complete I plan to take a couple of months away from the Scimitar to work on other projects and refine my 3D work before I come back to finish it off in a fully flyable state. I've got a couple of AI projects in mind now that I have a basic handle on modding DCS, but all thematic with the Scimitar to hopefully populate the deck a bit better

There's a team working on a Jag, and I think I saw a 3d model for a Bucc floating around somewhere in the modding discord server. Besides that, I'm sure your imagination can bring the IDS to GR.1 standards when it does eventually arrive in a couple of years time. Anything RAF/FAA is going to be probably at least next year if not later, so you'll have to hurry up and wait I think, at least for the time being. I do know of at least one more mod, but it's in very early stages and not yet ready to be made public, but I'm sure there'll be a forum post and I'll note it in the Scimitar's discord when it is announced. Further thoughts: assuming we get an F4J or S model from Heatblur's Phantom (again, a couple of years out most likely), the you'll also have the opportunity to have what is effectively and F4J(UK) with the wrong radios, and you can always slap an RAF skin on the AV8BNA given it's basically a GR7 with the wrong bombs.

In my experience the F4 doesn't always drop the wire once it's come to a stop, you may have to roll backwards a bit before putting the hook back up

A quick update - still hungover from birthday celebrations so progress has been a little slow this week! I've done a little re-working of the intake geometry and some work on the wingtips before I dive into the control surfaces next week. Photos are on the discord, I'm going to try and keep updates here shorter, with more detail over there from now on.

I've updated the links, should be working now