F-104 Starfighter skins by jocko417

[jocko417]

Aw, what the heck... one more. Still a few screws to add on the canopy frame. Unit crest is No. 3 Fighter Wing, RCAF Station Zweibrücken, West Germany.

[Mizzy]

2 hours ago, jocko417 said:

Aw, what the heck... one more. Still a few screws to add on the canopy frame. Unit crest is No. 3 Fighter Wing, RCAF Station Zweibrücken, West Germany.

Are going to release your wonderful work to the community ?

Edited December 23, 2020 by Mizzy

[NRG-Vampire]

 OMG, this will be a ***king extremely detailed livery 

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by NRG-Vampire

[jocko417]

First one out will be... Canada's first one: 12701, manufactured by Canadair in Montreal, but shipped to Palmdale, CA for initial acceptance test flying by Lockheed, as was '702. '703 and up were all tested in house at Cartierville before being delivered to the RCAF.

 

701 served as a test platform for a while and sometimes used day-glo red trim and tanks. Starfighters based in Canada had red stabilators, whereas aircraft serving in Europe had white tails.

 

Just finishing up some last details, some 104isms, like these weird stencils used to ID certain types of screws to be used on access panels, I'm guessing certain non-ferrous alloys to be used in case of sensitivity of certain components to magnetic disturbances?

[jocko417]

Ok, first two ready for take off. I don't have FC3 so all the flying was AI while I flew the camera around in formation, with judicious use of the pause key...

 

Canadian based CF-104 12701, RCAF Station Cold Lake, Alberta, circa early 1960s. Forgot to turn on the tip tank stencils for the pic... always something.

 

Based on the period photo, sorry, camera pod sold separately.

 

 

[jocko417]

And number two represents an operational CF-104 in NATO service with No. 1 Canadian Air Division, as the aircraft would have looked in the early 1960s. 12833 of 3 (Fighter) Wing, RCAF Station Zweibrücken.

 

 

[jocko417]

[jocko417]

One note, as they are right now, these livery files are big. The F-86 skins I did had one 4K file for the whole aircraft, whereas the CF-104 skins use three 4K files.  I want to see if I can set up a way of using a common folder for normal maps and other shared textures, so separate liveries can consist of only what's needed. Maybe Megalax can chime in, I've had mixed results when working with my Saved Games folder and DCS files.

 

A reminder, you'll need to get the VSN F-104G mod and install it into your Saved Games folder in order for DCS to let the mod work. Installing it into the DCS/Mods folder tree will result in the F-104G mod being disabled.

 

Another thing, while I have tried to be as accurate as I can be when making these skins, there are certain parts of the airplane I was unable to get good reference pics of. When we can finally start to move forward from COVID-19 I'll see about getting some better reference pics with my own camera and update the textures as necessary. For example, the outboard pylons and catamaran missile rack have been somewhat elusive, so the lines and rivets and stuff are not as detailed as the rest of the airframe.

 

I'm going to start a new thread with download links once the skins get approved. There will be plenty of Zipper paint schemes to come now that the "bones" are done.

 

I apologize for these taking so long to be finished! Happy Holidays!

Edited December 25, 2020 by jocko417

[NRG-Vampire]

 OMG, it's xmas time  I can't wait , so plz don't wait for the user file section approval (not just because the 3D model is not official but they can be busy ...), ...so, IMHO you should shoot up your amazing skins to google-drive, mediafire etc. if you are ready
TY & Happy Holidays 2U 

[CarloVecchi]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb jocko417:

One note, as they are right now, these livery files are big. The F-86 skins I did had one 4K file for the whole aircraft, whereas the CF-104 skins use three 4K files.  I want to see if I can set up a way of using a common folder for normal maps and other shared textures, so separate liveries can consist of only what's needed. Maybe Megalax can chime in, I've had mixed results when working with my Saved Games folder and DCS files.

 

A reminder, you'll need to get the VSN F-104G mod and install it into your Saved Games folder in order for DCS to let the mod work. Installing it into the DCS/Mods folder tree will result in the F-104G mod being disabled.

 

Another thing, while I have tried to be as accurate as I can be when making these skins, there are certain parts of the airplane I was unable to get good reference pics of. When we can finally start to move forward from COVID-19 I'll see about getting some better reference pics with my own camera and update the textures as necessary. For example, the outboard pylons and catamaran missile rack have been somewhat elusive, so the lines and rivets and stuff are not as detailed as the rest of the airframe.

 

I'm going to start a new thread with download links once the skins get approved. There will be plenty of Zipper paint schemes to come now that the "bones" are done.

 

I apologize for these taking so long to be finished! Happy Holidays!

 

Great work mate! 

Can´t wait to see em in my sim.

Thank you for your work! 

[jocko417]

6 hours ago, NRG-Vampire said:

 OMG, it's xmas time  I can't wait , so plz don't wait for the user file section approval (not just because the 3D model is not official but they can be busy ...), ...so, IMHO you should shoot up your amazing skins to google-drive, mediafire etc. if you are ready
TY & Happy Holidays 2U 

 Well, that's a valid point. If the skins aren't accepted I'll post 'em on a third party host site.

 

Thanks for your patience guys, I've always liked the Starfighter and this may be the closest we get to flying one in DCS... but we can still hope

 

And now we wait:

[dommb57]

Jocko417 Greetings from Germany.

Great job. Well done.

Thanx for that awsome CF-104 skins

Have a nice day

dommb57

[jocko417]

Glad you like them!

 

I'm editing the thread to have all the download links on the front page. Updates will be posted here.

[YSIAD_RIP]

Hi jocko417, 

Tanks for the great CF-104 Canadian Skin! It was worth the wait!  Happy Holidays. 

 

[Mizzy]

Brilliant, hoping for the USAF skin when you can !

[jocko417]

I plan on some C rip offs, both natural metal TAC and Camo SEA, I could get a 104G Luke AFB Luftwaffe training scheme out pretty quickly.

[NRG-Vampire]

These skins absolutely splendiferous 

Edited December 26, 2020 by NRG-Vampire

[NRG-Vampire]

[jocko417]

Starfighters served Canada for about 25 years before being replaced by the Hornet. Over its service life, the aircraft saw many changes in finish and markings, due to a combination of a change in nationality markings, unification of the armed forces branches, and the change in tactical role from nuclear to conventional strike.

 

After Canada changed from the red ensign to the "new" national flag in January 1965, the first major change to markings occurred as well, from the traditional "Silver Maple" leaf roundel of the RCAF to the stylized 11-point leaf of the new flag. Initially "new" roundels were created by over painting the old leaf and substituting the new one by cutting it from stocks of national flag decals, or so the lore says. In comparison to the official markings this resulted in a thinner looking blue ring retained from the old RCAF markings with a too-small new leaf. Eventually the new, official nationality markings that are still in use today would be applied, with a thicker blue band and larger sized red leaf, with slight changes to the official colours.

 

The Canadian Starfighter museum at St. Andrews airport, Manitoba has restored Starfighter 12703 to how it looked in service circa 1966, with the hybrid "Small Leaf" markings. The aircraft is also adorned with the heraldic crest of No.1 Fighter Wing, Marville, France, and a crest from the 1966 4th Tactical Air Force weapons meet.

 

You can visit the museum's website here and learn all about this amazing restoration.

 

http://www.canadianstarfightermuseum.ca/

 

As for the skin, just working on the text and logo on the TAC Weapons Meet crest and it'll be done.

 

 

 

Haha, glad you like them Vampire, plenty more to come. One thing bugging me though is I can't get the new drag chute texture to work, should be a dirty yellow colour.

Edited December 26, 2020 by jocko417

[NRG-Vampire]

About the rear navigation lights: i am confused. Some source mentioning that the rear fuselage lower NAV lights are red on both side and white on both side above.
While other source tells both rear-high are yellow and as usual lower-left is red, lower-right is green.
Do you know what is the truth ? 

Edited December 26, 2020 by NRG-Vampire

[jocko417]

Dammit, I just spotted an error in one of Vampire's pics of 701, the arresting hook warning arrow on the left side of the tail doesn't line up with the roughmet. Stand by for version 1.01.....

[jocko417]

6 minutes ago, NRG-Vampire said:

About the rear navigation lights: i am confused. Some source mentioning that the rear fuselage lower NAV lights are red on both side and white on both side above.
While other source tells both rear-high are yellow and as usual lower-left is red, lower-right is green.
Do you know what is the truth ? 

 

 

The rear lights should be amber on top, white on the bottom, both sides. The red and green nav lights are on the wing tips (or tip tanks) and intakes. If you look at the rear end of the F-86 it also has both a white and amber light.

[NRG-Vampire]

3 minutes ago, jocko417 said:

Dammit, I just spotted an error in one of Vampire's pics of 701, the arresting hook warning arrow on the left side of the tail doesn't line up with the roughmet. Stand by for version 1.01.....

I did not checked the roughmet but I saw some pics with aircafts that warning arrow point to the lower-rear-fuselage-lamp while on others the arrow point downward near/next to that fuselage-lamp.

[jocko417]

701 skin updated to fix the warning arrow.

1 minute ago, NRG-Vampire said:

I did not checked the roughmet but I saw some pics with aircafts that warning arrow point to the lower-rear-fuselage-lamp while on others the arrow point downward near/next to that fuselage-lamp.

 

Yup, the stencils can vary from one aircraft to the next, too many styles to bother with. I already changed them for upcoming skins so the arrow head extendes behind the lamp pointing down at the hook.

[NRG-Vampire]

Thanks, ...but I think i spotted another small error. Fuselage-rear-bottom-luminaries should be rotated by 180 deg. AFAIK those lit backwards, so the frontal-half-parts of the lamps should be covered...now on the textures those are reversed.

Edited December 26, 2020 by NRG-Vampire