Project Lancaster

[Slippa]

17 hours ago, Tonker said:

a Lanc pilot in the black of night, an AI Mossie might as well be a AI Ju88.

Worse, to a rear gunner in the black of night, almost home and feeling a bit twitchy.

Probably the most well known Lancaster pilot was also for a time the pilot of a Mosquito operating at night with the PFF. Understandably, the story isn’t championed so much though it’s a part of the mans history, as tragic a tale as it is. Heartbreaking for all concerned and a surprise to me when I learnt about it only a few years ago. 

https://aircrewremembered.com/bernard-mccormack-raf-gunner-who-shot-down-guy-gibson.html

 

[Tonker]

Interesting...'tho reading that, it seems far from clear that Gibbo was downed by a friendly. If not in this case, there were plenty of others though - hardly surprising that the nightfighting environment carried a high risk of blue/blue or red/red engagements. Horrible.

 

On subject PFF Mossies - does the DCS rendition have an option for marker flares? That would make for a good multiplayer mission (and neatly dodge the lack of H2S in our Lancs...for starters at least!).

[Slippa]

On 8/25/2024 at 1:29 PM, Tonker said:

On subject PFF Mossies - does the DCS rendition have an option for marker flares? That would make for a good multiplayer mission (and neatly dodge the lack of H2S in our Lancs...for starters at least!).

We don’t have them yet though I might’ve mentioned it 

 

[jonsky7]

On 8/9/2024 at 2:49 PM, Scoobyon said:

Some cinematic bits that I might aswell post here

 

 

Oh my, that is beautiful !

[Alicatt]

Sanicole Airshow is promoting the Lancaster for it's show later this month

 

[jmoss84]

This is an incredible project and I'm genuinely so excited to watch it unfold. My grandfather trained to be a navigator in Manitoba before joining 617 (post Ruhr raid) as the war neared its conclusion. He was definitely in the squadron when they went after the Tirpitz. This will be amazingly cool to get some sort of representation of it all. Thank you so much!

[Scoobyon]

Landing gear initial textures

[Slippa]

Ah, I can almost hear the clicking mouse and keyboard clatter. The sounds of modelling tinkerers.

All good stuff. Looking tip top and Bristol team, keep buggering on. 

[Scoobyon]

A small frustration, The landing gear on our current model is vertically down when the aircraft is in level flight when in actuality it should sit at a 8-degree angle so that it is parrel to the ground. Will have to re animate the whole gear leg retraction which is quite the process given that its done with IK constraints.

For those unfamiliar, 3ds allows us to solve the gear leg animation with a set of parent bones which is all well and good until you get to the part where DCS doesnt support it. Essentially you have to go through every keyframe and align another set of bones to the animated ones which is just time-consuming. We then have to go through this process for both of the hydraulic rams for the gear aswell.

Progress is going well, need to do some more riveting and panelling then its just flaps and turrets to finish



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[Slippa]

I walked in on a repeat of this last night. 

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/guy-martins-lancaster-bomber

I’ve seen it a couple of times already and probably have it recorded but I watched the lot again quite happily. Thought of ‘our Lanc’ in production and the lads here tapping away with their virtual toolkit. 

Let’s hope it goes a bit smoother for ya and DCS behaves itself. Watching them start up and taxi around’s got me itching to get into ours. Not to mention getting on the little tractor.  I wanna go! 

You’re doing a grand job, keep at it.

 

[Slippa]

How’s it going? All good I hope.

Any pics or teasers to brighten our day? 

[Scoobyon]

Ive been busy busy with my uni stuff and haven't had a chance to sit down with the lanc for a long while now, hoping to get some done over the Christmas break but I've got all sorts of coursework and exams going on, Loki has been travelling and has had his house flooded aswell so not much from him either. @BrianTheBrain is still working on his witchcraft that I wont pretend I know but I believe he's about in this thread to explain. 
Ill upload a old screenshot for now, My BBMF group are performing on the 8th of December at VIAF and another unannounced airshow later in December should that be your thing aswell
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[Rudel_chw]

47 minutes ago, Scoobyon said:

Ive been busy busy with my uni stuff and haven't had a chance to sit down with the lanc for a long while now, hoping to get some done over the Christmas break but I've got all sorts of coursework and exams going on, Loki has been travelling and has had his house flooded aswell so not much from him either. @BrianTheBrain is still working on his witchcraft that I wont pretend I know but I believe he's about in this thread to explain. 

 

Hi, thanks a lot for the report, I completely understand that sometimes real-life gets in the way of DCS ... we will have to wait, I'm flying the F-4 and the Mig-21 in the meantime, so not in a hurry  

Looking forward to your Mod, creating missions for it will be a nice change of pace ... once released I will pester an artistic friend to see if he can paint an argentinian livery for me, to use the Lanc on the South Atlantic  Map posing as a Lincoln:

 

 

 

[BrianTheBrain]

I've been busy as well lately, coming up on semester finals and trying to proceed with internships elsewhere in the sim community. I've made a bit of progress on "seamless" multicrew networking but have yet to actually implement anything multicrew.

[Slippa]

Cheers lads, completely understand life gets in the way n all that.

Sorry to hear about Lokis’ flood, hope it’s sorted soon for ya. Good luck with the exams Scoobs, they’re a bit more important than building Lancaster models (but only a bit ). 

Progress is progress Brian, you’ll know what you’re doing when you get back in the ‘Lanc workshop’. Good luck with the finals. 

Cheers for the update, good of ya to check in and keep the fires burning. Will have a look around for the VBBMF bits, enjoyed flying form in the Mossies a while back, I’ll keep my eye out. 

 

[Scoobyon]

[Tommy528]

I am very fortunate to live not far from one of the last flying Lancs. VRA. 

 

Still sends a chill down my spine watching it fly over. 

 

BZ to you guys for keeping this alive. 

Edited December 10, 2024 by Tommy528

[Tonker]

My ears are ringing just looking at that pic - nice one @Scoobyon and team!

[Slippa]

A progress update video would be a bit of work but wondered if there’s a recording of the display you could post in its stead? I missed it earlier.

Are there still plans to display somewhere soon? 

Hope you all find time for some tinkering over the holiday. I’m rooting for those gunner positions to start wriggling . Not a little job I’m sure.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, have a goodun .

[BrianTheBrain]

Our Lanc flew at the virtual airshow with the BBMF maybe @Scoobyon has a recording somewhere?
Mini dev update regarding what im doing:

Finally, some significant process on multicrew. I've got some system state syncing between pilot/other position, but the Lanc in its own way is pretty daunting for a 7 player multicrew implementation. So the folks over at caffeine simulations are letting me use their rapidly progressing T38C mod as a test bed, also helps that @Hayds_93 is a fellow low life with plenty of time on his hands and a compatible time zone to mine, so thats where most of the work has been tested so far. I aim for multicrew to be as seamless in comparison to (great) mods like the C130 and Uh60 where theres some configuration in text files and port forwarding needed... so seeing how i can get around that requirement and make it as easy as an official module. Im pretty sure the DCS game host's server is the one that handles the connection for official modules... curse locked down SDK for making me circumvent ED. Thats about all i've been working on and is its own little feat.

I'll leave the other updates for Lok' and Scoob who are working on that stuff should they care to comment...

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all those eagerly awaiting DCS Lancaster, I look forward to DCS's WW2 future in 2025 as it seems like theres a few things cooking that could be released soon. All in good time.

[Scoobyon]

On 12/19/2024 at 1:37 PM, Slippa said:

A progress update video would be a bit of work but wondered if there’s a recording of the display you could post in its stead? I missed it earlier.

Are there still plans to display somewhere soon? 

Hope you all find time for some tinkering over the holiday. I’m rooting for those gunner positions to start wriggling . Not a little job I’m sure.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, have a goodun .

VIAF flight can be found at this link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2322197995?t=03h29m33s
Will be displaying the lanc for a quick solo on the 22nd (tomorrow) at 14:15 CST (20:15 UTC) if you should happen to be about on the Virtual Snowbirds youtube channel
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ky2KuqtVHAS6Uu1qcsuYmGwyrJe0bom3MbTS_UqYLfw/edit?gid=0#gid=0
The ending should be worth watching

In other news, some work on the pilot model textures

[Slippa]

Ah, Santa’s been 

Early Pilot model’s lookin good, well done. He must stink of fresh leather. Straight ahead, steady as she goes .

I’ll try to catch it tomorrow then, nice one.

ETA: Just watched the display from last week. What a tribute. Some tidy flying from the VBBMF and a good commentary, nicely done. I could almost smell the onions cooking from the burger vans. Well done all.

Edited December 22, 2024 by Slippa

[MegaTherion666]

On 12/20/2024 at 11:20 PM, BrianTheBrain said:

I look forward to DCS's WW2 future in 2025 as it seems like theres a few things cooking that could be released soon. All in good time.

+1 to this -- they all like to say DCS WWII is a 'dead end', but I disagree. It's an open sandbox and here are all the bits to play with - it is whatever you make of it.
And ya'll are making it better. Cheers to '2025 and beyond' 

[Slippa]

Can anyone repost the pic of the pilot please?

It doesn’t show for me here anymore.

[BrianTheBrain]