Project Lancaster

[Scoobyon]

On 7/20/2024 at 4:58 PM, BrianTheBrain said:

The cool thing is that with how modular Loki has gotten the flight model, stuff like this and the jet lanc are totally theoretically possible... 3d model edits be damned

Thanks for giving me and loki more work  no but seriously it should be possible but where would be literally no documentation on how it worked

On 7/20/2024 at 11:58 AM, Tonker said:

Roger

 

That should get a convo rolling...!

Ok so as far as I know this was a huge fuel tank for the far east campaign, I think there was more than one aircraft equipt like this and I believe that they experimented with air to air refueling but I'm not sure if it was this configuration with the fuel tank on top, not a very pretty varient. It looks like the super guppy but they forgot the back half and that the Lancaster looked pretty before it was assulted

[BrianTheBrain]

5 hours ago, Scoobyon said:

Thanks for giving me and loki more work  

I know you guys love it

[Hawkeye60]

Lancaster Bomber to take to the skies once again (msn.com)

Quote

 

One of Britain's most recognisable planes will be appearing in the skies once more following a period of maintenance.

The RAF's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF) said the Lancaster Bomber, one of the most famous aircraft of World War Two, is ready to fly following repairs over the winter.

In a statement shared on social media, the BBMF said the other planes in its fleet, the Spitfire and Hurricane, were still grounded "whilst the investigation into the tragic Spitfire incident continues".

Sqn Ldr Mark Long, a member of the BBMF, died when the Spitfire he was flying crashed into a field in Lincolnshire on 25 May 2024.

In May, the BBMF announced there would be a "temporary pause" in flights by the remaining aircraft in the fleet.

At the time of his death, Sqn Ldr Long was in his fourth season with the BBMF.

The cause of death is still being investigated by the Defence Accident Investigation Branch.

An inquest into his death was opened in June and is expected to resume on 24 November.

'Extensive inspections'

The BBMF, which operates from RAF Coningsby, said the "extensive pre-planned depth maintenance activity" included the "manufacture and replacement of the entire tail plane".

They added the plane had undergone "extensive inspections and testing" before being cleared to fly.

The BBMF's Lancaster Bomber is one of only two flying examples in the world.

 

[Slippa]

Heard about this too yesterday. Good news, it’s where she belongs and they’ve already been missed by a few airshows and displays.

 

[Alicatt]

11 hours ago, Slippa said:

Heard about this too yesterday. Good news, it’s where she belongs and they’ve already been missed by a few airshows and displays.

 

I hear she is coming to our local airshow at Sanicole this year too.

[Hawkeye60]

I have not scrolled back through the thread

Has Scooby created the livery for it yet!

 

[Slippa]

They’ve made a few great skins yeah, no template for skinners so far.

Some of the pics went AWOL because of the way the forum deals with em.

Enjoy the airshow Alicatt .

[Alicatt]

20 hours ago, Slippa said:

They’ve made a few great skins yeah, no template for skinners so far.

Some of the pics went AWOL because of the way the forum deals with em.

Enjoy the airshow Alicatt .

Thanks

Always do, been going with my grandson since he was 2 he is now 16. I have been going to airshows for 60 years now, started when I was 8, got to see the Gnats, Lightnings, Mosquitos, F104, even a Beverly once  

 

[BrianTheBrain]

On 7/24/2024 at 11:51 PM, Alicatt said:

Thanks

Always do, been going with my grandson since he was 2 he is now 16. I have been going to airshows for 60 years now, started when I was 8, got to see the Gnats, Lightnings, Mosquitos, F104, even a Beverly once  

 

Ah, going to airshows with my grandpa are wonderful memories to me, and may or may not planted the seed of my airplane video game obsession...

[Alicatt]

1 hour ago, BrianTheBrain said:

Ah, going to airshows with my grandpa are wonderful memories to me, and may or may not planted the seed of my airplane video game obsession...

Never met my mother's father, he passed away the year before I was born, my father was the baby of the family and his father was old when I was born, he was over 90 when he passed and I was 4. My father was in the RAF at the end of WW2 and he took us to the airshows 

Our family history is more with the sea than the air though, and even now being a retired marine radar tech I still mess around on boats and have just got a new one

[Slippa]

Very nice Ali. Nothing like boat trips eh.

Something tells me you have an interest in archery .

[Scoobyon]

null

[Devil 505]

On 7/29/2024 at 12:52 PM, Scoobyon said:

null

You guys are going to be a game changer and driver for future modules when this releases! Outstanding work.  Really looking forward to flying this with the guys.  

[Scoobyon]

Some cinematic bits that I might aswell post here

 

[Veteran66]

wauu, realy good work, best Mod ever!!!

[Slippa]

‘Might as well’ my arse. You’d damn well better , and mighty glad you did.

Scoobs and the team, it’s a work of art. Imma watch that again. Maybe in slo-mo? Twice.

Lookin too good, keep it up and cheers for the glimpse .

[Reverend]

I can't say anything I am overwhelmed

[Matthew007b]

it's been a while since I looked at this... wow... looking amazing - I've been following the just jane restoration on youtube and... I'm glad you guys have put that plane in as a skin (or looks like you have)

Great work  VR is going to be a blast with it! 

[Tonker]

Amazing audio - the first time I've heard so much of the BBC reporter's commentary, or so much of the crew intercom in one vid. Enjoy!

 

 

Edited August 15, 2024 by Tonker
Found more :)

[Tonker]

On 8/13/2024 at 4:31 PM, Matthew007b said:

I've been following the just jane restoration on youtube

Thanks for the steer, I'd missed just how well documented this is

etc. Boom!

 

@Scoobyon and co: I'm sure it feels very early to be thinking about this, 'tho I'd argue it's as important to how professional a mod feels as the flight model etc, but have you any plan yet for documentation and/or tutorial missions and/or 'real' missions (*cough* campaign of a full tour, plus training and evaluation flights *cough*) to go with the Lanc when she's ready?

Is it, perhaps, the sort of thing we sycophants could help with? A @chuck owl style guide/manual and an A4 Skyhawk-style kneeboard would help enormously with people not just downloading the mod, but wanting to use it when they fire up DCS. One hell of a lot of work though, so perhaps worth outsourcing?

My other small-hours-of-the-morning-watching-Lanc-vids thought is whether you have been able to reach out to current Lanc projects (ideally pilots and flight engineers) for information on the feel of the real thing, to inform flight model/systems models? Again, is this perhaps something those of us in the UK or Canada could help with?

Keep up the good work

 

 

 

PS. Us punters, just be grateful I didn't volunteer us all to record voice lines for a Jester-style full crew!

[Scoobyon]

22 hours ago, Tonker said:

@Scoobyon and co: I'm sure it feels very early to be thinking about this, 'tho I'd argue it's as important to how professional a mod feels as the flight model etc, but have you any plan yet for documentation and/or tutorial missions and/or 'real' missions (*cough* campaign of a full tour, plus training and evaluation flights *cough*) to go with the Lanc when she's ready?

Is it, perhaps, the sort of thing we sycophants could help with? A @chuck owl style guide/manual and an A4 Skyhawk-style kneeboard would help enormously with people not just downloading the mod, but wanting to use it when they fire up DCS. One hell of a lot of work though, so perhaps worth outsourcing?

My other small-hours-of-the-morning-watching-Lanc-vids thought is whether you have been able to reach out to current Lanc projects (ideally pilots and flight engineers) for information on the feel of the real thing, to inform flight model/systems models? Again, is this perhaps something those of us in the UK or Canada could help with?

 

We have a few real missions already but the historical accuracy is limited by the range we have so we are relatively limited to Normandy preparations and raids around Paris launched from non lancaster airfields. I also did a startup and takeoff mission with the clickable promps and all the triggers but it probably needs some tidying with the new switches and systems added. One of the missions I have done so far is the raid on the wizern V2 plant, I would do custom assets but its pitch black nighttime raids from 20,000ft so there's little point for that one atleast.

Chuck has said he is more than happy to help us out with a manual when we release

We have quite a few pilots and engineers floating around our discord from nx611, pa474 and fm213 aswell as other museums with Lancaster bits. Ive spoken to PA474s pilots a number of times to get bits about how it flies and we have engine runs from in the cockpit from multiple lancasters

nullone for good luck

[Slippa]

On 8/18/2024 at 2:54 AM, Tonker said:

PS. Us punters, just be grateful I didn't volunteer us all to record voice lines for a Jester-style full crew!

My natural brogue’s a full on cockney so you can all be grateful I ain’t stepped forward, - ”awight Skippa” .

Cheers for the info Scoobs. Great that there’s interest and a helpful ear from the lads at the museum. Pilots and engineers for these things obviously like hens teeth so great that there’s support there. BBMF as ever invaluable too.

Personally, I’m quite happy learning to operate our aircraft and fly them around the maps. Once I can get em back in one piece I’ll go on to the weaponry and have some sport but I tend to spend a lot of time just enjoying the flying. My point being we can still get plenty of pleasure out of em even if we can’t quite stretch out to Berlin (Yet). You’ll have to be a bit creative with missions I s’pose.

About half an hour from me up the coast is where 617 tested and trained with the upkeeps and highballs at Reculver. They flew out of Manston for it. Maybe we could have a series of training missions so once we’re passed off to fly we could go through some low level training missions (for specialised ops). Maybe build some assets like the towers at Reculver, some targets, barges and target pontoons and plot those either on the Channel or N2?

So far, any bombing we could do would be with our conventional DCS stuff unless someone (a clever Barnes Wallis type modder) could build us some upkeeps and tallboys. Of course, this is probably a bit of a stretch and you’d probably need to build targets that blow along with them. As well as the small matter of making a projectile bounce in DCS. A bit much probably?

I’m still on a promise for my little tractor though (with a turbo) and with a bomb train, bowser, crew truck and maybe a mess truck, vintage motor and dispersal huts you’ve plenty of bits you could build. Big enough hangars? - Just some ideas, don’t mind me, I can get carried away .

I’d be quite happy doing a few daylight training missions as well as some dodgy bits of both, either taking us from daylight into darkness over a target and back or from darkness over the target to fly home to Blighty for dawn? We’ll have to adapt a bit in what we could do, unless the team fancy map-making to get us over the Ruhr we can only work with what we have. Having the Lanc up and running at all would be great, I’m sure we’ll find plenty to do once we have em.

Keep Buggering On team. 

 

 

 

[BrianTheBrain]

DCS currently doesn't have much to fly against for night fighting, I think the Lancaster will have to fit in as day bomber for a little while.

[Tonker]

15 hours ago, BrianTheBrain said:

DCS currently doesn't have much to fly against for night fighting

For multiplayer is this?

For singleplayer, as a Lanc pilot in the black of night, an AI Mossie might as well be a AI Ju88. It's still going to make a nasty mess of the starboard outer motor. Nor would an AI rear gunner care that the AI FW-190 approaching from 8 o'clock low wasn't quite the right variant - they could still (hopefully) give the call to corkscrew over the intercom, which is all I need to know.

Otherwise between keeping tabs on

• the instruments
• the nav's instructions
• the flight engineer's instructions,
• my tiny little box of assigned, allegedly unconflicted, airspace
• the gunners calling out nearby traffic
• the weather
• the flak
• the risk of enemy fighters
• the (and this must've been shattering for the poor bastards) sight of other Lanc's apparently spontaneously exploding
• ...oh yeah, and trying to hold the old girl on the bomb aimer's instructions so the whole show isn't a total waste of my crew's evening
• etc etc etc

I don't think I'm gonna be shy of challenge  A mission designer could have me flying round in circles for hours and tell me I'd got to Berlin for all I'd know! External accuracy of the mission is secondary (to my mind) to immersion in the experience of those stupidly brave young men. A lot of this is down to the aircraft mod makers, but an awful lot is down to the mission designer - @Reflected is, to my mind, the absolute master of this balance, getting things to feel just right no matter how much magic he's had to weave behind the scenes. Training flights were as difficult, and almost as dangerous, as going out on ops after all...

 

That's all very welcome news @Scoobyon - I'm completely unsurprised that you and the team are all over it  Keep up the good work

 

To keep us in the zone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6U0e5DUdNQ

 

 

 

 

[BrianTheBrain]

Yeah, playing with an AI navigator, hopefully I will be able to get it to the point where the navigator is simply vectoring you via the ME waypoints and sending intercom callouts. Toying around with AI voice transcription and generation.

Human navigator, on the other hand.......
Theres gonna be a lot of 1940's shenanigans going on...