New Micro Flight blog created

OK, so we are having a new blog for MF content providers.

You can go there from this link. Seems to be a cross between a web page and a forum really, not bad I guess. We shall have to see if it feels comfy enough for & after a while.

At least they have sheduled outages on this host, I really don't mind that sort very much at all. I prefer that it is at least being maintained and looked after on a pretty regular basis.

There's also a link in the sidebar.

Airfield

It all started with a model of the tower at Cranfield for MF, and somehow or other I've ended up making a few more of the buildings there. So, since I'm not all that inclined to fly in MF anymore, then I may as well try and model even more if not all of it, it's better than wasting all those hours of building that have gone into it to date. It's a huge undertaking of course and I doubt I'll ever get it all done in my lifetime, as there's rather a lot of it, and I'm just one bloke.

It's loosely based on EGTC, a field not too far from me. Over time I'll catch the essence of the differences in the 4 main hangars there, but it's a long job as they all have differing door arrangements these days, they all started out pretty much the same I'd imagine, but over time, they've all become rather more individual, which is of course a bit of an extension of the model makers nightmare. They don't even have the same glazing spec, so that makes it even more challenging to model.

I'm having to guess a lot too, drawings for a standard UK WW2 C Type hangar so far have eluded me. Airliners.net have proven handy for a fair number of pictures of EGTC, but most people take pictures of only the planes, and miss out on the airfield and it's fittings. I dream dreams of being able to go there with a digital camera, there would be some planes in the resulting pics (of course!), but mostly I'd have memory cards full of buildings!

The Century2 Experiment

A bit off beat perhaps; I wondered what would happen if aircraft builders of 100 years ago were able to design aircraft using today's materials and technology, but with their contemporary understanding of the theory, foibles & mechanisms of flying.

I'm not sure, of course, but I reckon things like this might have been the result. As each year in this new century passes I plan to try and make perhaps one & maybe more models that reflect aircraft built in the same year in the previous century using what we have now. Obviously this was all inspired by the recent celebrations of the First Century Of (powered, man carrying, controlled) Flight.

It would be great if others would join in with this adventure of exploration too I think. We'd see some wild stuff emerge I imagine.

Some of this could have a bearing on today's kit plane market of course, as the industries are of broadly similar maturity for their respective times.

Europa XS

These Europa XS kit planes have so far been set up for FS04 & MF. I add to them as I get a minute here and there. Plenty still to do on them. Sadly I don't have enough information on them so it's very slow progress. I have outlines, but no cross sectional information at all.

Panel for Flight Sim '04

This project is slowly coming along; alternate panel for FS04 & any other sim that would like to use it, runs on a second computer & uses it's own screen. Very nice to fly with & makes for a much more relaxed flight, due to being far less cramped and rather more informative than some other methods. It's not just for planes either, ANY panel can be made, cars, boats, trains, whatever you want, it's all 3d models and is DirectX compatible (so far...) There's two of us working on this in our spare time and there is presently a slight pause while the other chap finishes off making a movie, but after that, who knows, it could very well be back to normal.

Fairey Rotodyne

Great old bird this, not a single flight simulator is up to the challenge of allowing it to fly in the correct manner or modes for this aircraft. More than coders can cope with it seems, they are clearly not as clever as they would like everyone to think they are then. Looks pretty fair in this render though.

Flying Lead

Designed specifically for Micro Flight, but sadly can not be released as the author of MF has not fixed the bug where all the paint falls off it if you encode it for distribution. Been waiting since early 2005 for an update that fixes it, but nothing has happened so far.

It's a great pity as MF is astonishingly good with some ground vehicles, way beyond what you might reasonably expect from a flight sim in fact.

Wallis - Little Nellie

One of my older models. It's always flown nicely in the simulators that I've set it up for. Always been an absolute swine to render well though, never quite mastered it.

315b

The Lama seemed popular among MF users. It's not too bad a model really, took a while & was pretty tedious to make as there's just loads & loads of it.

Looking much better now that I'm using it in renders and adding a few paint maps as I go along, when the mood takes me. This is an old shot, newer versions are in the airfield renders.

Dh82a

Still WIP for Micro Flight. It's substantially done, and flies sort of OK in the sim. I was particularly happy with the glass in this one, just has a certain feel to it.

177b Work In Progress

Currently in the works. No idea yet when it'll get finished, but I keep fiddling with it! Seems to fly nicely enough in the sim, looks pretty good in the 3d airfield rendering I'm also working on.

Not the last post...

In fact it's the first!

Well, for some time now, I've looked on, while the world around me went blogging crazy, and for the most part I've not entirely seen the point of it all. However it all changed in a moment a week or two ago, and I suddenly realised that a blog might well be the answer to a problem a friend and I have been having.

We were stuck, not being able to speak entirely freely on a forum we both frequent. Posts would get censored and all sorts of undesirable antics of that sort would take place. Well, that sort of oppressive behaviour might just end here with some luck.

Could be an interesting learning curve.