Freeware Focus - David Copley

By Andrew Herd (15 April 2005)

ast your mind back to the new year of 1999, or if memory doesn't stretch that far, try a search of the file library, and you will turn up a 70k - yep, that's right, not megs - file by the name of AMIP38J.ZIP, which happens to be a P38J. P38s must have been popular for some reason six years ago, because a whole slew of them were released around the same time, but the one we are interested in was designed by Eric Johnson. The previous year, a whole batch had been released by Bernd Drefahl, including an excellent sim of the 5000th P-38, which Lockheed painted crimson, with the word 'Yippee!' emblazoned on the side, making it about the most distinctive aircraft ever. I remember downloading that one.

Anyway... dragged myself back to the subject, though I do wish someone would do a 'Yippee!' livery on an FS2004 P-38, hint, hint, Eric's P-38 struck a chord with a simmer called David Copley, who sat himself down to see if he could improve upon it. The result appeared six months later, weighing in at just under 2.4 megs, which was a big file by the standards of the time, but it was so good that three and a half thousand people downloaded it. Incidentally, when you look back at download stats from the late nineties, it pays to remember that only a fraction of people were online at the time, the web only having struggled to its feet five or so years previously; so 3,500 downloads was a lot. A patch came along in early 2000, which made the package compatible with CFS and added a few bits and pieces like dive recovery flaps (highly necessary on the P-38, which had a tendency to tuck under in a high speed dive), and then in May 2000 came a rework for FS2000, dubbed the P-38N.

I knew I wouldn't catch you out. There wasn't a P-38N, but that's half the fun of doing freeware - you can let your imagination roam a little. It turned out that simmers were pretty keen on the old N, because more than five thousand of them downloaded it, and numerous repaints followed, before Dave was seduced away by CFS2, releasing a couple basic P-38s for that game and doing a scenario or two into the bargain.

By July 2001 Dave was up to version 3.0 of this popular package and simulataneous releases of an XP-38N followed - it is quite interesting to note that CFS downloads trailed FS2000 ones by approaching three to one, and that was at a time when Combat Flight Simulator faced virtually no opposition. The rest of the Dave's year was devoted almost exclusively to CFS development and he uploaded a P-38M, a P-38L and a P-38J, which generated just under 5000 downloads, followed by a P-38L for FS2002, which hit the big time with nearly 9000 downloads. This package included textures for Richard Bong's "42" and John Johnson's "Jane" as well as a 'factory fresh' bare metal finish.

In February 2002, came version 3.1, which took advantage of FS2002's somewhat improved flight dynamics to offer zero torque - the P-38 has contra-rotating props and as far as I can recall, FS98 and probably FS2000 didn't allow developers to model this. In April came an F-5E, which was the photographic version of the P-38. Out of interest, by coincidence, two of the greatest pilots ever to take to the skies were lost in F-5s: Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Adrian Warburton. Saint-Exupery shouldn't need any introduction, but Warby was a real one-off who, amazing though it might seem, never totally cracked the problem of executing safe takeoffs, yet, once airborne, metamorphosed into a brave and talented photoreconaissance pilot - if you want to read more, try ordering 'Warburton's War', by Tony Spooner, ISBN 0907579434. Saint-Exupery's great flying book is of course, 'Wind, Sand and Stars' ISBN 0141183195 - if you haven't read it, you should.

That Christmas, after spending the fall doing air files for various other projects, David released a very popular XP-38 for FS2002, with reflective textures, full animation and authentic P-38 sounds. This was back in the era when dynamic shine was in the first peak of its popularity, but I must admit that the prototype looked good in a bare metal finish. The XP was followed by a combined package featuring the F, G and H models, with one of the planes painted as 'Glacier Girl'. This amazing aircraft was recovered from under 270 feet of ice which had accumulated on top of her over the 50 years that followed a forced landing on the Greenland icecap during a ferry flight. Glacier Girl has been rebuilt to flying condition, but another five P-38s and two B-17s remain at the same location; rare though P-38s are, I guess they may remain there for a while yet.

Next came the version 2.0 update of the P-38J and the F-5, released in a twin package that weighed in at 12 megs, but that didn't deter David's fans, who lapped it up, together with version 2.0 of his P-38L package. Part of the secret of David's success is that by this stage he had been providing complete packages for quite some time, saving users the trouble of sourcing panels and sound sets from third parties and spending hours at the keyboard trying to figure out how to stop them all arguing with each other. If you downloaded a Copley plane, you didn't need anything else, it was all there.

Which takes us to the present day. All Dave's major P-38 variants have been updated to FS2004 standard: the XP-38 (XP38DCC.ZIP); the 'Triple Play' F,G and H package (P38TP12.ZIP); and his superb P-38L-5 (P38TDL21.ZIP), which has attracted a long overdue Developer's Award. At the very least you should download one of them, because they are all so good it is hard to imagine that they are mostly the work of one individual. In the best freeware tradition, David credits the people who contributed 'spare parts' and help to the project - folk like Mike Wagner and Chuck Dome, which sets me thinking about future features in this series.

And there is a new kid on the block. Where it came from, I don't know, but maybe all that unswerving devotion to simulating the P-38 has made Dave wonder if a bit of light relief might be in order, because ladies and gentlemen, here is the Stratojet Merlin. Now I think of it, Shigeru Tanaka likes to do fictitious planes and if you browse around the file library, there seem to be plenty of other people with ideas about how to design everything from rocket fighters to flying toilets - but this Merlin looks like a Beech Starship on steroids. Considering it is powered by twin turbocharged 2000 hp Allison V-1710 V12s driving a single pusher prop, it is probably best not to enquire what the fuel consumption is like, but to describe it as eye-catching is an understatement. You get five paint schemes, ranging from the 'Red Baron' one shown here, which has given David an opportunity to let his imagination run riot; through a Reno Racer; to a US military scheme. The only thing I have to say about this mother is you should give it a whirl, because it isn't quite like anything else you are likely to have come across before!

The next version of Flight Simulator is at least a year away, perhaps more than that. I haven't asked David about his plans, but judging from past performance, he will put the time to good use His planes are superb, but they keep on getting better with every release, so I don't think we will see the definitive P-38 update for a long time to come. But that's the fun of freeware - you just don't know where it will take you next.

Update 5.17.2005

That last sentiment up there proved to be remarkably correct. The afternoon this review was published, my mailbox began to fill up with emails from kind people telling me that it is possible to use Dan Swart's Yippee textures from the P-38J on Dave's FS2004 P-38L. Some oversight (we already have the auditors in to try and find out why my favorite set of textures for any plane, ever, did not make it onto FlightSim.Com), but the folks at SimOuthouse sent a flood of messages telling me that help was at hand and so I have just uploaded the Yippee set and included some screenshots. Dave tells me that the 'J' is due for an update and I am sure that if enough readers write and encourage him to do so, and Dan agrees, the Yippee set will make it into the package, because I don't think there was ever a more striking paint job done on a real plane.

The other thing I should draw your attention to is that David has done a donation-ware Glacier Girl to raise funds for the Lost Squadron Museum - see the screenshot above right. The package costs $5 of which four bucks goes to help fund the Lost Squadron Museum to help them pay this unique airplane's way, while the other dollar pays for the package's hosting on donationware.net. Dave's next project is a Reno Racer P-38L, so keep your eye on the file lists (Update: the Reno Racer P-38L is now available here).

So to David Copley, from the FlightSim.Com team, a very happy (and productive) 2005.