A Vintage AI "Airshow"- Is it possible?

[Boosty]

Greetings!
I've been DL'ing alot (more) of the beautiful vintage aircraft available for FS2004 , and I thought it would be cool to watch em' on parade, buzzin' the field. My question is: Could it be possible to, say, set up a "Golden Eagles Flying Club" of sorts (credit Leon Louis), or use an existing airpark to have specific "converted to AI" models on active display in my sim? Has this already been done in some form, or is it too difficult a thing or impossible to accomplish?
Thanks and happy flying.
Boosty

[mgh]

it has been done for FS9 and FSX.

http://www.justflight.com/product/iw...truction-group

[jgf]

Do you mean having the AI active at that airfield or just having the aircraft parked there? Both are easily possible, but can cause major frame rate issues if overdone. Most AI specific aircraft are low detail/low LOD models compared to user flyable aircraft; creating AI from user aircraft negates this and having many of these in the air, or on the ground, at once is quite a load on your system (look at the frame rates at a large airport with a couple of dozen dedicated AI aircraft taxiing or flying around, imagine if all those were highly detailed). The same thing applies to static aircraft used in scenery.

One workaround is to use FS2002 or, particularly for static aircraft, FS2000 models; these are usually lower poly count and so not as big a drain on resources. There is a small utility (SAMM1000.zip) which will convert aircraft to static models for use in scenery, placing these as scenery objects is much simpler than creating parking spaces and programming "flight plans" for parked aircraft, the result is also less resource intensive.

[mgh]

Try the link i gave. It's free and I think you'll be impressed by the quality.

[JSkorna]

Using CalClassic material it is possible.

[NikeHerk67]

FYI there are many options.

As mentioned, there are many freeware and payway programs that can add, not only vintage aircraft, but vintage scenery as well.

If you're the sort who likes do-it-yourself programs there are also many freeware design and traffic programs available.

Personally I like "free stuff" and am lucky enough to have some time so I use ADE9X which is a freeware airport design package. For me it's a lot of fun, once I got the hang of it.
For traffic I use TTools, which is also freeware and you can add just about any add-on or default aircraft you want, set up flight plans, and even have various aircraft doing touch and goes at your airport. (when I say almost any aircraft there are add-on aircraft that don't work at all or perform poorly as AI aircraft) I've found that those are very few though.

Those are only a couple of my personal favorites.

As example, pictured below, I now have a combination of vinage and modern aircraft flying in and around an airport located locally to me, and also, another airport where I recently added some parking spaces and flight plans using the two programs mentioned above.
Once you get the hang of it you get faster. The changes to I made to FAPY and the added traffic only took about an hour. I'm still not very fast....the changes to 8G7 were done in the beginng, as I was learning, and took weeks.
I'm, by no stretch of the imagination, a computer guru.

By checking out the defaul airports, it will become obvious, of some of the changes I've made

8G7 ( added and modified the taxiways, some buildings, moved the beacon, etc. to make it more like the actual airport)


FAYP (added parking spaces and a grass taxiway)



It is obvious that I'm very much a beginner, and neither a scenery designer nor an expert with the programs.


I hope this helps

[Boosty]

First, acknowledgements and thanks for great replies to my first post! Thanks again for your time: mgh, jgf , JSkorna , NikeHerk67. Second, I just have to say, I am very pleased with the information I recieved from this post. You guys are a class act, sincerely.

OK, so this was definately not a "novel" idea (laughing), but creating or re-creating my little custom "Sim-airports" and equipping them with whatever I want sounds like alot of fun! Yessir, a LOT of fun!
I want to state early that my sim "goals" right now are: 1) to keep learning to be a better sim-pilot, confident enough to fly just about anything, anywhere more or less-"properly", and 2) create at least two very nice scenes: first, improve an existing small airport to include a vintage "airshow" of sorts (somewhere) and second, I would really like to "re-do" Galveston Island, Texas to include a fairly accurate Shloles Intl. Airport (KGLS) and some of the "Lone Star Flight Museum's" classic warbirds that are on display there-and um, well, like Bubba said, "that's about, it." Sigh. Both are lofty goals, right? Oh well, I can't bring world peace, but maybe...

In response to those terrific replies:
"Try the link i gave. It's free and I think you'll be impressed by the quality"-mgh
Damn right, I'm impressed! The freeware version of IWM Duxford is awesome, and just looking at it clearly defines the apex of any effort I could hope for. Knowledge of this thing has humbled my Flight Museum idea (laugh-ahem), but I wonder if some of the "stuff" in this or any other "models", like scenery items, etc could be used in my efforts. Perhaps with permissions? Hmm.

"Do you mean having the AI active at that airfield or just having the aircraft parked there? Both are easily possible, but can cause major frame rate issues if overdone"...There is a small utility (SAMM1000.zip) which will convert aircraft to static models -jgf
Great explanation of this major concern. I wish it wasn't (a concern). Notwithstanding the framerates challenge , the good news for me is that great looking static and AI models can be added to my scenes-whew! For static models, a helpful utility sounds great!

"Using CalClassic material it is possible"-JSkorna
Yes sir, I can see that California Classic Propliners is definately what can help deliver me from bliss/ignorance when it comes to my goals with this. A perfect resource for me, thanks.

"I like "free stuff" and am lucky enough to have some time so I use ADE9X", "For traffic I use TTools"-Herk
Well, I like free stuff too, Herk (laugh) and these two programs are definately needed , so:
TTools = 1000000 downloads, plus +1 ;-) ...The current full version of ADE (1.50), check !

"8G7 added and modified the taxiways, some buildings, moved the beacon, etc. to make it more like the actual airport", "FAYP added parking spaces and a grass taxiway"-"I'm very much a beginner, and neither a scenery designer nor an expert"-Herk
Friend, you have already done what I hope to do-and in helping me with this, that makes you a mentor, least! This was very helpful.

Thanks to you all vey much. I need to go spend some time with my wife now, and go get more coffee for tonight! I'll be seeing you.

GaryG (aka Boosty)

[mgh]

The Airfield Construction Group that created Duxford has published some very helpful tutorials on its website as well as other UK airfields.

http://www.airfieldconstructiongroup.org/drupal/

[NikeHerk67]

Boosty

If you'd like to see a great airport add-on download Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport, Glens Falls (KGFL) by Ed Deneer Cox.
I see he's added a winter scenery for it as well.

Now that's a sample of how good it can be done by a true artist!....which I"m not!