Nostalgia.

Sim: FS9 (I had a series of computer crashes and backed up all of my FS folders on a USB external hard drive, to my amazement, FS9 still runs!)

Aircraft: FlightFX DC-9 v2 (14 series)

Scenery: Ron Ackerly's KMSP

Paint: Frank Idone

 

 

To think: back in 2003, when this was all new, I thought we had it all. True story - these were some of the first third-party models with XML animations (the first was the re-release of the DC-10-30), which had to be added in a hex editor after exporting with the FS2002 makemdl, because there was no SDK yet. We were limited to four parts, assigned with the then-unused "user1, user2, user3, and user4" tags. Fraser would open up the models, insert the code, and legions of FS2002 users would complain about the new parts, which only animated in FS2004. The DC-9 used three XML parts: one for each thrust reverser, and the cabin outflow valve. The DC-10 used all four - one for each thrust reverser, plus the wing flex. Nowadays, model builders commonly use dozens, if not hundreds, to create a myriad of weird and wonderful effects.

Well I love all aircraft you've made Erick....I love them

+1... a staunch devotee, here.

Fun to come back and look, eh?

Surprising too, that FS9 is very much alive and well after all those years!

Erick Cantu...another fan here. Your accurate models are still the best today, and still a pleasure to paint. You are among those I had the "privilege to "know", and I started back with Barry Blaisdell, and his Twin Otters...then came Project Freeware and Paul Spingthorpe...a small incursion into the payware world with Flight1 s B727 and then right after AFG and Esa KAIHLANEN ( YS-11 and Caravelle) and as of late with Milton and his beautiful Mallard, mostly cabin interiors and cockpit, my very first attempt at texturing one,;) talk about Nostalgia...I know exactly what you mean Sir. ;)

Oh, man, PFG, I met the late Adam Stanger on their forums. I've been trying to find the OEM paintjobs of the DC-9 and 737 everywhere - it's so hard to find anything. The North Central DC-9 that started my love of the Douglasaurus can still be found bundled with Paul Golding's MD80 panel, but so much else has been lost to the old memory hole...

 

My first FS tweak was a repaint of Brian Quayle's 737-200. I couldn't upload it because of Peter Tishma - it was an ex-AirCal AA jet! When we finally got word from AA that we could upload AA paints so long as we put a disclaimer in, that's when I put it in the library. I think it's still there.

 

Actually, if your work history indicates that you are who I think you are - I've been looking for you.

Hi Erick,

 

Well my earliest exposure to your work was with Stewart Global/ SSG - which really started my fascination with Douglas aircraft - nice to see you posting - your skill and generosity around here is beyond measure - releasing your source code - unheard of - can't thank you enough for all you've done... I can't believe we don't have a solid MD-80 for P3D yet - all the sounds and mechanical aspects make it an almost living breathing machine - and so much more interesting than modern Boeing or Airbus... One thing I would have truly liked to see - is that EMB-120 project of yours finished off with a proper VC and Systems - I've spent a great deal of time flying it with addon panels and it's one of my favorite works of yours... Hope all is going well for you and again - nice to see you post...

 

Regards,

Scott

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I'm also a big fan Eric, hope all is well! :)

Erick, I may have, not sure, some CDs here with work from the group, PFG, including some repaints for DC-9s! We used to paint about three or four a day!!! We were about to reorganize and get a new website, I did a new logo, things looked they were going in the right direction, then one morning, BAM! It was sad to see it go...good times. Learned to do my first night textures with Chris Graal, remember the name?;)

And yes, Paul Golding a great FS enthusiast as well!

Great memories.

;)

Thanks Erick for many an enjoyable hour in all the FFX 737s and later the Vistaliners 727s. I signed up on "the new flightsim.com forums" (remember when the forum theme was "earth tones"?) specifically to say thanks in a thread you were participating in at the time re: the "Eastern Bare Metal Boeing 727-200Adv" just a couple days after release. I see you can still download it from the same place I got it:

 

http://www.virtualeastern.com/fleet/722adv.htm

 

The Tragically Hip had a relatively new album out at the time, In Violet Light, with a song on it called

that was really quite fitting while substituting the Eastern 727 on dozens of Livewire Airlines flights meant for other aircraft. :)

 

Thanks for the trip down memory lane and thanks for all the wonderful airplanes (and MSTS locomotives too!). Dug up a couple old screenshots for the occasion:

 

http://www.cat-tamer.com/flightsim/atchmnts/ksfo_kpdx00.jpg

 

http://www.cat-tamer.com/flightsim/atchmnts/hde_v2_03.jpg

 

Jim

Welcome back Erick to flight sim forum, I too have many classic planes such as your Lockheed L-1011 Eastern package, Delta repaint the DC-8 & fantastic job all around with all your planes that you have downloaded thru the yrs for all of to enjoy for yrs to come (FS9). I have wondered where you have been, until you mentioned it here on the forum. Hope you well & please come back when possible. Kenny

Erick welcome back and I hope my screenshots would do justice to your hard work create freeware add on planes!!

 

Jim Robinson, where did you get that shiny 727 Eastern livery? It does not look like Peter Lindell's work. Who painted that?

 

Regards,

 

Aharon

Jim Robinson, where did you get that shiny 727 Eastern livery? It does not look like Peter Lindell's work. Who painted that?

 

aharon, click here: http://www.virtualeastern.com/fleet/722adv.htm

 

That's the livery in the screenshot and I believe Erick Cantu himself is the painter.

 

 

BTW Erick, any chance of an FSX native .mdl so I can alias the default FSX 737-800 VC and use it in P3D?

 

...just kidding, lol :)

aharon, click here: http://www.virtualeastern.com/fleet/722adv.htmThat's the livery in the screenshot and I believe Erick Cantu himself is the painter.

 

I already have those liveries for years from that link. Those liveries are painted by Peter Lindell, not by Erick Cantu. The screenshot of your 727 with Eastern livery is far different from what is downloaded from your provided link. Your livery in that screenshot is very very shiny.

 

Aharon

I think you're right, I just installed the "without sounds" version from that site in FS9 and it has some Air Shuttle markings that aren't in my screenshot. The screenshot may have been of the base model available here in the library instead, let me have a look, back in a bit.

 

(It was still shiny though)

That's the default N8856E paint that comes with the -200 Advanced and is indeed my work.

Welcome back, Erick, along with all the others, I am also a huge fan. I have several of yours in my hangar and still fly FS2004; as we go merrily along downloading this and that to enhance our personal experience, we rarely take the time to say thank you, and that's a shame. So, for all you have given to the hobby, please know that we appreciate your talent and your generosity, and we thank you!!!

The screenshot may have been of the base model available here in the library instead

 

I'm actually pretty sure I downloaded that from the Eastern VA site, the file I have on disk is "Eastern Bare Metal Boeing 727-200Adv.zip" dated 12-1-2004, it's about 6.8 Mb, and it does include some sounds. It's definitely not the same file that's available here in the library. I wonder if a VA repainter modified it and re-uploaded it sometime between 2004 and now?

 

Here's the base model in the library though, the N8856E textures match up to the ones in the file I have on disk according to an md5 hash check:

 

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=search&fname=b7272avl.zip

glad your reinstall was successful. nice shot!

I'm actually pretty sure I downloaded that from the Eastern VA site, the file I have on disk is "Eastern Bare Metal Boeing 727-200Adv.zip" dated 12-1-2004, it's about 6.8 Mb, and it does include some sounds. It's definitely not the same file that's available here in the library. I wonder if a VA repainter modified it and re-uploaded it sometime between 2004 and now?

 

Here's the base model in the library though, the N8856E textures match up to the ones in the file I have on disk according to an md5 hash check:

 

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=search&fname=b7272avl.zip

That's probably the original upload, the date sounds about right. I started work on it in November 2004. The aircraft was made for VEA (who was hosting me at the time) and they had it on their website before it ended up here. The -200 Advanced was the first model done and went from a nose, aft fuselage, and wing outline that I had lying around to a fully complete model in about 3 weeks. I wasn't in the mood to come up with additional liveries, so I delegated the white Eastern default for the straight -200 to Steve Drabek. It's entirely possible that I changed the sounds when I uploaded it to the file library, but remember that the -200 and -200 Advanced came with different sounds because the -200 Advanced was set up for JT8D-15s and the -200 for JT8D-7Bs, which sound completely different.

 

I consider this release to be FlightFX 727 v2.0, the original FFX 727 was bundled with something else (possibly v1 of the DC-9-51) and was basically the Trinkle/Carlson 727s wing, tail, engines, and gear fitted to a fuselage I made from the 737-200s nose. I only chose the names "Kittyhawk" and "VistaLiners" because SGA assimilated FFX and told me that I had no choice because Jon and his dad had money and I didn't (the implied threat being that someone with money can get a lawyer). My copies of the v2 DC-9s are actually the original exports with the original filenames for the models and .air files, and the aircraft.cfgs still say "FlightFX DC-9."

 

I don't know that I really deserve all that much thanks, truth be told, I was kind of a dick to everyone. Mind you, some people who I weren't too fond of earned it, but still. I don't even remember why I was so negative about Avsim, for example. I remember that the top brass at SGA kept telling us about all these awful things Avsim was doing, and how Avsim was so horrible, and yet, when pressed for details, always told me that it was basically none of my business! So I think that's where the root of my animosity was, and it sounds really silly to me now. These days I prefer to be a spectator, I have FSX installed on my new computer, and occasionally even play it, I have FS9 archived on this computer's external drive, and that sees some usage every so often as well. Still kind of super annoyed that nobody did anything with the unfinished things like the C340 or the Su-9 - there were ports of my MD80, DC-10, and L1011, but who cares about those? Everyone and their grandma's done those.

 

On the subject of the Embraer, I did start a cabin on it, but first the 727 and 73S came along, then the 733/4/5 (which I never finished), then the DC-8, and then I got sick of making airplanes, so it never really panned out. The nose is pretty far off, anyway. If I ever finished it, I'd have to redo the forward fuselage, likely. The worst possible scenario would be if I found some station diagrams and other engineering data, because then my OCD would kick in and I'd probably end up "fixing" things to a degree so great that I'd practically have a whole new model.

 

I'm very happy that everyone has enjoyed my work over the years. I started out making models because nobody had a 737-200 that looked right to me (so I joined Matt Driscoll's "737 Classic Experience" project, reworking parts and making details), and it kind of went off from there. I got sick of only having maybe one or two types out of a family, so that's why you almost always got a full generation of an aircraft from me once things got going. When I started, someone might make a DC-9-30, and just leave it at that. If you wanted a -50, too bad, and half of the designers wouldn't let you repaint anything anyway (for reasons that I never figured out, insecurity probably). I figured that I'd rather make moderately-detailed models that at least had the basic shapes right, because my computers were always low-end and I figured most everyone else's were, too. The goals were always accessibility (ergo the freeware part), user-friendliness, and ease of repainting, and I think that I achieved that, more or less, and that probably explains why these models were so popular for so long.

To think: back in 2003, when this was all new, I thought we had it all...

FS9 never ceases to amaze... so sad that once the model poly upper limit was breached, we didn't see more high-definition models for it.

In terms of overall performance and "look", FS9 hits a sweet spot with a high-def plane and a ton of AI+scenery.

As far as I'm concern you are Mr. Cantu a legend in the Flight Simulation world, I love your planes and I much appreciate your contributions for all simmers who use your add-ons.

Best regards.

Gonzalo