Vintage Era

Just for fun (& being bored with my current sim) I'm thinking of yet another install of FS2004 using vintage aircraft only.

I think that this could be good fun for my VA as well. Vintage racing could be fun.

 

I'll probably use 'Golden Wings' as a basis, obviously rooting out the normal aircraft, and I'm looking for ideas for the older vintage aircraft (freeware please) as well as any other vintage type stuff, gliders, boats, vehicles & scenery to bring a vintage world alive.

 

I envisage a pre-WWII cut-off date, so, any ideas, thoughts and suggestions will be very welcome.

 

Regards,

Robin

You will find a lot of suitable aircraft here by selecting the years between 1930 and 1938. Almost all aircraft will work as AI too. You might replace the GW3 traffic aircraft by less older ones.

 

Unfortunatly Golden Wings sceneries are limited to United States. But you will found some more here:

http://oldhangararchives.digitalrailroading.com/

 

This Russian one has some interesting addons too:

http://rusaviagold.narod.ru/

 

Extend also your searchs to Alexander Belov. He did several sceneries related to this era. The most known is his French Aéropostale with a recent extension to Santiago de Chile. Furthermore he did an African version from Algeria to French West and Central Africa:

http://www.fs2000.org/2008/02/05/fs2004-scenery-frech-west-and-central-africa/

 

Bernard

Thanks for the info. The Russian site is quite fascinating indeed. There are a lot of gems out there that us western simmers do not know about. Thanks for highlighting them.

 

Alexander Belov has done some great stuff indeed. You have to look for his stuff in various places.

 

I actually have a Golden Wings install, as well as a separate install for the late Garry Smith's Ford Tri-Motor Project scenery, planes & textures, so I'm covered for that era, thanks for your suggestions.

 

What I have done is to have (yet) another install for the pre-Golden Wings era, from the beginnings of flight to the beginning of the GW, (including birds!)

 

So my install will include the Wright planes & gliders, Demoiselle, Roe tri-plane, Bleriots, the old Curtiss's, early Zeppelins, Dunne, Farman's, gliders for the era, Lohner's, Santos Dumont's etc.

 

I think that this era has been quite forgotten, as there is plenty more modern stuff out there.

 

Suitable scenery is a problem, which is why I'm using Golden Wings as a 'background'.

 

I intend to share with my VA club, & have some races & challenge flights, as we are all used to faster planes, & I think the vintage flights could be challenging.

Robin, you probably have most of my models already which are mostly pre-WWII - Percivals, Miles a couple of Compers mainly, then you also have Dave Moly's 30's models, all of which are in this library.

Keith

I'm using GW3 too, with the same FS9 folder as CalClassic. To fly with the one or the other I just have tro activate corresponding Addons, Aircraft, Scenery folders and scenery.cfg.

 

To get an almost backdated world I deleted all ABxxxxxx.bgl and APxxxxxx.bgl files in GW3's scenery subfolders. The remaining airports are all third part retro sceneries. Needless to say that adding more Airports would be a hugh Task, even if they might jsut be simple grass runways.

 

Therefore my GW is more or less focused on easier seaplane traffic, besides the French Aéronavale lines. Here an AI Dornier W33 (instead of a floating Dornier 26) starting for a flight from Switzerland through East Africa to Cape Town. This flight has been in 1927.

 

 

There is also an Imperial Airways package available for seaplane flights to Far East.

What are the AB & APxxxxx.bgl's?

Will the deletion of those regress GW even further?

 

This is becoming most interesting..

These are those files in ASIA, AFRI, EURW etc. in Scenery subfolders. Most begin with AB95xxxx. By deleting them all airport layouts disappear. So you won't fly over a hugh JFK or LHR, unsuitable in wished era. Of course, best would be to save the said files before delete them.

Thanks for that. I had thought GW had taken all stuff like that out, then I realised that GW does that only for US.

Actually I'm thinking about to create an AI KLM flight from Amsterdam to Batavia. Probably it should be done in two steps as one week might be to short.

With which aircraft?

Seems like a fun idea.

It most be a tri-motor Fokker, depending what's available. But main thing would be creating a lot of ADE, beginning at Amsterdam!

A certain help to create backdated airports would be the link below. It's a German site, but airport details are in English too.

 

http://http://www.pennula.de/airport/

 

As said before. it would be of a certain help. I don't intend to create all airports exactly where they have been in the Thirties. So they will mostly be backdated default layouts.

I envisage a pre-WWII cut-off date, so, any ideas, thoughts and suggestions will be very welcome.

Which period are you intended to cover more or less? Bleriot, Demoiselle and so on would rather be pre_WWi, whereas pre-WII could be mid Thirties.

 

While creating some 1930 traffic I became aware that it's quite difficult to find suitable a/c of this period. So f.i. the oldest Sabena aircraft available would be a the Savoia-Marchetti S73 delivered in 1935. That already is the era of Junkers 52 and other bigger twin props. Furthermore these aircraft should use more sophisticated airports than just grass runways and a few barrracks.

I'm covered with pre WWII with my Golden Wings install.

 

I've now have a pre WWI install, called Vintage Wings, using Bleriots, & all the other aircraft in my post #3. So, from the very beginning of flight until the 1920's.

 

The only scenery that I've found so far is the Adriatic 1918 scenery, for my Lohner collection, but the Golden Wings scenery, with the removal of airports, USA only, does provide a suitable era.

I still need to experiment removing airports in other regions.

 

I have all the Savoia-Marchetti's, Fiat's, Junkers, Avia's in my Golden Wings.

Keith, a belated thanks, & I do have yours & Dave's planes in my Golden Wings install.

My new install predates GW & is called Vintage Wings

Meanwhile I cam across a folder found some years ago named "1939 AI Traffic" and done by someone called "Willy". I already saw this name several times in CalClassic Forum. Maybe it could be the same person. This traffic includes following subfolders:

 

 

In his readme the author says

 

1939ish AI Traffic

Here's what I could find. For some reason, I did it up in several traffic.bgls. The main one for commericial flight that I used the timetables for is the GW_Com.

Most of the aircraft and paints were found at FlightSim and I tried to have at least something from as many different countries or airlines as I could get going. I never really finished this as I finally got a computer that could run FSX.

Hope you can make use of it.

Willy

 

Anyway, it would be a tremendous work to still find all the right a/c of that period - DC-2 included. Some wouldn't be available anymore. The first three files are focused on German Aircraft, whereas "GW_Com" are mostly American and European airliner.