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Short Solent 4 Seaplane


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I have been working on getting some seaplane bases together, I did a lot for FS9, then I played about with FSX, lo and behold I found by chance the FS9 ones I did also worked in FSX.

Any way one base I did was adjacent to Liverpool airport on the River Mersey, so I did a paint job on the Short Solent 4, I named her Sophie after one of my grand daughters.

 

Short Solent 4 Mersey Seaplanes Parked.jpg

 

Short Solent 4 Mersey Seaplanes Climb Out.jpg

 

Short Solent 4 Mersey Seaplanes Closeup.jpg

 

Short Solent 4 Mersey Seaplanes Flight.jpg

 

The Paint

Short Solent 4 Mersey Seaplanes.jpg

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Good work 'ColR',

and nice screen shots. I have had a go at doing some seaplane bases myself as part of my rather ambitious project to recreate all the operational air bases in the UK during WWII. They can be tricky but I have had some success in building a reasonable representation of RAF Castle Archdale on Loch Earn (complete with 2 squadrons of Sunderlands and 1 squadron of Catalinas), and RAF Woodhaven on the Dee estuary opposite Dundee, home to 333 (Norwegian) Sqn and their Catalinas. Happy to provide screen shots and the scenery files if this is of interest.

Best regards,

Dave.

My rig specs: ASUS P8Z77-V Rev3 IZ77 4D3 LGA1155; Intel Core I7 3770K Ivy Bridge3 5gHz/8Mo; SSD 500Go Agility3; DD SATA-III, 1To, 7200T, 64Mo cache; DDRAM III PC-12800, 2 x 4 Go; NVidia 1060GTX TI SC 6Gb 1563-E3 (not over-clocked); Power supply - 850W Corsair HX850; Windows 7 Pro 64bits, FSX Gold (SP1+2, Acceleration).
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Hi Dave, well I'm interested for one, may bases are not scenery as such, they are just afcads where my AI sea and float planes can takeoff and land.

 

What I do is as I'm flying and spot an estuary or big lake near an airport I skew the plane on the map and note down the coordinates, then later I go back there and start to make the afcad.

I did a few in FS9 where I had a boat near to the parking docks so it looked like it had brought the passengers or was waiting for a plane to arrive to pick them up, but I haven't done it in FSX.

 

Col.

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Happy to provide screen shots and the scenery files if this is of interest

 

Sure the flightsimmers would be interested. Just post some pics! :) Not that much for me, I'm much Boeings (which fly) :):)

Gérard Guichard, Dijon, Burgundy, France. i5 Intel processor, 4 Go of Ram, Nvidia GeForce 920MX, DirectX 12.0, and FSX Gold Edition with SP1, SP2. My personal flightsim website is at http://flightlessons.6te.net
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For those of you familiar with my previous posts you would recognise that I usually like to put screenshots together into a 'storyboard' format. Here are some shots I took of my RAF Castle Archdale scenery which I never got round to publishing.

 

To answer ColR's last point, yes, a seaplane base is usually just an afcad (that is the case with my RAF Woodhaven scenery which, apart from the runway, only has a slipway and a couple of sheds on shore). But Castle Archdale was a major Sunderland Repair and Maintenance Depot with extensive shore facilities which I have tried to replicate here. And, of course, I always have AI aircraft, representative of the models which flew from the bases, flying from my scenery creations.

 

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]208697[/ATTACH]

 

A Sunderland of 228 Sqn warms up its engines up ready to go on another long patrol ...

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]208698[/ATTACH]

 

They taxi out onto Loch Erne and line up behind a 422© Sqn Catalina which has already been cleared for take off ...

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]208699[/ATTACH]

 

Line up, one last check of the wind and slowly take all four throttles to the fire wall ...

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]208700[/ATTACH]

 

As the 'Flying Porcupine' circles back over the base you can see the two squadrons of Sunderlands (228, 240) and two squadrons of catalinas (422© and 423 ©) bobbing in the shelter of the inlets and islands

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]208701[/ATTACH]

 

Back off patrol, tired and ready for a good night's sleep. On the approach you can see the bases shore facilities: hangars, slipways, workshops, and aircraft undergoing maintenence.

 

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]208702[/ATTACH]

 

'Crew, prepare for landing' ...

My rig specs: ASUS P8Z77-V Rev3 IZ77 4D3 LGA1155; Intel Core I7 3770K Ivy Bridge3 5gHz/8Mo; SSD 500Go Agility3; DD SATA-III, 1To, 7200T, 64Mo cache; DDRAM III PC-12800, 2 x 4 Go; NVidia 1060GTX TI SC 6Gb 1563-E3 (not over-clocked); Power supply - 850W Corsair HX850; Windows 7 Pro 64bits, FSX Gold (SP1+2, Acceleration).
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Another attempt at the images - refer to my previous post for the captions ...

 

fsscr011.jpg

fsscr022.jpg

fsscr033.jpg

fsscr044.jpg

fsscr055.jpg

fsscr066.jpg

My rig specs: ASUS P8Z77-V Rev3 IZ77 4D3 LGA1155; Intel Core I7 3770K Ivy Bridge3 5gHz/8Mo; SSD 500Go Agility3; DD SATA-III, 1To, 7200T, 64Mo cache; DDRAM III PC-12800, 2 x 4 Go; NVidia 1060GTX TI SC 6Gb 1563-E3 (not over-clocked); Power supply - 850W Corsair HX850; Windows 7 Pro 64bits, FSX Gold (SP1+2, Acceleration).
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Nice work!

Senior Rookie Bragware: FSX Gold - Acceleration | HP Omen Obelisk Desktop | Intel Core i7 3.2 Ghz |16GB | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 | 1TB HD | 256 GB SSD (Gaming Computer)

 

REX Worldwide Airports HD

AS16 + ASCA

ORBX Global BASE

ORBX Freeware Airports

ORBX HD Trees

 

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

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Fine work, and one sees that better with that post! Think that will interest a lot of people if foundable like freeware!

 

Happy to make the scenery and the AI files available to anyone who sends a private message. But best to check to make sure you have Lough Erne as a body of water in your scenery for this to work. I had to download specific Ireland sceneries to make sure Lough Erne showed up as a lake and not a green pasture!

My rig specs: ASUS P8Z77-V Rev3 IZ77 4D3 LGA1155; Intel Core I7 3770K Ivy Bridge3 5gHz/8Mo; SSD 500Go Agility3; DD SATA-III, 1To, 7200T, 64Mo cache; DDRAM III PC-12800, 2 x 4 Go; NVidia 1060GTX TI SC 6Gb 1563-E3 (not over-clocked); Power supply - 850W Corsair HX850; Windows 7 Pro 64bits, FSX Gold (SP1+2, Acceleration).
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Dave, when I made my water base afcads I made for FS9 as concrete 1ft wide, they worked in FSX to my surprise.

I recently had a hard drive crash and had to start over again, slowly building up everything, I also upgraded from Windows7 to Windows10, since then I've noticed a few differences.

One was with the water afcads, for some reason my ai seaplanes went through the usual clearance from ATC but just sat there and not taxi, on the last one I got flying I changed the contact point from water to land, changed the '4' for '1' then it worked.

My amphibians worked ok but as you know they have wheels, that was what gave me the idea to change the contact points, it just seemed strange because they all worked OK before I upgraded to win10, any ideas?

 

in case you wondered why I use amphibians as well on the water, I altered the contact point to lower them so they sat on their floats in the water, but in reality they still had their wheels down, they worked Ok because as you know shortly after takeoff they raise the gear.

 

Col.

Edited by ColR1948
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Col, I have to admit to a little 'artistic licence' in putting my screen shots together. My Sunderlands are extremely badly behaved, whetherthey be used as flyable aircraft or as AI. They taxi out to the runway nicely enough but as soon as take-off power is applied they sail off in all directions. I have tried playing with the contact points but to no avail. I have parked this problem for the moment. On the other hand the AI Catalinas are great. When they are on the ground they taxi on their wheels, when they are on water the wheels are up. The only discrepancy is that when the wheels are down the floats are down and when they are on water (wheels up) the floats are up too - should be the other way around. But hey, it is nice to be able to use them in my scenery packages.

Regarding your specific question I have never had a problem with the afcads, I simply trace the runway or taxiway as a water trace and everything seems to work fine for me ...

Best,

Dave.

My rig specs: ASUS P8Z77-V Rev3 IZ77 4D3 LGA1155; Intel Core I7 3770K Ivy Bridge3 5gHz/8Mo; SSD 500Go Agility3; DD SATA-III, 1To, 7200T, 64Mo cache; DDRAM III PC-12800, 2 x 4 Go; NVidia 1060GTX TI SC 6Gb 1563-E3 (not over-clocked); Power supply - 850W Corsair HX850; Windows 7 Pro 64bits, FSX Gold (SP1+2, Acceleration).
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Hi Dave, so are you saying you have the surface as water not concrete?

In FS9 all my seaplane afcads were concrete 1ft wide and they all worked, they also worked in fSX when I was running Windows 7 but for some reason not in Windows 10.

I have manged to get the one seaplane working no problem but as I said earlier, I changed the contact point from floats to wheels that is the number 4 to number 1.

All the amphibians work because as I said I alter the points so they are lower in the water to make them look like they are on the floats, they taxi and take off no problem.

 

Col.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yes Col, all my AFCAD taxiways and runways are water. Send me a pm and I will give you some seaplane bases to play with.

And I solved my Sunderland problem: I wound the 'torque' and 'gyro' settings in the Aircraft Realism settings back to zero and she takes off like a dream ...

My rig specs: ASUS P8Z77-V Rev3 IZ77 4D3 LGA1155; Intel Core I7 3770K Ivy Bridge3 5gHz/8Mo; SSD 500Go Agility3; DD SATA-III, 1To, 7200T, 64Mo cache; DDRAM III PC-12800, 2 x 4 Go; NVidia 1060GTX TI SC 6Gb 1563-E3 (not over-clocked); Power supply - 850W Corsair HX850; Windows 7 Pro 64bits, FSX Gold (SP1+2, Acceleration).
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