How to make a 3rd Party Aircraft, Step 1: Research

[Lewis-A2A]

Hey guys, I posted this at another forum as well, I thought it might interest a few of you. I have no idea which forum to put it in but here seems like a good place for now, I am sure a mod can move it if they so wish.

So I made it, at least I got a foot in the door. This year I have gone from student to adult, jobless to 9-5 and flightsim fan to flightsim developer, well maybe not a developer but a mmmmmm,.. well a trainee developer, yer that sounds about right, 'Yes Scott I'm making the coffe now', 'No I dont know were you put your FSX disc', 'Scott why's Buddye running around with a cowboy hat on making taka taka neeeerrrrr aeroplane noises, oh right yes of course research....'

And on that note I come to the reason for this post. Long before full blueprints of found, pixels are pushed and polys weld into place research must be done. Freeware or Payware its always step One. Since most of us tend to get quality aircraft and fly them it occured to me that whilst at Shockwave thus far the research is amazing. Somthing many take for granted but I thought it would be nice to give a little insight into Step One of designing, wether it be an aircraft, scenery, full sim, freeware or payware.

High-res: http://www.gamershell.com/download_20775.shtml

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xeuaBsqbx4

A big thankyou to the Cavanaugh Flight museum for helping us out and being kind enough to let us borrow the P40 for an afternoon enabling us to get some great high quality visuals, sounds and modern pilot notes and accounts. I hope you enjoy the vid's guys and it gives you some insight into some of the work we do.

Cheers,

Lewis - Shockwave

[fighter25]

Very interesting video Lewis.  8-)

[Ashar]

Very interesting stuff Lewis...Always good to hear from developers...

[Lewis-A2A]

Is it me or is there a scary upsurge in the badger population?  ;D

[eno]

Yes there's an upsurge in the Badger population ..... culling is rapidly becoming an option as the incidences of Bovine TB on the farms surrounding SimV are on the rise.  ;D

Thanks for the insight into how things are done at Shockwave. I think I can speak for anyone who owns a Shockwave product when I say that the quality is fantastic and the research that goes into them shows through.