'55 T-Bird

[GlobalHobo]

AlphaSim freeware F-84F-- This grainy photograph downloaded from the interweb (Google "thunderbirds f-84f." This will be one of the first images to come up.) was my starting point. The 1955 Edition U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds flying the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak.



This is what I ended up with. Not perfect, but pretty close. Compromises had to be made due to subtle differences between the AlphaSim model geometry and the actual aircraft and due to texture-mapping issues, but I mostly like what I did.



It took me much longer than I thought it would. I figured maybe a week of futzing around with it. What's it been... over a month?!



Real-life interferes with hobbies. That's the big one. But there was so much research to do in getting it right!



It's a pretty familiar paint-scheme, but when you start putting digital-paint to virtual-metal you find out how little you actually know about that paint-scheme. What were the flags under the canopy-rail and how were they laid out? All those different-sized stars on the tail. And each one cocked at a different wacky angle.



I'm not going to promise when I will publish these. Soon. I noticed a few color mismatches which I need to go back and correct. I need to figure out how to add airshow smoke to the .cfg file without losing the engine-exhaust effect. Look for a package in the next week or two, if you're interested.



It was fun. It was frustrating. I wanted a 1950s Thunderbird jet. I got six of them. Six jets, six unique texture sets. Hats off to the guys and gals who crank out so many wonderful skins for the toys we love. I don't know where they find the time!!!

[GlobalHobo]

Here is the same model and textures as above, but in FS9 rather than FSX.



Yup. It's a FS9-native model (and an old one at that!). Just dump the model and its 1024-square 32-bit textures into FSX (with the appropriate .cfg mods) and it flies just fine.



I'm not a game-designer or programmer and I have no clue how they get those electrons to line themselves up into pretty realistic-looking airplane shapes, but I'm glad they did it. It's interesting to see the differences and similarities between the two platforms.



Here you can see the biggest compromise I had to make with these textures. On the real aircraft, the red, white and blue fields on the nose taper to a sharp point on the belly ending back under the wing. But without a dedicated belly texture, that just wasn't going to happen. I tried. A lot. It's an okay compromise, I guess.



I think these turned out okay. It was a learning experience, which is good. It's good to have some new tricks in the tool-bag.



These are very shiny airshow jets. They look good in either sim. A little cleaner in FSX, I think. It doesn't show up much in these still shots, but it's fun in either sim to maneuver these jets and watch the light glint off their silver skin.

[Dave T]

Wow thanks for bringing a new lease of life to older sim models and awaiting the release of your repaints.

[Jean Loup]

Here is the same model and textures as above, but in FS9 rather than FSX.

Here you can see the biggest compromise I had to make with these textures. On the real aircraft, the red, white and blue fields on the nose taper to a sharp point on the belly ending back under the wing. But without a dedicated belly texture, that just wasn't going to happen. I tried. A lot. It's an okay compromise, I guess.

I had to take a look at F-84F 3 views to sort out that statement, but seems to me like a "Poetic Licence" & "Murphy at Work" combo:

[GlobalHobo]

I had to take a look at F-84F 3 views to sort out that statement, but seems to me like a "Poetic Licence" & "Murphy at Work" combo.

Yeah, sometimes it's easier just to point to a picture than try to describe something. Everything I tried just ended up being a fuzzy squiggle as the pixels spread out. So I ended up just rounding it off. Seems like there ought to be some way to accomplish it, though. Maybe I'll go back to it at some point. I just ran out of patience.

[Anthindelahunt]

Beautiful job with those paints.

Anthin.

[Hawkeye07]

Excellent work Globalhobo! Payware quality IMO. Keep it up!

[jankees]

Excellent job, both on the paintjobs and your formation flying!
I did something similar for the F-86, and the Minutemen, and finding out all the details took forever..
But I hever managed to fly them so close together

[AviChris]

Have to join in with the others and compliment you on your work. Nice formation and the images are really top notch. Hope to see more