configuring imported sea planes for use in cfs2

[Simon H]

Hi there ,
I'm trying to get some imported sea planes to behave properly in CFS2, I have read the FS2002 aircraft container sdk and so I understand how to set up the contact points as floats. How ever some of my planes seem stuck in the water they rise and fall with the swell and seem to strain when I open the throttle but they will not move ! I have found that altering the *.air file with William Roth's Air ED and removing record "505 cfs piston engine" works as a fix for the stuck in the water problem but then the engines dont start in such a realistic fashion they all start at once with no cranking and puffs of smoke etc. Too compound my head scratching I have other sea planes that work fine, I have trawled through the *.air files and aircraft.cfg files to try and find how they differ but I'm baffled, not all of the entries in the *.air file have a clear purpose.
When planes are loaded into FS2002 much of the data in the *.air file is translated into the aircraft.cfg file this does not happen with CFS2, but it seems  CFS2 is able to read some of the extra data in the aircraft.cfg file but how much?
Further to all this, of course I want to get the AI pilots to fly my sea planes, some of the planes climb and dive a few times and then crash others slowly decend and land on the sea.
I understand this is quite in depth stuff and propably not suitable for discussion on a forum such as this, does anyone know of any sites where the more detailed intricasies of aircraft  modeling in CFS2 are dealt with or are there any tutorials that can be down loaded.
Happy landings every one.

[Hagar]

I used to enjoy converting FS2000 floatplanes for CFS2. I've forgotten most of what little I knew about it now. If you give me an example of one of the problem ones & tell me where to download the file I'll have a mess around with it. I can't promise I can fix it. A page number or link to the page would help & save a lot of hunting around.

I remember some early CFS2 floatplanes used the WEP function to give a little extra power for take off. I never thought this was the ideal solution. You could try tweaking the static_pitch = & static_cg_height = values in Aircraft.cfg. I find that getting these right can make a big difference. You can check these out in Slew mode from Spot View. Some 3rd party aircraft are way out.

[Simon H]

Well the plane thats taking up most of my time is Stuart Green's excellant Sunderland he has posted a version for fs2004 http://www.domicilium.com/peveril/hanga ... erland.zip
and is still working on a CFS2 version, unfortunatly he does not seem to have an email link on his site so I couldn't ask his permission to modify his files! how ever the model looks great in FS2002 but does not fly so I replaced the air file and cut and paste relevant sections of the .cfg with that of a Short 23 for FS2002
ftp://63.217.28.218/1props/shorts23.zip I think this one, success so far, the Sunderland works great in FS2002 so then I wanted to try it in CFS2 so Ive modified the model, written a dp and am using the flight dynamics from Brian Horsey, there are many Short 23's for fs2000 using this air file
http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kdl/main/1 ... p?QdlUY01w
Ive also done a couple of repaints for the SG Sunderland and reduced the size of the textures so my poor old machine can cope.
The problem with all this is, using data from more than one plane makes it difficult for you to reproduce what Ive done, and Im not going to zip up any thing without the owners permission.
So here's another example, The first DO24 works great, of course, its for cfs2. The second DO24 looks really good and it loads straight into CFS2 having alliased the sound  folder, it flys beautifully but try and get it to take off from the water.
http://www.simviation.com/cfs2aircraft28.htm
http://www.simviation.com/fs2002vintage27.htm

[Hagar]

I'll have a look at the Do 24 but this is a new area for me. Converting FS2000 aircraft is one thing but downgrading from FS2002/4 to CFS2 is quite another prospect. Read Milton's comments here. http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=fs2002;action=display;num=1089579716

I tried converting a few FS2002/4 aircraft for CFS2 when Ivan Hsu first came up with his beta MDLC utility. It works very well but I'm a little worried about the implications of all this. It's fine for personal use but as you point out, the authors might not be too happy about 3rd parties messing around with their designs & posting them for general use. I know some FS designers that hate the very idea of their creations being used in CFS. I also found out, as you most probably know, that some entries are missing from the FS9 AIR files & replaced by Aircraft.cfg entries. This might also apply to AIR files specifically created for FS2002 or based on the 2k2 defaults.

[GreenGhost]

Hi,
 
  When trying to get the Sunderland going myself I had issues with it being stuck and going nowhere.

  Eventually I found changing to the following value in the propeller section of aircraft.cfg solved my problems.....

power_absorbed_cf=0.9
to
power_absorbed_cf=0.5

  Not sure of the implications of this - but with seems to be OK with no sudden abnormal capabilities being imparted on the flight model.

  GG

[Hagar]

Simon. Perhaps the Do 24 was not an ideal example. I tried the FS2002 version from your link. (FS2002 Dornier 24K by Wim Regeer.)
I had to convert the MDL for CFS2 with MDLC for it to display. It works perfectly with no further modification. Sound.cfg is already aliased to the FS2002 default Corsair so did not need realiasing. I suspect this is not the one you tried.

GreenGhost's tweak looks interesting & is certainly worth trying. IMHO

Thanks GG.