[FS2004] Turkish delights.

[fs10inator]

What paved the way for today's Turkish Cargo... is a rather unlikely, but interesting combination nonetheless.
In August 1993, Turkish Airlines leased An-12 LZ-SFK, operated by Air Sofia of Bulgaria (hence the LZ rego).
Unfortunately, AFAIK, information is very scant on Turkish An-12 ops.

Radomeless An-12 model by me; WIP for FS2004.

LZ-SFK was the first ever An-12 to fly without its nose radome, which once housed the ROZ-1 ground mapping radar. 10 more planes would follow suit with this interesting Bulgarian modification.

Reference pic

[Airspeed]

Nice rendition, mate...and cleaner than the original pic

[TSR2]

Thats s lovely looking model

[fs10inator]

Nice rendition, mate...and cleaner than the original pic

Thats s lovely looking model

Thanks you two
"Lovely looking" was what drove me into making the radomeless An-12, since literally every other flightsim An-12 features the nose radome.
Unfortunately, info on why the Bulgarians did this mod is pretty much scant.

Also to note: the eyebrows were painted on the texture, as the model itself doesn't have them physically.

[TSR2]

Its great to see some more talent coming through. What are you using for modelling?

[fs10inator]

Its great to see some more talent coming through. What are you using for modelling?

I use Blender for the actual modeling and UV unwrapping, and gmax for the rest, including exporting as a .mdl file (thanks to the FS2004 gamepack).

Here's a simplified version of my modeling workflow.
1. Blender:
• Modeling and UV mapping individual parts
• Exporting individual parts as OBJ

2. gmax:
• importing .OBJ files via a MAXScript and applying auto smooth
• Creating and applying materials
• Animating parts
• Applying landing and taxi lights where needed
• Exporting as FS9 .mdl



It probably sounds crazy that I'm using two apps for this, but I'm very familiar with Blender and how fast I can get things done with it, hence me using it.
Funnily enough, from start to finish, the An-12 exterior model alone took me a week, whereas other projects took longer.

[TSR2]

Brilliant work. One of the reasons I asked was that most developers are using Blender for MSFS too, so if you ever try it, the modelling bit should be very familiar.