R34 Royal Navy Airship

[nigelb]

I hope this is the correct forum, it should be a classic and it is British. Anyway for a change of pace, I downloaded the R-34, by Frank J. Petriccione with FDE by G. kirschstein to do some really low and slow flying. I was wondering if anyone else has used this airship, because I found it imposible to steer properly, even with auto-rudder turned off.

As a kludge fix, I used an .air file from the Goodyear blimp and cut and pasted a lot of changes from the .cfg file to the R-34 Aircraft.cfg, leaving things like the light section and contact points from the original. Now I can steer, so if anyone has the same problem as I did originally - that kludge makes the thing flyable. I suppose I am a little bothered because I have destroyed the original flight dynamics, but then I can console myself knowing that MS was not really designed for airships, so I imagine there has to be a lot of flight dynamic kludges to get them to work at all.

BTW, flying low and slow over the UK has made me homesick!

[DaveB]

If you couldn't steer Nigel and now you can, that sounds like as good a fix as any Not tried the R-34 as this is slower than even I normally travel but it opens up another AI opportunity.. or does it :think: Seeing an airship follow taxi lines would not be desirable :brick:

Someone, somewhere was in the process of making airship scenery many moons ago. Lost touch with the project so have no idea if it was ever finished :think:

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[nigelb]

If you couldn't steer Nigel and now you can, that sounds like as good a fix as any Not tried the R-34 as this is slower than even I normally travel but it opens up another AI opportunity.. or does it :think: Seeing an airship follow taxi lines would not be desirable :brick:

Someone, somewhere was in the process of making airship scenery many moons ago. Lost touch with the project so have no idea if it was ever finished :think:

ATB

DaveB :tab:

Yes, I think there might be a problem with taxing. ;-) Although I suppose you could modify an airport with AFCAD and add a huge parking spot close to the runway, placed so it doesn't interfere with other traffic. Might be fun to modify one of the airports with AFCAD that Microsoft ignored (devoid of any features, no taxiways, etc) and make it an airship base since there would'nt be any other AI traffic there. Should be a fairly simple project, he said, knowing full well that simple projects can turn into all nighters. :roll:

Might the scenery be John McKeon's Cardington version 2? That is what got me started with airships! I saw that scenery and since, I lived in Bedford for a few years where my father worked at the wind tunnel (ARA,) I grabbed it. I think I read here that they plan to tear down Cardington and build condo's or some such nonsense - ugh. This is getting a wee bit off topic so I will shut up now.

[DaveB]

Hi Nigel,

I think you may be right as I now remember DaveG commenting at the time (he lives in that general area) I'll seek it out and see just how slow I can go!

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[FlyTexas]

Hi Nigel. If you're ever in need of airship scenery from the US side of the pond (Lakehurst, NJ) may I recommend Bill Lyons' Graf Zeppelin package. The scenery is accurate, beautiful, and also comes with his magnificent Graf Zeppelin.

Brian

[nigelb]

Brian,

Thanks for the HU, I knew Bill Lyons had done a package for the Zep, but seeing those screenshots has convinced me to get it for when I fly on this side of the pond. Should be fun flying around Manhatten, low and slow.

[DaveB]

Hi Nigel,

Not tried the scenery yet (have downloaded it) but I have tried the R-34 and found it rather FS98-ish :roll: It did turn though so I'm not sure what's gone on :think:

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[nigelb]

So you could steer the R34. Hmm, I wonder what I did wrong then. I checked a lot of things like joystick rudder calibration and nothing appeared to work. Oh, which version did you get? There is new4propcrownvictoria.zip on Avism. I am curious about the naming of that one; it makes me wonder if the FDE came from a Ford Crown Victoria without power steering. I also found a pair of earlier files( r34zep.zip + r34fdfix.zip) on All Nodes. I tried all combinations when I had the steering problem before I resorted to massive surgery on the flight dynamics.

Since I "fixed" mine, I will let well enough alone. I have modified the panel a bit - somehow a 737 autopilot looked a bit out of place.

I agree its not the best, the textures look very FS98 and I think it originally was for fs98 or fs2K. I got it because it is British and fits with Cardington, although historically I don't know if it was ever there. I know it flew the first Trans-Atlantic crossing but that was from somewhere in Scotland. Frankly there are other airships out there that are better quality, but I didn't want to be too critical because I know for sure, I could'nt have done it!

Anyway, I will probably jump into the Concorde next, for a slight change of pace. I know I can steer that, but those landings can be a bit tricky. ;-)

[DaveB]

Hi NIgel,

It's the new4prop version I have (off Allnodes). Nothing actually moves on the outside to indicate rudder movement though as I said, it does actually turn

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[nigelb]

Ah, thanks for that. I think the All Nodes file is the same as the Avsim file, just with a shorter file name.

Edit - added later

Just because I must be a little bit of a masochist, I downloaded the file from All Nodes and tried again. This time I could steer the thing! The problem came when I engaged the autopilot (the original 737 one) - it would not hold a heading set in the autopilot and started going in circles. I don't imagine that the R34 had an autopilot so I suppose using it is me just being a bit lazy. Anyway after all that I decided to stick with my modified version where the autopilot does hold the heading - for those long trips across the Atlantic....yea, that's it! :roll: That trip would last days!