Chronocidal

Hehe.. I'm gonna start saving up now... my major's aeronautical engineering, and the upper division courses actually delve into flight testing a bit.. I'm gonna have to see about getting a license before then so I can actually fly stuff when we get the chance.

As for presents.. nothing jaw-droppingly amazing, but great stuff none the less. New computer speakers, flash drive, couple of dvds, fun stuff. But I honestly enjoyed buying stuff for other people more this year.. I found some things that my family was really happy to get... especially my dad. They've released the entire first season of the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons on dvd, and he's been cracking up all week watching those shows.

My self-present should be coming in the mail soon.. bought myself a long promised gift, and got a 1/48 VF-1J with FAST packs.

Heheh.. the oldest (and until a few months ago the ONLY) Macross (sort of) kit I have is an old Testors kit of the VF-1J in 1/200 scale! The thing is tiny... barely two inches long, and screwed/glued together.. the head probes, missiles, landing gear, etc. are long gone, but it's still in pretty good shape.. needs to be repainted though, I tried to chrome certain parts of it when I first discovered model paint at about age 9. I think I got it some time around 1987 or so.. maybe '88, I was too young to remember. I only bought it cause I thought it looked cool, and, not having seen anything even remotely related to Macross or even Robotech, I had no idea what it actually was. I just assumed it was some kind of strange looking Tomcat (yes, at age 3, I was obsessed with airplanes, and could name who knows how many ).

It was years before I happened to buy a Joke Machine VF-1J at a toy store, and noticed the resemblance between the two.

LOL... actually, if you get the right kit, it's very easy to do an F-14A/D... when they started modifying the plane, Monogram started including extra parts in it's 1/48th Tomcat kit.. the kit was the same as the old one, with all the old cockpit details, old style seats, and such.. but on a separate tree, they included new engine nozzles, and a new sensor pack for under the nose. Note, just the nozzles for the engines, they left out the new exhaust cans, requiring you to make something from scratch if you want to use the newer style nozzles. The result is a weird hybrid, that I'm not sure is accurate for any time period. Monogram still sells two versions of the Tomcat, the D-Model "Super Tomcat," and the original high-vis schemed A-model. I know the D-Model comes with the complete new engines, but the cockpit may still be the old style. I'll have to check the kit. As for the A-model kit, I haven't bought the newest release of it, so I don't know what it includes anymore.

Also, I agree.. the Tomcat's an absolutely beautiful aircraft.... It's gonna be a sad, sad day when they finally manage to come up with something to replace it.

Ok... looks like it's your lucky day! Looky what I found

I've also got a REALLY big version that's twice this size, if you want it.... but it won't fit on the boards.

Well, you may be able to find scans of the instructions if you look real hard around modeling sites.. you might even be able to get someone with the model to scan you a copy. I'd check the Macross Model forum, I think someone recently requested a scan of those instructions. I left the model at my dorm (no way to pack it in my suitcase without crushing it) but if I manage to find the instructions while I'm home, I'll see what I can do.

The earthquake was felt for pretty long here, and we live right in the middle of the central valley, near Fresno.. shook us up kinda good, but no damage or injuries near here were reported.. it was really weird though. It must've gone on for a good minute, just a slow rolling motion. I couldn't really tell when it stopped, because I was standing, and even after it stopped, I still was swaying back and forth, just from my nerves (and the fact that I'd been awake for a grand total of 10 minutes before it came).

What's amazing is the stuff in the news today.. apparently there's been another 6.5 quake, this time in Iran... the government's estimating the death toll to be near twenty thousand with another fifty thousand or so wounded.. buildings there simply crumbled. I think they only thing that kept the quake from causing more damage when it hit was it's depth... they said the quake started something like 5 miles below the surface. For once, I kind of appreciate the strict building codes in CA as well.. only one building collapsed in Paso Robles, I think.... the overhead view of the city in Iran looked like a war zone.

Question... if the valk's 1/555, how on earth did you ever read that name???

Hehe.. I've actually got a ton.. but they're all back in my dorm. None of em are actually line art though, they're all black and white scans from the Hasegawa kit instructions. They're quite a bit different from the version above though... the proportions of the kit are changed somewhat from the original design.

Judging by that comparison, I'd say that factory fresh aircraft are definitely fully painted. Also, from a modeler's perspective, if you research certain aircraft, they are painted in specific shades of colors, mostly flat shades of grey. That top Tomcat looks completely dull. Actually, they both do, but the lower one seems much darker.. I'd attribute this to a combination of things, mainly, accumulated dirt, oil, grease, etc (you can't run a Tomcat through your local Chevron auto-wash after all). The paint may also be wearing thin, and we're seeing through slightly to the metal underneath. Also, one thing about flat paint: if you rub it enough, it polishes to a dull shine. Simple friction with the air would probably be enough to polish planes to some extent, while panel lines would probably catch more air, and either shine up the paint quite a bit, or wear it off entirely. If you look closely, on those worn Tomcats, the nose cone is the shiniest part, while on the freshly painted one, the nose doesn't reflect at all (the shine on the canopy stops suddenly at the edge of the glass). Since the nose and leading edges of the wings receive the brunt of the friction during flight, it makes sense that they are glossier than the rest of the plane. Imperfections in the smoothness of the metal may also play a part... if some section of the fuselage is even a millimeter above the section behind it, that higher portion will receive much more friction in flight, and will probably wear faster. Newer aircraft may indeed use bare composite parts, but in the case of a supposedly stealthy aircraft like the F-22, they most likely have a special "stealth paint" they use that reduces radar returns, and those parts would probably be coated with that. Now, whether that coating is clear or colored, I couldn't say.

Seen in that light, weathering would probably have to be done in two parts: one, in the color map, where paint is visibly darker from dirt, or visibly blotchy where paint has worn off part way, and two, in the specular map, where the specular level will be higher on high-wear surfaces like control surface edges and nose cones, blending to darker shades in the less exposed areas. Also the two types would have to interact somewhat.. ie, you're not going to find much dirt on the leading edge of a wing or tail, since these areas get blasted by the full force of the air (and any pollution, dust, etc. that's in it ).

So, in the case of the Valkyrie, that means several key areas will be noticeably shinier than the rest of the plane... the nose cone and the leading edges of the wings and tails should be obvious.. but also the area around the upper intakes of the chest plate should be included (it's very exposed) as well as any other obvious thing that would cause drag: the fronts of the small pods on the sides of the nose and intakes, the leading edges of the intakes themselves, the front and top of the battroid's head, even possibly the tops of the shoulders, since they're flat and facing forward in flight. You could probably get a good idea where the air would wear down the paint with a spotlight.. just set up a spotlight directly ahead of the plane (in line with it's normal, level flight angle of attack) in an otherwise perfectly dark environment.. the places that are lit should be glossier, and as the light fades, so should the glossiness. It's a rough model, but I guess it could work to give an idea of which parts get the most wear from friction.

About the hud level.. I have noticed one thing about a few aircraft, mainly the F/A-18E... If anyone here has flown Janes F/A-18 sim, you'll probably know what I mean. Since the plane doesn't fly perfectly level, the hud is actually below eye level when sitting on the ground. When you start a mission on the ground, your view is pointed down quite a bit, aimed at the center of the hud, and not at the horizon. Planes, especially delta wing designs like the VF-4, tend to fly at high angles of attack naturally. I've built quite a few model kits of various planes, and the hud usually is not centered in the pilot's view. For many planes, it seems that the top edge of the hud is level with the pilot's eyes. Some aircraft it's lower, some it's higher, probably depending on the AOA needed for level flight.

Aside from that, this model is shaping up beautifully.

K, thanks, I'll see if I can make it animate that way... gonna be pretty complex. I need to add that book to my christmas list for this year...

I'm in the process of building a YF-19 model for Flight Simulator 2002, but I can't quite figure out the landing gear. I'm going from the Hasegawa kit, and it seems they kind of used a placeholder type of landing gear. There aren't really any hinges visible on it, so I can't see how it would ever fold into the wheel well. I could always just make up a set of landing gear to use, but I'd like to be accurate if it's at all possible. Does anyone have any reference pics of the rear landing gear that show how it folds?

Ooooohhh... I'm gonna have to try that one... I like big.

Heheh.. I know a front view exists somewhere of the YF-19... I saw it in someone's model pictures in the 3d thread. I'll have to check back in there...

Of which fighter?

Hi, I've been working on a similar project as of late, but there are a couple of different versions for pics of the YF-19... You can either use the canon schematics, or use the instructions from the Hasegawa model kit.. I found that the hasegawa diagrams are more consistent overall, so I stuck with them. I could never find a decent front view, but I do have top, bottom, and side views, as well as NUMEROUS shots of the plane from various angles. I also have a nice full top blueprint in high res that comes from one of the Mac+ books, and shows all the dimensions of the plane, so that can be helpful, but if you use that, don't expect anything based on the Hasegawa kit to line up correctly. I'll post some pics later, as soon as I find them.

Well, leave it to loads of math homework to leave me incredibly bored...It's pretty blurry, but I like the look the airbrush tool gives when you color stuff with it. Just needs to be cleaned up a little.

I heard there was one video done to "Christmas at Ground Zero" by weird al... and maybe another to "Trigger Happy," but I'm not sure.. I'd love to see em if anyone could find a link.

True, they couldn't really use the actual teams.. I just thought it was funny to combine the names like that, instead of coming up with something entirely original.

Heheh.. neat idea. Only thing is, they wouldn't bother painting all those little yellow panels, and the plane wouldn't carry the gunpod for demonstrations. Personally, I always thought they should've done this.. combining Thunderbirds and Blue Angels to get the "Angel Birds" is a horrible pun.

Ahhh, another ST modder Never played SFC though, just Bridge Commander... Looks really detailed though... what project is it for?

LOL... What's funny is what that decal would actually say on a real plane.. Considering the position, it'd probably be some kind of warning about getting sucked into the intake....O_o

Well, I finally got my YF-19 in the mail, and finished up the main model.. still got lots of details to work in, and no textures yet, but it should look great if it actually runs in any games.

Well, with nurbs solids, you can use boolean operations and perform subtractions.. see, you draw the panel lines on with a curve, then make a small square at one ene, and run it the length of the curve to make a square rod.. then you subtract that shape from the solid, and you've got a square indentation in the surface I've never actually done it that way, but it should work. I never did much with nurbs, since most of my work is game oriented anyway... simpler to make them in the correct format instead of converting them.

Btw, Rodavan... what program are you using? The toolbars look like Rhino.. but I imagine those are kinda standard. If so, you HAVE to tell me how you're doing that. I never could get the nurbs commands to work for me, they always give me nasty distortions. I'm probably doing something wrong, but I don't know what.. so I've been sticking to polygons. But I would like to see what else I can do.

Whoops... yep, you're right that is just about the later differences.. oh well.. that explains why you see so many C model tails with the old engine.. I think the Thunderbirds still use the old engine, or they did the last time I saw them fly (which was a while ago), as does the airbase near my home, so that would explain that. David, I'm guessing you work with aircraft in some way? Either that, or you've got an incredible memory for aircraft trivia.