Classic British Flight Sim

A Visit by the Blue Angels...

This famous team visited McLeland Field yesterday and left again today. I took some interesting pictures and they really don't need captions:-

http://forum.fsscreenshots.com/dcboard. ... =full&page

Thanks for looking :dance:

Nice shots there Peter I like looking at shots off your airport :dance:

James

Thank you James...I spend most of my time there and use it for testing everything new

Those F18s came with a payware package but I had to make a few adjustments...They always fell over sideways on the first taxiway corner and then went the rest of the way scraping the tip mounted missile along the ground. Once airborne they flew OK but after landing they fell over again as they turned off the runway. They also come adjusted for Carrier landings but I have given the Blue Angels their own .air file with toned down retardation for runway landings.

Anyway, the team of seven now come in on Tuesdays and nightstop till the Wednesday evening. They share the parking made for the Two Seat Hunters and this is fine because the Hunters only come on certain weekends

petermcleland wrote:Thank you James...I spend most of my time there and use it for testing everything new

Those F18s came with a payware package but I had to make a few adjustments...They always fell over sideways on the first taxiway corner and then went the rest of the way scraping the tip mounted missile along the ground. Once airborne they flew OK but after landing they fell over again as they turned off the runway. They also come adjusted for Carrier landings but I have given the Blue Angels their own .air file with toned down retardation for runway landings.

Anyway, the team of seven now come in on Tuesdays and nightstop till the Wednesday evening. They share the parking made for the Two Seat Hunters and this is fine because the Hunters only come on certain weekends

Cool I like the way you make the planes come in on whats days etc and and they know where to park just brilliant wish I could do that.

James

jab wrote:

petermcleland wrote:Thank you James...I spend most of my time there and use it for testing everything new

Those F18s came with a payware package but I had to make a few adjustments...They always fell over sideways on the first taxiway corner and then went the rest of the way scraping the tip mounted missile along the ground. Once airborne they flew OK but after landing they fell over again as they turned off the runway. They also come adjusted for Carrier landings but I have given the Blue Angels their own .air file with toned down retardation for runway landings.

Anyway, the team of seven now come in on Tuesdays and nightstop till the Wednesday evening. They share the parking made for the Two Seat Hunters and this is fine because the Hunters only come on certain weekends

Cool I like the way you make the planes come in on whats days etc and and they know where to park just brilliant wish I could do that.

James,

Both of those are very easy...The first is achieved with Ttools and here is the FlightPlan for Blue One:-

AC#19101,BLUE1,94%,WEEK,VFR,2/20:05:00,TNG2/22:17:09,140,F,0001,PAYA,2/22:21:00,2/22:37:18,140,F,0001,PAMA,3/20:55:00,3/23:03:09,130,F,0001,KSEA

Going along that line AC#19101,BLUE1 is the lead aircraft (in the Aircraft.txt file as AC#19101,500,"JFAIFA18_BLUE_ANGELS_1")

WEEK,VFR, This means that the FlightPlan is on a WEEKLY basis as opposed to numbers of HOURS for the interval...And he will fly VFR if the weather permits (important if you wish to catch them in formation...if the weather deteriorates to IMC then he will file an IFR plan and from that moment each formation team member will be separately vectored by ATC and they will never be in formation).

2/20:05:00, This means that the aircraft starts engines at KSEA (Seattle)on Tuesday (Sunday is 0, Monday is 1 etc.) at 20:05 GMT (important to remember that ALL times are GMT)

TNG2/22:17:09,140,F,0001,PAYA, This bit means that he will fly to PAYA (Yakutat) and do touch and goes there till 22:17 GMT his cruise altitude will be 14000 feet and he will call himself "NAVY ONE" the "NAVY" is his Airline callsign from the Aircraft.cfg and the F,0001..F means use Airline Callsign as opposed to Reg No. and the 0001 is the "ONE". 14000 feet is important too...If you push them up into the Flight Levels then they will file an IFR Plan.

2/22:21:00,2/22:37:18,140,F,0001,PAMA, This bit, because of the tight timing forces only ONE touch and go before proceeding on to PAMA (McLeland Field)...it is only a short hop and they will only take 16 minutes.

You may ask why I make them do a touch and go at PAYA and the reason is this...They are on a VMC plan and they are not permitted to fly through mountains like they are on an IFR plan, and unfortunately they come in from Seattle in an awkward direction and get cleared to join "Downwind LEFT on Runway 13"...This is fatal. RIGHT would be OK but LEFT flies them into a mountain on base leg and finals. So by making them touch and go at nearby Yakutat first, they come to McLeland Field from a favourable direction for a visual circuit onto either runway.

,3/20:55:00,3/23:03:09,130,F,0001,KSEA This bit just takes them straight back to Seattle on the next day (3 = Wednesday) and they cruise at 13000 feet (odds for the heading).

The other six members of the team all have the same plan making seven flight plans in all. The only differences in the plans are like AC#19102,BLUE2..........,F,0002 etc. etc and the times are 10 seconds apart...Not really important but helps to get them to taxy out in the correct order 1,2,3,4,5,6,7...This should also be born in mind when allocating the Parking...Number one should have the easy out without having to pass the others etc etc.

As to the parking, well that is done in AFCAD...You just allocate an "Airline" for each parking place but the airlines in this case are "BLU1", "BLU2", etc. etc. Then in the Aircraft.cfg you add the "atc_parking_codes" clause...Here is the paragraph for Blue One:-


[fltsim.0]
title=JFAIFA18_BLUE_ANGELS_1
sim=JFAIFA18l
model=
panel=
sound=
texture=
kb_checklists=
kb_reference=
atc_id=Blank
atc_airline=NAVY
atc_flight_number=001
atc_parking_codes=BLU1
atc_parking_types=MIL_COMBAT
ui_manufacturer=McDonnell-Douglas FA-18C
ui_type=BLUE ANGELS 1
ui_variation=
description=AI

Well I suppose that is a lot to digest and not quite as simple as I thought when I started to answer your question...But if you want to play with these things James, I suggest you copy and paste this reply for later reference

Great sequence Peter.
To the best of my memory, this was the first time I saw a blue angels aircraft carrying sidewinders. I though they had stripped all of the combat equipment from them to make the aircraft lighter.

blanston12 wrote:Great sequence Peter.
To the best of my memory, this was the first time I saw a blue angels aircraft carrying sidewinders. I though they had stripped all of the combat equipment from them to make the aircraft lighter.

Joe,

I'm quite certain that they would never carry sidewinders on any formation aeros display sortie...Not conceivable as the collision touches would be far more likely. No, it is just that JustFlight used that model for the paints...They should have used the clean model :roll:

There are 34 paints in the folder and some of them use a different model with a Hook...I'll check to see if that model is clean and possibly useable with the Blue Angel paints.

petermcleland wrote:

jab wrote:

petermcleland wrote:Thank you James...I spend most of my time there and use it for testing everything new

Those F18s came with a payware package but I had to make a few adjustments...They always fell over sideways on the first taxiway corner and then went the rest of the way scraping the tip mounted missile along the ground. Once airborne they flew OK but after landing they fell over again as they turned off the runway. They also come adjusted for Carrier landings but I have given the Blue Angels their own .air file with toned down retardation for runway landings.

Anyway, the team of seven now come in on Tuesdays and nightstop till the Wednesday evening. They share the parking made for the Two Seat Hunters and this is fine because the Hunters only come on certain weekends

Cool I like the way you make the planes come in on whats days etc and and they know where to park just brilliant wish I could do that.

James,

Both of those are very easy...The first is achieved with Ttools and here is the FlightPlan for Blue One:-

AC#19101,BLUE1,94%,WEEK,VFR,2/20:05:00,TNG2/22:17:09,140,F,0001,PAYA,2/22:21:00,2/22:37:18,140,F,0001,PAMA,3/20:55:00,3/23:03:09,130,F,0001,KSEA

Going along that line AC#19101,BLUE1 is the lead aircraft (in the Aircraft.txt file as AC#19101,500,"JFAIFA18_BLUE_ANGELS_1")

WEEK,VFR, This means that the FlightPlan is on a WEEKLY basis as opposed to numbers of HOURS for the interval...And he will fly VFR if the weather permits (important if you wish to catch them in formation...if the weather deteriorates to IMC then he will file an IFR plan and from that moment each formation team member will be separately vectored by ATC and they will never be in formation).

2/20:05:00, This means that the aircraft starts engines at KSEA (Seattle)on Tuesday (Sunday is 0, Monday is 1 etc.) at 20:05 GMT (important to remember that ALL times are GMT)

TNG2/22:17:09,140,F,0001,PAYA, This bit means that he will fly to PAYA (Yakutat) and do touch and goes there till 22:17 GMT his cruise altitude will be 14000 feet and he will call himself "NAVY ONE" the "NAVY" is his Airline callsign from the Aircraft.cfg and the F,0001..F means use Airline Callsign as opposed to Reg No. and the 0001 is the "ONE". 14000 feet is important too...If you push them up into the Flight Levels then they will file an IFR Plan.

2/22:21:00,2/22:37:18,140,F,0001,PAMA, This bit, because of the tight timing forces only ONE touch and go before proceeding on to PAMA (McLeland Field)...it is only a short hop and they will only take 16 minutes.

You may ask why I make them do a touch and go at PAYA and the reason is this...They are on a VMC plan and they are not permitted to fly through mountains like they are on an IFR plan, and unfortunately they come in from Seattle in an awkward direction and get cleared to join "Downwind LEFT on Runway 13"...This is fatal. RIGHT would be OK but LEFT flies them into a mountain on base leg and finals. So by making them touch and go at nearby Yakutat first, they come to McLeland Field from a favourable direction for a visual circuit onto either runway.

,3/20:55:00,3/23:03:09,130,F,0001,KSEA This bit just takes them straight back to Seattle on the next day (3 = Wednesday) and they cruise at 13000 feet (odds for the heading).

The other six members of the team all have the same plan making seven flight plans in all. The only differences in the plans are like AC#19102,BLUE2..........,F,0002 etc. etc and the times are 10 seconds apart...Not really important but helps to get them to taxy out in the correct order 1,2,3,4,5,6,7...This should also be born in mind when allocating the Parking...Number one should have the easy out without having to pass the others etc etc.

As to the parking, well that is done in AFCAD...You just allocate an "Airline" for each parking place but the airlines in this case are "BLU1", "BLU2", etc. etc. Then in the Aircraft.cfg you add the "atc_parking_codes" clause...Here is the paragraph for Blue One:-


[fltsim.0]
title=JFAIFA18_BLUE_ANGELS_1
sim=JFAIFA18l
model=
panel=
sound=
texture=
kb_checklists=
kb_reference=
atc_id=Blank
atc_airline=NAVY
atc_flight_number=001
atc_parking_codes=BLU1
atc_parking_types=MIL_COMBAT
ui_manufacturer=McDonnell-Douglas FA-18C
ui_type=BLUE ANGELS 1
ui_variation=
description=AI

Well I suppose that is a lot to digest and not quite as simple as I thought when I started to answer your question...But if you want to play with these things James, I suggest you copy and paste this reply for later reference

I see if I can try that :roll: thanks for info

James