Hidden Treasure - the ZMC-2

[mick]

Has anyone else noticed a hidden treasure among the AI aircraft?

I mean the Metalcald Airship Corporation's ZMC-2 metal covered blimp! Yup, it's just what it sounds like - the envelope was made of aluminum! Not quite a lead Zeppelin, but close.

Read all about it here:

nasgi.org/zmc2.htm

I liked it so much I made mine flyable. I used the panel, sounds and FD files (with the usual edits) from Anders Jermstad's Goodyear blimp.

Here I go flying low over the ZR-1 Shanandoah at Lakehurst on an autumn evening: ;D

[Bill Lyons]

Pretty picture Best, Bill

[kits]

I know this psoting is 18 months old but I just found it....

I've just tried this but can't make the ZMC-2 appear in the aircraft menu. What are the individual steps to make this happen please? I've added a panel and sounds etc. and done some aircraft.cfg file editing from the Goodyear, but no joy so far.

Regards
Kit

[Roger]

Hi Kits,
Open the .air file and change the section 105 aircraft type = ,from 2 to 0. Copy the ZMC-2 folder and rename it to something different like ZMC-2 Flyable and edit the .cfg file header in ui_variation=flyable

It's a simple AI model but that's how to make it selectable and flyable in the aircraft menu.

[kits]

Brilliant Roger, thanks very much.

You learn something new every day.........

Regards
Kit

[kits]

Further to that, having got the ZMC-2 visible and flying, I aliased the panel and sounds from the Goodyear Defender to the ZMC-2 but the panel doesn't show and there's no sound audible. Is there another 'secret switch' in the .air file to enable this perhaps?

I did the section 105 trick with the Shenandoah as well and that's magnificent! That needs a panel and sound as well, and it could do with the flight dynamics from the Graf, but it still looks great as it is.

Regards
Kit

[Roger]

Tried a few different things with new airfiles and no joy. I think the answer lies in asking Mick how he did it.

[mick]

Well, it's a very simple and straightforward conversion, so I'm at a loss to explain why it isn't working for you. Might you have skipped a step somewhere?

The panel is from Anders' Goodyear blimp, but I'm using the version I made and released with my vintage U.S. Navy and Coast Guard repaints. The only changes are in the background bitmap. I erased the mural on the rear cabin wall, disappeared the modern radar set, and saved the image in monochrome so that the interior is done in military-looking shades of gray. Those are completely superficial changes, and Anders' original panel would work just as well; it just wouldn't look very military, or very old.

The flight model is also from the Goodyear, both the aircraft.cfg file and the AIR file. Since the AIR file is from a flyable aircraft, there's no need to make it show up on the Select Aircraft menu; it will show up of its own accord.

Of course I patched in the Contact Points and Lights sections from the ZMC-2 in the Aircraft.cfg file. I might have also have brought over the ZMC-2's Weight & Balance section; I don't remember. I probably did...

Finally I edited the User Interface section of the Aircraft.cfg file to make it show up the way I wanted it to on the Select Aircraft menu.

These are the same changes you'd do to make to make any AI aircraft flyable. There's nothing exceptional or tricky about it.

The only other change I made was to redo the U.S. Navy and ZMC-2 titles on the envelope; the originals were rather crude. But that has nothing to do with how the airship flies or shows up on the menu.

I made the Shenandoah flyable the same way, except that I used the Lennart Olsson flight model from Frank Petriccione's ZR-1 Shenandoah and the most recent version of Frank Petriccione's airship panel, which may or may not be the same version in the latest version of his Shenandoah. I don't remember for sure, but I think the panel was a separate, later release. I seem to recall making a couple minor edits to the background bitmap, but I'm not sure.

Another way of going about that is to install Frank's Shenandoah and replace the model file and textures with Bill's much better ones, making the required edits in the UI, Weight & Balance, Contact Points and Lights sections of the Aircraft.cfg file.

For the ZMC-2, all I can suggest is that you check your work and see if you can find a step that you skipped, or maybe a typo somewhere.

[Roger]

Thanks for that Mick, appreciate you coming to the thread and posting the details.

Cheers,

Roger.

[mick]

Almost forgot about the sounds.

I have the same sound set in Anders' Goodyear, Bill's Goodyear Defender and the ZMC-2. They must have come with either Anders' Goodyear or Bill's Defender, but I don't remember which.

I have my Shenandoah aliased to a sound set in my FSFSCONV folder that I named sound.airship. I don't recall for certain where they came from, but they're probably from one of Frank Petriccione's airships. I'm almost sure of it.

I've gotten some useful bits and pieces from Frank's airship models. The panels are useful, if probably not authentic (since they all look alike), the sounds are good; and the flight dynamics are excellent. The models themselves are kind of so-so, and the textures are awful - completely fanciful as well as rather crude, at least for the airships that I know enough about to be able to tell. Except his latest R-34 has a pretty decent looking model and the textures seem believable, though I have no idea whether either the model or the textures are authentic.