FSX:SE Ohhh.. Vienna...

[HighBypass 2,339]

Apologies to Ultravox and Midge Ure 

I tried out a long range flight with the Flight1 Islander today. I wish I'd taken more screenshots as I was able to go from Gatwick to Vienna with only minor interruptions IRL - thankfully the Islander has an autopilot and a GPS (nice rendition of the Bendix King KLN 90b).The weather was good and the sim behaved - no OOM dings despite taking off from UK2000 Gatwick and using VFR Real photoscenery in the UK. Lovley freeware LOWW too.

Anyway, I was quite surprised to see that upon reaching Vienna the fuel tanks were still approx.1/3 full (see gauge at top right of screen). Surprising because the standard range for the BN-2 appears to be 600 to 800NM. I did only have pilot and co-pilot together with 300lb of baggage and full tanks though..

I should have pushed straight to Athens!! 

No external shots because I've not asked about a G-AXUD paintjob as yet..

[Chock 17,769]

Nice pics. The Islander is a real classic aeroplane and full marks for flying it that far!

Fun fact about Vienna - the song, not the city... When Ultravox were in the process of writing that and other tunes which ended up on the album, Midge Ure had not long since joined the band, having replaced John Foxx on vocals. The band were still smarting a bit from the loss of Foxx's talent, and so they determined to write something pretentious and arty to kind of prove that they had talent too. Midge Ure thought the track they were working up was a bit pretentious, he'd written some lyrics about a fictional holiday romance and had attempted to shoehorn a bit of class into it by setting it in Vienna and ally it with the tune, but it was incomplete and he was having difficulty making it fit. Frustrated by the overly flamboyant violin solo and structure of the song, he voiced his frustration with the music to the producer, Konrad Plank, yelling at him: 'this means nothing to me!' Plank shouted back: 'well why don't you sing that then?!' Sure enough Midge did indeed sing that and that's where the iconic line which precedes Oh Vienna in the chorus came from.

[P_7878 6,555]

Looks good, Mark! You're on you're on your way...Congratulations...!

Don't forget you've nine more en-route stops allowed for the race, (that should allow some sight-seeing at your discretion)...and, of course, a very very long distance, still, to cover, ahead of you...🙂...

[Phantom88 3,284]

Excellent 

[HighBypass 2,339]

Next stop is of course Athens. I may defer flying that until the correct paint scheme occurs. That may be some time, but I've found that patience is key over on the request forum. To misquote Sean Bean in LOTR "One does not simply demand that a paint job be completed right now!" 

Rob, as I currently don't use a weather engine which provides historic data, I was just flying with the current METARS, but I understand what you were alluding to. 

[Steve Dra 7,579]

14 hours ago, HighBypass said:

No external shots because I've not asked about a G-AXUD paintjob as yet..

Check your PM Mark. 😉

[HighBypass 2,339]

Cheers Steve, Replied 

[Steve Dra 7,579]

On 3/31/2020 at 8:16 AM, HighBypass said:

Cheers Steve, Replied 

Hey Mark, check your email....need more info and stuff for the paint.

[Steve Dra 7,579]

And this is why some seemingly simple paints go completely off the scale in complexity.....

As you can see below.... I will need to wrap and align the top blue stripe on the nose through 3 texture boundaries...sigh.  And the nosecone will experience extreme warping due to the layout (Modeler chose to wrap the texture over the tip then down the sides...the yellow arrow points to it.  The green arrow is the 1st of 3 boundary crossings I have to deal with. 

If you can follow the logic of the wireframe on both the 2d map I paint on (on the right) and the 3d model where it will live in flightsim (on the left)...you can see that your brain has to do some serious 3d spatial gymnastics to visualize how to paint it. 😵

Then all I have to do is address the black and white stripes that will also cross a few texture boundaries and will be a compound curve as well due to the curvature differences between the join boundaries...simple stuff. 😲  

I have a headache just typing up the explanation....LOL....now I just gotta try to paint it.🤣

[P_7878 6,555]

Steve: Thanks for pitching IN to help Mark, here, with this BN2! Mark is good at digging up stuff, so, you should be in good hands...

However, I wish to add the following note, I'd read somewhere..it'll be great to display the words (oh well..you asked for it...🙂...), "Winners of London-Adelaide Air Race" on the fuselage, but, I'm not sure, where, exactly, in the body, the owners/winners decided to put it on..can be looked up, I guess..somewhere under the REG for sure...

"The winner - Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander flown by Bill Bright and Frank Buxton at Parafield on 29 Dec 1969. They were very quick to apply the decal saying “Winners of London-Adelaide Air Race” under the registration!"

[HighBypass 2,339]

Steve, I won't be offended if you decide it's almost Carenado-like i.e impossible!  Off to check my emails.. Cheers.

P_7878 - I did wonder about requesting the winning graphics, but I initially thought that the race entry paint scheme would be easier... (sorry Steve!) 

Actually there's a whole load more small text which was applied, it seems:

https://www.airhistory.net/photo/47756/G-AXUD

[HighBypass 2,339]

35 minutes ago, Steve Dra said:

...and will be a compound curve as well due to the curvature differences between the join boundaries..

.. Here's us thinking that the Islander has a square fuselage LOL! 

 

emails sent, sir!

[Steve Dra 7,579]

On 4/2/2020 at 9:38 AM, HighBypass said:

Steve, I won't be offended if you decide it's almost Carenado-like i.e impossible!  Off to check my emails.. Cheers.

P_7878 - I did wonder about requesting the winning graphics, but I initially thought that the race entry paint scheme would be easier... (sorry Steve!) 

Actually there's a whole load more small text which was applied, it seems:

https://www.airhistory.net/photo/47756/G-AXUD

Hey Mark and P_7878 (wish I could address you by your real 1st name) 😞

The model is in no way near as hard as any Carenado model...but it has its challenges with the nose and stripes in that area.  Will take a lot of work!

On the other hand, the rest of the plane is pretty straight-forward.   I can create 2 paints easily enough....one as she started the race and when she was decked out in her winning paint.

The challenge I'm going to put on you guys wanting the paint is to find me more pics...and also if you can make out the wording all over the plane with detailed explanations I can create the text pretty good without pics.

I can clearly see the "Aerial tours of Papua New Guinea" in the blue stripe...but can't make out the cursive text just before it.  and the other smaller text....in the famous words of a New Yoker...."Fo-getta 'bout it!". 

Also the circular text around the BP logo...if you can get it I can recreate it (tricky but doable)...better would be a good image or vector of the logo itself....not just the BP as you can see I already have that...need that text! 🙂

This is the aspect of painting that mostly goes unnoticed and sometimes constitutes the bulk of the overall painting project....the QUEST for reference material!!!!!

Getting a bit more figured out with the paintkit and some progress shown below.... (HUGE thanks to Jim--USN 06 over at Flight1....for helping a shipmate get the paintkit to attempt this project)

 

[P_7878 6,555]

Steve:

Thanks for the professionalism to treat it like a Winner that it was...

Looking good so far....Glad you could extract the paint kit from the F1 folks, I know you’re known around there (iFly 747BCF comes to mind...🙂...)

I’ll dig some more today, will PM you, while Mark, I’m sure, will be doing the same...

Strangely, I was thinking, that BN2 flew the race, in 1969, 50 years after the Smith Brothers’ classic (1919), and here, we are, thinking about that BN2 another 50 years later today...!

[Steve Dra 7,579]

46 minutes ago, P_7878 said:

Steve:

Thanks for the professionalism to treat it like a Winner that it was...

Looking good so far....Glad you could extract the paint kit from the F1 folks, I know you’re known around there (iFly 747BCF comes to mind...🙂...)

I’ll dig some more today, will PM you, while Mark, I’m sure, will be doing the same...

Strangely, I was thinking, that BN2 flew the race, in 1969, 50 years after the Smith Brothers’ classic (1919), and here, we are, thinking about that BN2 another 50 years later today...!

Yeah there are some really great folks over there at Flight1....like-minded when it comes to passion for our hobby.  LOL....yeah I painted a "few" iFly 747BCFs, along with 4 pax liveries that seem to be popular.  (Over 15,000 downloads between them)🙂

Like every airframe I paint....I'm starting to get attached to this little guy.  I need a new plane like I need another day working remotely.....so I've resisted the urge to go buy it with the laughable thought of flying it more than once or twice before the next plane comes along to paint. 🤣  The more I pan around the model in my 3d viewer while painting, the more I like its utilitarian look and simple lines.  Graceful is not a term that comes to mind when looking at this bird, but like the Shorts models....it has that "something" that catches my interest. (Resisted buying both SHORTS models from Carenado when they had their recent sale....quite proud of myself 😀.....but did succumb to the PC-12 and already made my own personal paint for it.) 😵

Your post was a very good read about the BN2...and like you said strange that its another 50 span when interest in it resurfaced. 😉

Hope you guys can find good reference material that will let me produce an accurate paint to honor this great plane.

Edited April 3, 2020 by Steve Dra