So silly me decided I wanted to paint a few 330s and chose MVA for my first one. I figured I would start on the tail as it's not a super complex logo, but given Carenado's history of splitting apart the fin, the rudder, and the trip/servo tabs, it usually takes a bit of trial and error to do the alignment. I was pleasantly surprised that, while split into the normal pieces, the three main parts of each tail are fairly decently aligned and it was easy to match the main parts of the tail logos.

I wasn't expecting. however, that the little bumps on the tail were individually textured. And not just in a matching overlay but separated. They are all lined up in seemingly random order and tucked into various parts of the texture that don't align with their position on the tail. By my count there's 288 separate bumps that are individually textured. Carenado is not known for making user friendly textures but this takes the cake. I have so far spent over 6 hours just trying to texture the tail. My OCD means I will struggle through and finish it, but while I really do like the plane and have a strong desire to paint more, I doubt I will do more than this one. Which is a pity as this, along with the 360, are full of good examples of the heyday of independent regional airlines of the 1970s/1980s in the US with plenty of examples from airlines that either came and went in an instant or which were eventually absorbed into the larger regional carriers we know today.

Here it is after about 6 hours of work spent locating the tail bumps and trying to match the textures. To add to the fun the bumps aren't even scaled the same as the mail tail so I can't simply locate the appropriate section of the mail tail then past onto the bump texture.

Progress is coming slowly, frustratingly slow because in typical Carenado fashion the textures are impossible to draw a straight line on, but it's getting there.

It's posted now and available from my site and will soon be in the Avsim library. I probably could have spent a little more time tweaking the main titles, but after a week of fighting to get the textures I was willing to accept it as-is just to be able to take it flying.

You can get it from my site here.

-Nick