A "bird strike challenge" for FU3?

[Guest Steffen]

Hi guys,the talks about upcoming birds flying in FU3 (and how to make their behaviour realistic) made me think a little bit how a "bird strike challenge" could look in FU3 - here are my first ideas:* plane is randomly positioned at a couple of airports, try to take off and fly to a given destination* you might encounter by random: A cow walking on the runway forcing evasion or abort of take-off run; bird flocks rushing up (after take-off, prior to landing, or when flying below 500ft GND). If you strike those 3D objects, your plane will be damaged resulting in serious (engine out) or slight engine failure, slight wing damage (flying still possible but made harder), and whatever your nightmare ideas might be.Those are only my first ideas. To create a real nice challenge, I think many more ideas (YOURS!) are required/needed - so please tell me what you can think of in order to create your personal realsitic animal-encounter-nightmare in FU3!Blue Skies,Steffen

[Guest glidernut]

Steffen,Is it posibl to have a model folowe the payers plane?In other words, can a "bounding box" ie, bird or glider model, be made to moov at random and yet stay within a sertan distance of the players plane?Virtual Sailor & SOTS & Micro Flight & Hang sim all have the option to havemooving things STAY in the visinaty of the players plane!Can we? glidernut.

[Guest Steffen]

Hi John,unfortunately it is not possible to have a model "follow" our planes. All the 3D models and their paths have to be predefined while starting the challenge. That's why I'm thinking of only using a couple of airports to start from and to fly to in the challenge: There would be a couple of "hidden" bird flying paths all along and across the flight path between those airports. If our plane then comes close to a "bird spot", those birds are shown (after a random time break and with a random speed) and might get into your way. It's not as good as following your path the whole time - but it might get as close to this as possible.Any other ideas what might be in that challenge?Blue Skies,Steffen

[Guest glidernut]

Steffen,Well being restricted to where the models are plased, and not every where,then this is not the sort of chalange to be used all the time, it is instedthe sort of chalange to be used just for FUN FUN FUN, and then forgot.In which case I serjest larege tall bildings sudenly steping siydways orsudanly leeping 800ft up into the air!Wow! Iv just had athort! clouwd modeld? thay are no good as Fled models butthay might be usfal as a chalange model?!?!?!Iv just had a quik tryout and it dont work, but I got another way of doing it,hang on, Iill be back sortly.glidernut.:-wave

[Guest effyouthree]

Steffen/John,I have studied bird-strike data from Australia and spoken to a number of pilots about it. It seems many GA pilots don't consider it too bad a problem but then, they aren't bound by commercial airline schedules.Statistically, most strikes occur below 500ft, between sunrise and 10AM, and between 4PM and sunset. 70% occur close to water.Most fatalities result from collisions with larger birds (pelicans, geese etc) whilst the majority of aircraft damage (in $) is caused by smaller birds (that appear in greater numbers). Whilst hitting any bird in a GA aircraft will result in damage to the airframe, by far the largest $ figure is the damage to commercial (jet) engines. I was surprised to read that a 777 engine can ingest 4x 1kg birds and still produce 75% power :-eek Of course, one pelican and it's all over...So, I think some relation to time, altitude and proximity to water is important. The airports I was thinking (mostly) of are SEA, BFI, Renton and Tacoma. I suppose it would be too hard to index damage to aircraft size though.Regards,**************Jonathan Point**************"I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here"

[Guest glidernut]

Steffen,I had the thort of useing clouwd models compleet with there arigenal textuers taken from FU3,s sky.res and useing them like fled models in your chalange for speshal afects.I thort useing them in this way, thay could be plased in ways that theFU3 wether program could never do, ie, at diferant altitueds and or in closer proximaty to each other or even staced one abuv the other verticaly.But I forgot one very important thing! as fled models we carnt fly throo them, thay are silid! Not only that, but thay dont look very good, cus thay are rendered mor liketrees than clouwds!Back to the droring bord.glidernut.:-wave

[Guest effyouthree]

John,Check your mailbox!The clouds models CAN be flown-through as long as they are 'moving models'. I assume you would want this anyway as you can set the height and have a complete front rolling across the sky. The trick to making them look realistic is not to have one external set of faces but a number of them, overlapping as you travel into the cloud (like onion layers).The only problem seems to be partial transparency (easy with aircraft but doesn't work so well with FLED models).Anyway, here's a question. What can dive at -600fpm whilst maintaining only 17kts?:-lol :-lol :-lolhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/68401.jpgReally!http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/68402.jpg:-waveRegards,**************Jonathan Point**************"I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here"

[Guest glidernut]

jon,>The clouds models CAN be flown-through as long as they are 'moving models'.How? All my moving Fled models are as solid as a rok!?!?!O ye, your right, the aircraft COLLISIONS setings in OPTIONS, I forgot all about that.So we can hav fly-through cloud models, thats good.