Airshow Assistant 2.1

[Javis]

Touchingcloud Airshow Assistant. Anybody ??.....

Atleast it *looks* much more versatile than FlightControlReplay. Aircraft don't look like being tied together as much as with FCR.

https://youtu.be/uHB4CoIaJ6g?si=f7YYmrAf_gLOFBE0

Oh, and it's free too.... https://msfs.touching.cloud/mods/air...wz00vTrRsNphoQ
( possibly v2.1 is free, v2.2 at Marketplace $4.99, free demo )

[DaveWG]

Yes, I've been using it for the past couple of days. Posted a couple of shots in the screenshot thread. Does seem to work quite well. Only draw back is the aircraft in the formation are copies of your own aircraft, but apparently they'll be adding the ability to have different aircraft in a future update.
I'm just using the free version, not sure if there's any difference with the market place version. I don't mind paying for it, but I'd rather it was not through the market place.

[jankees]

Only draw back is the aircraft in the formation are copies of your own aircraft, but apparently they'll be adding the ability to have different aircraft in a future update.

can you make the copy, and then change aircraft, so that you can have different aircraft flying together, like with Flight Control Replay, which I used for this shot:
COGEA (00007) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr

or will the copy make the change as well so you end up with identical copies?

[DaveWG]

Don't know, to be honest, I haven't tried that. I'll have a go this evening.

[Javis]

Yes, I've been using it for the past couple of days. Posted a couple of shots in the screenshot thread. Does seem to work quite well. Only draw back is the aircraft in the formation are copies of your own aircraft, but apparently they'll be adding the ability to have different aircraft in a future update.
I'm just using the free version, not sure if there's any difference with the market place version. I don't mind paying for it, but I'd rather it was not through the market place.

Thank you, Dave !

If you have FlightControlReplay as well which of the two would you prefer to work with ? ( i haven't touched FCR for quite a while now, i find it very cumbersome to work with especially 'Fly-By'. I know it's still beta but setting up a fly-by with the MSFS Drone camera is even easier... That says something ! )

Btw, i tried to have a look at the screenies you've made with Airshow Assistant but search only returns text, no piccies.... Do you have a page number maybe ?

Thanks again!

[K5083]

Thanks for the heads-up guys, I will try it this weekend.

I see that with the latest version 2.3.0, released just today, you can select different liveries for your wingmen. That's a big improvement, not as good as being able to pick a different type, but still good. It looks like you can now opt to be one of the wingmen as well, not just lead.

In the video it looks like the wingmen switch from trail (or whatever you specify as "ground" formation) to echelon ("flight" formation) when the gear are raised, and vice versa? Is that how that works?

Would be interested in what realism settings people find useful for realistic wingman behavior.

August

[DaveWG]

The livery selection in 2.3.0 seems a bit iffy at the moment, although it is still a beta feature, so I expect it will improve. I've only tried a couple of aircraft so far, but with the default F/A18 it would only find 2 liveries, and with the Hawk, it said it couldn't find any!
It's still very much work-in-progress, but it's moving in the right direction.

[K5083]

Having played with this last night, I see you are right. I was unable to find any aircraft that had any other liveries loadable.

I thought the issue might be that it looks only for other liveries that share the same folders and aircraft.cfg, but when I tried spawning with one of the stock skins from an Asobo plane, knowing there were more, it still didn't work.

Starting to see some visual issues as I try different planes, too. Sometimes the configuration or loadout is wrong, the flaps are always down, the gear are always up, etc. And where there would be a custom tail number, there is that white box that you also see when such planes are used as AI traffic.

Those types of issues used to happen in Lorby AITracker as well, which I used for the same purpose in P3D. This works at least as well as that, probably better.

Ground behavior can be fun/humorous as it tries to get into the right position when you taxi. I only turn on the wingmen when I'm on the runway. Landing in tight line astern formation doesn't seem like a real good idea to me, but that is how the B-17s do it in Masters of the Air, so it must be accurate.

The ability to select a formation position other than lead works well, and I enjoy that. This is already a fun addon if used carefully, even with some bugs yet to be smushed.

August