Spartan Executive Six Years Later

[tgycgijoes]

Here is a shot of the final Spartan Executive NC17634 at Elizabethton, North Carolina an airport I created a couple months ago. If you notice that the rudder is a different finish than the rest of the aircraft it's because it is fabric covered not aluminum as are the elevator and ailerons. They are painted with a gloss finish gray paint which I matched. The cowl ring blue is also matched to the exact paint from info from the manufacturer that the owner supplied. We have worked closely on a daily basis throughout the project which makes it probably as authentic as it can get in a simulator limited only by MY skills which often are lacking more than I like. I asked a lot of help over at FSDevelopers and want to thank the input I got here as well.

It will go out for a little beta testing and then be available to download the repaint and custom panel in the Warbird Library probably next week.

[tgycgijoes]

Well, right after sending out the two beta testers the file, my hard drive died. I am typing this on my church laptop right now to let you all know but any more Spartan will have to wait until I get a new one delivered I ordered today. Thank the Lord for foresight, I saved the entire file of every thing Spartan onto a flash drive but other stuff is gone forever AGAIN. You can't flash drive EVERYTHING. The drive that died is not recognized at being attached to the computer at all so I don't know what happened, it just did. My daughter created a recovery drive onto a flash drive according to Microsoft instructions but that still did not access it.

[tgycgijoes]

As promised, I apologize for the delay, I gave a final check to these in FSX SP2 (Acceleration doesn't play nice with Windows 10) that after much trouble I got installed on the new hard drive. Here in our Warbirds Library are the two versions of the Spartan Executive: Polaris WWII and Modern Jim Savage who by the way told me he was really impressed with us and joined this past week.

I will be working on trying to create a virtual panel for the modern version with all the custom gauges and if successful will post as an update along with PBR texture to use in Prepar3D V4.5 which I also studied how this past week while I was painstakingly adding software into the new hard drive. Not as hard as it seemed but a lot of trial and error my "tutor" instructed me. If you have any comments or questions about either one, please PM me here and I will answer promptly.

Richard
tgycgijoes

[tgycgijoes]

I started this afternoon to work on the virtual cockpit panel for the modern Spartan Executive. Milton and his team did a great job on the Polaris WWII version so I am not going to change that all. Anyway... as I started to open up my jpgs from Jim again I noticed as I enlarged them that he has a textured background on the panel and also it has a rubber edge not the metal edge that is in the WWII version so I Googled; found out how to do both and I have updated the 2D panel bmp and its a start for the vc panel background as well. Here is a screenshot of the update.

[thunder100]

HI beautiful really

Roland

[tgycgijoes]

HI beautiful really

Roland

Let me know how it flies for you on your system and what sim, OS etc to compare.

[tgycgijoes]

I spent this afternoon trying to create a virtual panel for this first with Abacus FS Design Studio instructions which I don't understand. They look so simple but don't work for me. So, then I tried to do it in FS Panel Studio which Abacus uses in cooperation with FSDS. That didn't work either no matter how hard I tried. If anyone wants to try and make a VC using my gauges you are welcome to try and if you succeed share it with all of us who will be so grateful. I AM including a modified panel cfg with my new panel bmps you can replace the one in the modern version with if you want to.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/y0luk...Panel.zip/file

[tgycgijoes]

I have learned a lot since this was done back in April of this year. Although the background might be a little clearer, I was able to recreate the 2D panel in VC with FS Design Studio and resizing my gauges to fit on the panel. I have a little hiccups in a couple of switches so I am not ready to share (Help asked for at FSDevelopers) Here is a screentshot I just took at 60J in North Carolina. All the gauges work in the VC, thank you Lord for inspiration to make it work. Thanks too to Arno for Model Converter X which allowed me to remove some gauges that were modeled into the mdl and "stepping on mine" Something I learned in the past nine months. I may also try and add a configuration panel next week. I learned how to add chocks to the Neptune back when working on NAS Argentia and I really like that shroud that is posted above on the release of the Spartan for MSFS. I don't know if my drawing skills are up to it. See about removing the pilot when chocks are set too. All things to try that I would like to add.

[SgtT]

Wow, very nice I wish I had some skills.

[tgycgijoes]

Wow, very nice I wish I had some skills.

I am sure you have skills that I don't and many many people have helped me learn all I know along the way here in SOH and also in FS Developers where I was just reading a reply for help I posted this morning.