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General Aviation - South African Military C185 Bare-Metal Livery Megapack


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South African Military C185 Bare-Metal Livery Megapack

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9 South African military bare metal 4K liveries for Carenado's C185 
(and 1 bonus grey livery :D 
)


Get the red-stripe liveries for #747 and #731 here, and the "Sandra" #715 livery here.


This all started two years ago as an attempt on a single livery. Even though I've never visited Africa, one of my silly dreams is to save enough money to go flying there, so I decided to paint a South African Air Force bare-metal Cessna 185 for my flights in X-Plane. I never painted a livery before or worked with graphic editors, so I had to learn Gimp. I started on aircraft #748 because the clearest image on Google was of that airplane. However, in the last two years I almost gave up because I was distracted by school, and getting the bare-metal to look realistic was impossible. I should not have chosen bare metal for my first livery, or chose a very obscure aircraft in a very obscure air force. Getting enough photo references required extensive digging through the corners of the internet. Last week I tried at the livery again and I decided to multiply a metallic texture layer into the livery. Things looked much better, and once I got the bare metal to look semi-realistic things sort of exploded.

When I was finished with #748's current livery (it's now based in Zwartkop's SAAF Museum), I decided, heck, why not paint the 3 other variations of the liveries it wore in the past too. Through the years there were minor variations in the squadron seal, or whether the SAAF Castle was painted on or not, etc. Well, now that I've painted #748, I might as well paint #753, which had red wingtips and spinner and different fonts for its tail number. Then I decided I might as well paint both #729 and #730, because they were similar to #753 with minor variations. Then I decided to paint #711, which had almost the same markings but with a grey base instead. Needless to say, this took way a huge lot of research.

I then went on to paint #747, #731, and #715, which are completely different liveries (they look civilian). I'll upload them soon and link them here. 

So I spent two years trying to paint #748, and in the last three days in a frenzy I painted 14 other liveries of 8 different planes. If that's not insanity I'm not sure what is.

Cessna 185A, -D, and mainly -Es were delivered to South Africa in the '60s. During the border wars in South West Africa  they were used by the South African Army's 41st and 42nd Army Air Recon Squadron as observer planes to spot and mark enemy artillery with smoke rockets for SAAF's Mirages (fun fact, the Angolans had Soviet Katyushas, which forced the SADF to design the G5 Howitzer). They were based in AFB Rundu, Katima Mulilo, and Ondangwa (Northern Namibia). The planes were originally bare-metal, with "SA LEËR/SA ARMY" written on the side, but the text was removed when the squadron was transferred into the air force in the late 60s. They were repainted in camouflage by the mid 70s, and many served with the South African Police. Then, some were used as trainers for the 84th Light Aircraft Flight School in AFB Ondangwa (so close to the front!) until 1988 before being transferred to AFB Zwartkop. Before retirement in 2006 they were used as border patrol aircraft either at Messina (near Zimbabwe's border) or Macadamia (near Mozambique and Swaziland's borders) for 44th Sqn (since 42nd had been disbanded and incorporated into 44's B flight, with A flight being Bosboks).


Liveries included are:
#711 SAAF 1968-70s (Light Grey)
#729 SA Leër Pre-1968 (Bare Metal)
#729 SAAF 1968-70s (Bare Metal) *this plane later crash landed in April 13, 2000 in Mozambique territory, killing 2nd Lt. Andrew Patrick Leith and seriously injuring 3 others. 
#730 SA Leër Pre-1968 (Bare Metal)
#730 SAAF 1968-Jan 25, 1977 Written Off at Musina, Limpopo (Bare Metal)
#748 SAAF 1994-1995 42nd Sqd 50th Anniversary 1994-1995 (Bare Metal)
#748 SAAF 1996-1998 President's Trophy Air Race (Military Markings Removed)
#748 SAAF 2011 Zwartkop Museum Static Exhibit for a pilot's reunion (Red Spinner, Bare Metal)
#748 SAAF 2015 Wings Over Zwartkop Airshow, restored to flying status! (Bare Metal)
#753 SAAF (Bare Metal, Red Spinner and Wingtips)

They look very similar, but each livery is different (which caused a lot of hassle on my part!)

To install, just open the .zip and drop the folders inside the livery folder. These are 4k textures, so they only work with X-Plane 10. If I'm not feeling lazy later I might convert them to 2k textures for the folks with X-Plane 9.


I'm still not completely satisfied with the bare-metal though, but my skills are still quite limited. I almost thought it was impossible for X-Plane to render bare metal until I saw RocLobster's Bare Metal liveries for the Cessna 170 at the .org, and my eyes popped out of my sockets....RocLobster, you're a wizard.

If you are unsure which one to fly first, I highly recommend #748 SAAF 2015 just because I spent the most time on that one :D

Since the total file size is half a GB, if you want to download the liveries individually I made the same entry at the .org but uploaded them in separate zips (taking advantage of their upload size limit ha).

Please please please tell me if there's anything I should fix and I'll try to within my abilities. But please be gentle; these are my first liveries!

 


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