DC3 Swissair HB-IRD 1.0

This is a livery-paint for the LES DC3.

It depicts – more or less – within the restrictions of the model, the Swissair-DC3 HB-IRD.

This was one of several ex-military DC-3/C-47s Swissair bought in 1946/47. It was built as C47B-5-DK with USAAF serial 43-48793 and flew for Swissair from 1946, used as a freighter, operating postal services. In 1950 it was sold to Israel where it was in service for Arkia and the Israeli Air Force. In 1999 it was transferred to the USA, registered as N472D and flew until 2006.

Swissair planes in this period had an overall bare metal skin, logo and lettering on the fuselage and the red fin with the white swiss-cross. Although i'm aware that real reflections on a shiny bare metal skin can't be exactly reproduced in X-Plane, i tried to give it the appearance of such a surface. As just for a bare metal skin the lines of rivets and platelines determine the appearance a lot, my aim was to depict these as accurate as possible, added normal-maps to reproduce the uneven riveted surface and 3d-detail.

As there's only one paint-file available for both of the wings, the big registration markings on top and underneath the wings can't be reproduced.

The livery includes cockpit and cargo-cabin, adapted from the pictures available at the eth-library as far as possible within the possibilities of the model. Though colours are merely an assumption as these photos are black and white only.

The plane in it's early configuration as shown here had no de-icing-systems, so be careful and avoid flying in icy weather conditions (markings on the related switches are removed - of course the system would work if you turn them on).

I want to thank LES for their exceptionally model of the DC3 and most of all Leen de Jager, whose paintwork and discussions gave me a lot of hints and inspiration.

How to install:

Unzip "Swissair_HB-IRD" to a temp-folder and read the "_readme_first.pdf":

Place folder named "Swissair_HB-IRD" in the liveries folder.

For X-Plane 9:

The cabin-textures are in 4K resolution for better detail, so if you use XP9, place the 2K cabin-files in the "Cabin_XP9_2K"-folder into the "Swissair_HB-IRD/objects"-folder, overwriting the existing 4K-ones.

If you like to use the added propdisk with a slightly grey shade to reproduce the reflections of the metal propblades in front of dark backgrounds, just pace the file "LES_Douglas_DC-3(Wheels)_prop" in the "X-Aviation/Douglas DC-3" main-folder, overwriting the existing file (backup-file of the original included)

Have fun and hope you enjoy it.

Andreas