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I think it's about time i started a thread here on X-Pilot to showcase my development of a high detail Sepecat Jaguar Strike Aircraft. I started trying to make this in 2007, and since then development has been somewhat hit and miss. I have collected a HUGE library of reference material over the years, which includes Aircrew Manuals, Operating Data Manuals and a Maintenance Manual, so i have no excuses for getting something wrong! Since my first attempts at building a 3d model for it, my ability has grown somewhat, and taking a break from the development to create the Hypo WWII follow me truck for Mr3D's HMS Jackdaw scenery helped my modelling skills progress even more. I plan to use the excellent Gizmo plugin to refine the flightmodel, and to provide some nice effects and to bring some new functionality to the sim. Some working weapons, and target designation would be a fun thing to have with this aircraft, so those are some things i hope to achieve with Gizmo. I'm currently using Gizmo to develop a suite of flight testing and evaluation tools, so i can quickly and effortlessly verify aircraft in performance in all key areas. I have the data, so it seems daft to not make my model match the real world one. I cannot thank Ben enough for his amazing plugin. His efforts with coding in 'real' languages to provide a tool for us minions to modify the sim with such ease are really great for the simulator as a whole. I am striving to achieve very accurate dimensional accuracy, and with the help of the man in charge of restoration at the RAF Bentwaters Cold War Museum, an RAF Armourer, who helps to keep old jets in a working condition suitable for Fast Taxi runs at Bruntingthorpe in his spare time, and a visit to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, i so far have a very accurate model. Some might say the detail i am including is over the top, by i am building this aircraft primarily for myself to enjoy, and i really want a super high detail aircraft, and making all the detail is what makes the simulator model seem more real to me. Also, I cant abide by low poly and low resolution models in the sim these days. It's 2013, and products that would have been cutting edge in 1999 don't really do it for me! I primarily model in AC3D, but i dip in and out of Blender to unwrap some parts, and to do all my Ambient Occlusion baking. Baked textures are prevalent on the detailed areas, and this process adds so much to a model that it really can't be overlooked in my opinion. An accurate flight model is very important for this project, as, like so many other people, i doubt i'll ever have the chance to experience flying a fast jet 50ft from the ground through a valley, so getting a feel for it in the sim is desirable. The Jaguar, which has some 'interesting' high alpha traits, and supersonic performance is not the kind of aircraft that X-Plane simulates well, so lots of tuning is being done, and will continue to be done, to try and replicate the real world handling characteristics. I have no fixed estimate for release yet, but i do know this will be a payware offering. It'll be released when i'm happy with it, and not before! The main areas i have left to complete are the 3D cockpit, and the UV layout for the main exterior model. The flight model work will be done alongside those two tasks, and final scripting will be done when everything else is complete. I mainly use v9 at the moment, but will be releasing a v10 model in the end. I'm not going to waste time trying to tune a flightmodel to v10 yet, as the goalposts are always changing! I have a blog running that i post development updates and pictures to, and i'll post here whenever i make an update. Enough typing, its pretty picture time!

Don't let the zenophobes at the org get you down. They have a seriously misplaced sense of value. The most valuable thing the org has is NOT it's advertising potential. The most valuable thing is BY FAR the user base that built the site. The admins have put very little of value into it.

You guys are probably getting sick of these.. but Im not. And this is my only outlet! Just departing Geneva.. For this one I tried putting the cumulus layer much higher, at like 20-25k. That way my FPS would still be decent around the heavy Geneva area..and then once I got up into the clouds it was fine because It wasnt drawing so many ground textures. Still using Very High res.. some cockpits are just too detailed for Extreme. Also an important note with HD mesh my VRAM jumps up to 3000 easily even in mountain areas.

Why aren't your nuts bolts lock-wired? edit: tired, brain fade.

My favourite aircraft has to be the a380.

Don't know but I love small turboprops, so hope it's still working hard !

We're on it!

This makes your work even more amazing! I am excited to watch your progress.

Tonka, I saw this thread over the org a while ago, and I almost forgot about it ... MY BAD ! That's true, the modeling is truly amazing for sure, textures and level of details too !! A very promising project that I'll look forward too for sure ! And I share the same view, we are in 2014 soon, low poly models are seeing their last days... ;-) For example, the landing gear and hydraulics details you put there ... hey ! many people will say " it's a flightsimulator not an mechanical simulation " etc etc etc ... The fact ios that, when I spend time near a real airframe in the real world, those marvelous mechanical parts ( landing gears, flaps, rotorheads for helicopters etc ) ... I just fall in love with its so .. ;-) Wish you luck during the development process

Departing.. LSGG? for LFMN. Climb through a cloud.. Passengers got some nice views. tinted windows? Copilot admiring the skies Approach to Nice.. aaaand we made it safely! Beautiful.. Still dont know how to land big planes, I do it traffic pattern GA style hahah.

Hey Ben, check your PMs my friend. Random ATR flight. Im starting to get confused I hope I didnt post these already As always, click to enlarge!

Do you know that I was banned from x-plane.org? That an x-plane.org developer tried to poach me away from X-Aviation and I was also re-assured that I would get a better deal than what Cameron was offering? Did you know that Jim Gregory is now on mod review because he made 1 mention of Gizmo at the org? That Theo is on mod review because he posted 1 screenshot (within the orgs screenshot guidelines) of the DC-3 and was warned against advertising X-Aviation products? (Never mind the fact that x-plane.org developers are free to post anything they want at these forums) None of us like the way we were treated by Nicolas or the moderators, yet you don't see any of us making hateful, derogatory posts of anything at x-plane.org or their store and what they sell. (I can point you to several examples of what they have said about us) Even though, as you say, we are completely and unequivocally entitled to. But hey, I guess that's just how we roll. Anyway, glad you won't be replying, because I would rather not derail the thread. I just wanted to reply to your post and close the subject. Let's hope you'll change your mind about Gizmo when the Saab update comes out (I think you know the post I am referring to) seeing as the Saab wouldn't have been possible without it.

Ben and jonrd, great pics! Ben I love that approach shot. Those god rays... What sky colours are you guys using? Also yes the new HD mesh is amazing. It almost looks as good as orthophotos to me. Ripping through Northern BC mountains with some new mesh

Enjoy. Love all the possibilities! Version 1.1 coming soon.

Small update. I've looked into the animation of the QNH of both variants, and there is nothing suggesting why the wheel version isn't working. So I plan on copying a section of the float variant obj file that involves the QNH to the wheel variant obj file and hopefully this will fix it. Apologies for this.

Been spending a lot of time in British Columbia thanks to Andras' HD mesh. Combined with SkyMAXXX and John's magic, flying is an absolute joy in X-Plane now!

Needed to do this for awhile, I will be adding content over the course of the week: http://maxx-xp.com/

Work-Wife-Kids-XP myself 5 kids BTW my house looks like the inside of a clown car........

Someone clearly needs to see a psychiatrist.....

More development from after hours last night ... (don't ask about the three runways, it's the airport which is a separate scenery file) Here are the modifications to the airport imagery I had to make: -Relocate airport by approximately 900 feet. -Move runway within the airport boundary to avoid a cliff. -Add a completely new road from scratch. -Add another completely new road from scratch. -Remove a plane from the tarmac (and that was the easy part).

Just some small improvement: seats, pedals, steering "wheel"