Erickson S-64 Aircrane anyone?

[wlbragg]

According to a picture I have and the fact that this model has a hanging step on the starboard side under the rear windows, I will go ahead and add that door also.
The rear facing door also needs a hanging step and a cutout in the fuselage.

[wlbragg]

Hum, now I am confused as to whether the rear door is suppose to be there. I have yet to find a picture that definitively shows an Aircrane with a two door configuration. I have plenty that show either a rear door or a side door. But I cant find one that shows a side door with a rear door at the same time? And for sure the model in fgaddon is suppose to have a side door.



This image I think shows a step for the starboard side door?



Can't tell for sure it the rear is a door or not?

https://www.airplane-pictures.net/photo ... -skycrane/
Same photo as above but higher resolution.

[wlbragg]

Starboard rear door

[wlbragg]

Added the step cutout in the fuselage and the step ladder.



Next up is to replace the winch and hitch model with a realistic one. I found some really good video and pictures of how it looks, operates and connects to the fuselage. I think when finished it will really enhance the AirCrane simulation.

Anyone want to volunteer to make a texture for the interior floor and wall (to replace the shadeless gray)? As you can see I need a better texture so we can have some definition in the wall and floor joints.

[wlbragg]

This video depicts the winch, hitch and guard I plan going to reproduce.

[wlbragg]

Work on the cable guide. I think I may need to enlarge the circumference. It turned out a bit to small I think when compared to some pictures of the real thing.

[wlbragg]

Finished texturing the cable guard and the select animation logic. Unfortunately the rope and cable need to be repositioned which requires some code tuning for the flexible rope. The video shows how the rope will winch up and down. I need to change the winch speed and see if I can smooth out the motion. The code that changes the rope length appears to interfere with the rope animation somewhat causing it to be a bit jerky. Maybe a speed adjustment will help.

Also to be done is to cut out another panel in the fuselage where the winch is located and to model the winch and the quick connect at the end of the rope/cable.

I also added a removable panel that covers the fuselage step at the rear engineer door.

[wlbragg]

New rope and cable textures. I'm not completely happy with either, especially the rope. But good enough for now.

[wlbragg]

Finished modeling the Hitch.





Next up, the winch!

[wlbragg]

Hitch is finished including the animation of the hook.

[wlbragg]

[wlbragg]

Mad respect for modelers. This is some time consuming stuff.

Working on the seats...

[wlbragg]

I guess I kind of forgot to push a bunch of this newer work and so I just did. However, because I got away from it for too long and did too much prior to a commit and push to the repository, the last few commits are a mess to follow. I think eventually I will start over on the repository and make a new production milestone branch and a development branch and try to keep it a little bit better organized. That would also greatly reduce the footprint of the production version on end user systems.
Sorry for the mess. Please let me know if there is anything missing or if you have any problems.

[StuartC]

wheres the latest download ?

[wlbragg]

https://github.com/wlbragg/AirCrane