C-130 Fat Albert JATO Effect

[Gunfighterj]

Hey I recently downloaded the Blue Angels Fat Albert C-130. The real Fat Albert has eight (4 on each side) Solid rocket boosters for a Jet assisted Takeoff (JATO). I was wondering if anyone has ever come up with an effect that can animate the flame coming from the rockets. If they have can you please post the Aircraft.cfg Effect here please?

Here's a picture: http://www.blueangels.navy.mil/images/photos/2008_wp_02.jpg

Sorry that the picture is huge.

[Voodoo]

Funny you should mention it. I'm sure I recalled seeing a Blue Angels C130 model in FS2004 that had JATO rocket effects - someone told me it was a Captain Sim one but I could never find anything freeware for FSX...so I decided just last month to make one myself.

Or rather what I should say is I decided to take Mike Stone's freeware model for FS2004 adapted by Eric Buchmann (which I assume is the model you have?) and completely reworked it for FSX. I've given it brand new, painted from scratch, DDS textures, with a Blue Angels 2008 livery. Also created a new ENVMAP file to stop the horrible "rotating reflections" you get with FS2004 imports into FSX when the fuselage is a reflective style. Then married all this up with a freeware panel by Luca De Battista and some nice sound files by Farhaad Saboori. Fixed a few of the Panel bugs in the fuel and engine gauges, and finally added some new startup smoke and inflight engine smoke.

The only bits I haven't completed yet are the XML to control the engine smoke, and a special effect for the JATO rockets. So, even if there's an effect already out there for FSX, I think I'll give it a shot anyway and offer it up here if I can get it working. In fact, no point keeping it to myself when I'm finished, so I'll also offer up the new Blue Angels livery and airfiles too, along with the layered paintkit I created. And I might as well chuck in a set of RAF textures I made when I was creating the paintkit (the paintkit is PSP files, although if I've time I'll try and also convert it to PSD format as well).

Since it's only loosely connected with the Blue Angels hornet, and I certainly don't want to annoy our excellent Dreamteam hosts, I might try and get a webpage up that all this stuff can be downloaded from, and just put the link here. Now I am just realising how much I'm biting off and how long it's likely to take...sorry if this all takes a while to get ready.

The attached piccy shows a preview (of course, not including the JATO effect yet)

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Gunfighterj]

Sorry I haven't replied, I was on vacation. I Actually got it from fsxblueangels.com. I was also wondering if the rockets could actually be afterburners with an effect of its own. That way they could function just like the real ones. I like the model you made. I wish I could model previous aircraft for FSX and repaint them. But all the tutorials I've looked at don't explain much.

[Voodoo]

Yup, that sounds like the Mike Stone model you have, Gunfighter. So once I 've got the effect working, it should work with the aircraft you have. (and so will the repaint)

I see what you're saying - rather than just have the rocket effect as eye-candy, it might be possible to tweak the airfile to enable afterburners and create a set of values that boost the engine power when the switch is flicked. I wonder if that is possible with parameters that are essentially for a prop-jet engine? I would have to spend more time working out how all the engine parameters work in the airfile. Up till now any reworking I've done was with the flight physics, and I've kinda left the engines alone. I'll add that to the "to do" list but probably post the fx and the other bits first and then go away to take a look at that later

(I can't take any credit for the model itself, by the way...that stays with Mike Stone et al. Same with the panel and sound. Only the repaint is my original work. The panel fixes are reworks of the originals...so credit has to stay with those guys too.)

[Gunfighterj]

Ok. Cool, Thanks for all the help.

[Voodoo]

This project has finally come to fruition, and the results can be seen over on the Unofficial F/A-18 Acceleration Pack board at http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=1362.0

Downloads of the new pack are available from voodoo.wikispaces.com

[Aeroman]

Hey I recently downloaded the Blue Angels Fat Albert C-130. The real Fat Albert has eight (4 on each side) Solid rocket boosters for a Jet assisted Takeoff (JATO).

Be careful not to confuse it actually having it (as in it actually being a part of the airframe) and being equipped with it.  JATO is a feature that can be implemented on any C-130 aircraft.  It's not a fixed part of the airframe, but rather rockets that are placed on it before flight only if needed (i.e. they're not there all the time).  This is probably why no one has modeled them yet...because they're not a normal part of the airframe of a C-130. 

The Blue Angels Fat Albert only shows off the JATO feature to demonstrate the C-130's general capability...not because it personally actually needs it to takeoff. 

[Gunfighterj]

Yeah I know that but in real life they produce like 8,000-9,000 lbs of force don't they? So they do add some effect and they are cool. The main reason I started this topic is if someone has created a file or something that would add it as an effect. And that you Voodoo for the file.

[Aeroman]

Oh yeah, they add lots of power when they're ignited!  I agree it'd be cool as some kind of addon feature, maybe as an afterburner...although that might take away from the short exciting burst of it that makes it exciting...  I was just saying that maybe that's why it hasn't been modeled yet.

[Intrepid]

Oh yeah, they add lots of power when they're ignited!  I agree it'd be cool as some kind of addon feature, maybe as an afterburner...although that might take away from the short exciting burst of it that makes it exciting...  I was just saying that maybe that's why it hasn't been modeled yet.

Voodoo and I have been banging our heads together to come up with a way to physically model the approx 100% extra  power kick in the pants that the Jato could produce .Unfortunately the modeling code that FSX  is written in, does not allow any kind of boost to be applied to turbo props.(that we can find) I thought of the code from afterburner aircraft ,turbo charged prop planes  even the War emergency power from the code of WW2 fighters,, all produced dead ends ,,If anybody out there has experience modifying XML code  we (VooDoo and I) are all ears
Randy

[Aeroman]

I know almost nothing about coding so I don't know of this could work...or maybe you've thought of it already anway, but is it possible to just create the visual effect of the JATO with the flames and stuff, and just program the perameters of the aircraft to extend the cap on the amount of thrust when the effect is activated?  I'm not sure how much sense that makes but I understand it in my head...lol.

[Intrepid]

I know almost nothing about coding so I don't know of this could work...or maybe you've thought of it already anway, but is it possible to just create the visual effect of the JATO with the flames and stuff, and just program the perameters of the aircraft to extend the cap on the amount of thrust when the effect is activated?  I'm not sure how much since that makes but I understand it in my head...lol.

Aeroman;
What we did find was that you can change the  torque output of the turboprops to double if wanted within the CFG files But the problem with that is it makes the change a 100%  of the time and that makes the throttle too sensitive and not very realistic, we were hoping to make the increase in torque only last the 20 seconds or so that the Jato bottles are lit 
Thanks though Aeroman, any ideas are worth looking into
Randy

[Razgriz]

My Jato has a boost. 

[Intrepid]

My Jato has a boost. 

 If ya don't mind Raz ... share some of yer wisdom ,, I would LOVE to know how that's achievable
Gordon (voodoo) and I have been at a loss on this one for months
I am all ears
Randy

[Voodoo]

Yeah I second that, Raz. I'm keen to learn how we can do this. Any advice you can give as to how to approach it?

- Voodoo