Posts Tagged ‘Lizzie’

 

On this special page I have collected links and other information related to our Lysander Secret Operations product, and of course the REAL Lysander(s) and lots of things related.

First of all, here is some footage taken at the Old Warden….. keep watching, the Lysander will show up too !!

 

Lysander History Links

 

 

 

 

Title		Lysander Special Operations
Series		FSAddon Aircraft
System		FSX only
Location		England and France
Author		Chuck Jodry, Jan Kees Blom, Francois Dumas and Milviz/Razbam
Design		Native FSX
Tested on		XP, Vista (32 and 64), FSX SP2, FSX Accel. and DX10 (NOT preview mode)
PRICE		US$ 34,95

 

I think I will settle on that title.

‘Westland Lysander for FSX’ just doesn’t cut it.
We have included a lot of documentation of some of the secret missions these planes and their brave pilots carried out behind enemy lines during World War 2. Initially designed as an army cooperation aircraft and new light bomber before the war, the Lysanders most famous actions were those carried out for the SOE to ferry resistance leaders and agents to and from occupied France.

There’s an huge chunk of history attached to this aircraft, its pilots and the squadrons it flew in, and you will find much of that in the extensive documentation we provide with it.

The model we have initially portrayed in our package is that of an SOE Lysander as it is now preserved (and still flying!) at the Shuttleworth Collection at the Old Warden airfield in the UK. The project started with buying a book written by one of its war time pilots, Hugh Verity, and from there on it became one of my personal pet projects.

BECAUSE it was (and is) a personal pet project, I kept pouring money into it, instead of giving up after the umpteenth designer let me down. So the end result now is a beautiful, fully working model and realistic for FSX, supported by a wealth of extra’s in terms of research, documentation, scenery even…. and Operation Guidelines.

That’s right. You not only get the beautiful STOL aircraft, but also a comprehensive set of operational documents allowing you to try your hand at what these brave and skilled pilots did in the war: fly by the light of the moon, navigate by streams, rivers, railroads, lakes and other landmarks visible in the moonlight….. and your compass….. and find minuscule torch lights flashing for you to land and pick up agents before the German Gestapo got on to it!

I can guarantee you many evenings and nights of breathtaking flying, and maybe some frustration at first, too. I know because I did it. I flew each and every mission, most of them many times. And although I am obviously biased, this being my Pet Project and being an aviation and WW2 buff at that, this truly is one of the best things I’ve done in years using Flight Simulator!

And please, do not think that this is not for you if you are an airline pilot used to FMC’s, electronics, endless check lists and hours of flight preparation.
One of the most experienced pilots at Old Warden, flying the ‘Lizzie’ and many of the other historical aircraft, is an active British Airbus captain, who now lives in France and comes over almost every week to fly these ‘real’ aircraft!

 

And yes, it looks EASY at day time….. now try with moonlight only ! :-)

 

TALLY HO !!!!!

 

We’re now at Beta 3 for the Lysander and hoping that Beta 4 will be the final one for the model, animation and textures. We’ve made great strides these past couple weeks ! Next will be engine sounds…. and I am now working on the missions that will accompany this model.

The ‘landing lights’ I used at first were not strong enough and one could never ever find the field in the dark. It still is near impossible even with the (much too strong) lights I have provided now, but we’ll add some ‘artificial help’ in order to not scare away all customers.

Here are some pictures Nick made, and some that I made of the first mission’s landing zone, somewhere north of the French village of Cluny.

 

and a shot from the location seen in Google Earth

 

Now that we’re all busy testing (or rather, our test team is!), I tought I’d post a few more pictures of the WIP (Work In Progress) of our Westland Lysander. Mind you, still a few things to be finished and adapted, but she’s really starting to look very handsome indeed !!

Here’s me just after take-off from one of the secret fields in the French countryside. YOU will of course do this by the light of the moon and without a GPS…. but I thought it would make for better pictures to make a day run first…… no Germans shot at us this time !!!

Here’s another few……

 

 

 

 

 

All pictures can be seen in REL SIZE on our FSAddon Facebook group here  and on my Smugmug Photosite, check it out here

More news when we have it…..

 

 

Why !? Because ‘my’ Lysander is finally getting real shape AND is flying with a dedicated flight model concocted by our Rob Young of RealAir and MAAM fame! Chuck Jodry has agreed to pick up the pieces left by the previous two attempts of getting this project ready for FSX (and FS) and we’re making good progress now.

Yes, ‘my’ Lysander. Because it has been a long-term dream of me to have one in FS, made the way I want ed it, and the way it looks in the Old Warden museum…. the last remaining airworthy one too. Also ‘mine’ because I more or less foolishly have sunk a great deal of money in it, mainly caused by me being so ‘green’ in the aircraft design business.

Never mind, I’ll forget all that once it starts rolling out the hangar and flying on YOUR PC’s….. hopefully in sufficient numbers to at least cover for my losses on this project. It will be FUN to fly no matter what, that’s for sure !

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turns out our newly found gauge designer can not do FSX gauges…… so much for the Lizzie progress. Bummer!
So we’re back to talking and trying to find another one again….. help cross our fingers. Problem is that our investments are going up in smoke and the bottom of the treasure chest is clearly visible for some time already ! That’ll make the competition grin ……

But…. we never give up, and there is good news too. I just made my first flight off the runway of the NEW SITKA, as part of the NEW TONGASS FJORDS X….. we’ll have pictures and progress reports soon. Bill is working on Petersburg now and we should ave a complete package for testing within a week or so.

Some good news for the Flightsim Fans is that I am now working on three separate FS projects simultaneously…. and MORE than me the main authors of course. We have a gauge designer for the Lizzie !!! That’s the good news I want to share first and foremost! It is Scott Thomas, whom I know from Milton Shupe’s projects. Needless to say we are VERY happy having things move forward again!

 

We’re still waiting for news from Rob Young who seems to have private problems and has once again disappeared from our view…. more on that later I hope.

The second project is Simon Smeiman’s nice little Cessna Bobcat T-50, a twin-engine aircraft from way back when. We are hearing rumors that we can’t use the word ‘Cessna’ anymore anywhere without getting invoiced or sued…. oh well, decent people seem to be the ‘last of the Mohicans’ these days. It doesn’t make Simon’s plane any less interesting!

And thirdly we have AJ Weber working on his LHA, Landing Ship, Helicopter, Amphibious. A naval ship aka helicopter carrier, used for amphibious landings. I’ll be putting up screenshots of these new projects soon. We’re now starting the Beta Process for them!

Oh,and last but certainly not least, Bill Womack reckons he needs 2 more weeks to get his part of Tongass ready before we can put that in Beta too….. we may need to expand our beta Team soon if things continue like this ! ;-)

Yes, I’ll be the first to admit; there’s still a TON of work to be done….. testing, testing and testing… getting a lot of details figured out and improved. A proper airfile needs to be added, as well as sounds. And then of course the scenery, the missions……

But…… we’re finally making headway again, so NOW we can leave for France….

 

Some more pictures, fresh from the paint shop…… first beta, remember!