petermcleland 48 Posted March 3, 2017 Report Share Posted March 3, 2017 Khormaksar to Nairobi 3rd June 1960.. This is a video I made to commemorate the last leg of 208 Squadron getting their brand new Hunter FGA9s from UK out to Kenya...Set the quality to 1080 and watch it on full screen mode with high volume. :agree: Some of you have probably seen it before! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
J G 927 Posted March 3, 2017 Report Share Posted March 3, 2017 Very nice! how did you do the formation flying? Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted March 3, 2017 Report Share Posted March 3, 2017 Very nice. Love the shots of all the new toys pulling into their parking spots on the Kenyan ramp. Stitching together those 12+ planes (in FSRecorder??) is not a "short project"...let alone flying 4 or more legs, one for each plane for the Formation shots. Cheers. Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted March 3, 2017 Report Share Posted March 3, 2017 Really well done, Khormaksar is an interesting airfield, or at least it was back then. You saw all sorts of things in there. Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted March 3, 2017 Report Share Posted March 3, 2017 12 minutes ago, dodgy-alan said: Really well done, Khormaksar is an interesting airfield, or at least it was back then. You saw all sorts of things in there. Nowadays...just in Dodgy's Hangar. What the heck are those in the background Alan? 1 Link to post Share on other sites
rosariomanzo 545 Posted March 3, 2017 Report Share Posted March 3, 2017 Nice! Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted March 3, 2017 Report Share Posted March 3, 2017 Peter, your flight sim video's never fail to entertain, well done. Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,285 Posted March 3, 2017 Report Share Posted March 3, 2017 Hi Peter, long time no see. Hope all is well by you. Enjoyed this lovely video commemorating a part of your history, great flying too. Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted March 3, 2017 Report Share Posted March 3, 2017 2 hours ago, Captain Coffee said: Nowadays...just in Dodgy's Hangar. What the heck are those in the background Alan? They are Blackburn Beverley Freighters. Only one left now sadly. Until the C-130 turned up they were the biggest transports in the RAF. Big lumbering aircraft that could fly out of an unprepared strip. They spent most of their working lives out in the middle and far east. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburn_Beverley 1 Link to post Share on other sites
petermcleland 48 Posted March 4, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2017 Thanks for your interest Gents...The way this video and the ones of the other legs was made is so complicated that I could write a whole book about it...BTW FSRecorder was not used...I'll put together an essay about it today and post it later 1 Link to post Share on other sites
petermcleland 48 Posted March 4, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2017 (edited) Well here is the start of the story:- The real flight covered in the video occurred on 3rd June 1960...The twelve Hunter FGA9s flew out from UK to Kenya on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd June. We flew in three four ship formations with each four in wide battle formation and I led one of the fours. My PDF file about 208 Squadron in Kenya covers the period including this flight and can be downloaded here:- http://www.petermcleland.com/dl/208_Squadron_in_Kenya_PDF.zip The PDF file is enclosed in a ZIP and after unzipping can be viewed in Adobe Acrobat Reader (a free download). Anyway, as we approached the 50th Anniversary of the flight out to Kenya I decided to make a video of each of the six legs that we flew to get there...Politics forced us to fly the following route:- Stradishall to Luqa in Malta to Nicosia in Cyprus, Nightstop. Then to Tehran in Iran via a point due North of Cyprus to avoid overflying Syria. Then to Sharja in the United Arab Emirates, Nightstop. Then to Khormaksar in Aden and finally to Nairobi airport in Kenya (Eastleigh was to short for our Hunters). So, the first step was to make an airfield at Stradishall because for some years now it has been a Prison...When the airfield was ready and functioning I took Dave Garwood's Hunter and adjusted the liveries to show our twelve aircraft exactly with the correct registrations and the pilot's names on the left side of each cockpit. Mine was "Echo" XE 609 with my name, Flt. Lt. P. R. E. McLeland...I already had the livery for mine from Dave Garwood and I just had to change the colour of the letter "E" for Echo to yellow on the fin and the nosewheel door and make the rest of the nosewheel door blue. Having got Echo sorted I just adjusted the "Letter" and the Pilot's name to make the other 11 Hunters...Now I had a whole squadron at a working RAF Stradishall and was ready to get testing for the big move to Kenya...And I really wanted to make the flights on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd June 2010, half a Century after the real original flights. BTW that Hunter in my "Banner" below is my Hunter "Echo" and my son is standing on the pilot's seat and I am on the ladder Edited March 4, 2017 by petermcleland addition 3 Link to post Share on other sites
hifly 925 Posted March 4, 2017 Report Share Posted March 4, 2017 Terrific stuff Peter, I like the formation taxis and your account of the trip. Good to see you again. Best, Geoff Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted March 4, 2017 Report Share Posted March 4, 2017 Superb bit of work Peter, I don't think I'd have the time or the patience...........neither would my computer for that matter! LOL Link to post Share on other sites
petermcleland 48 Posted March 5, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2017 (edited) Part 2 of essay:- Some things you need to know about Traffic in FS...It only exists for a radius of about 60 nms from YOUR position...Beyond that it simply vanishes and if you are watching it then you are dumped back on the ground where you are. So you can imagine how very interested I was in an app that allowed you to clip yourself onto any AI Traffic aeroplane and thus go with it all the way to its destination because although you were clipped on to it, you were always at the centre of that 60 nms radius circle. I wanted my 208 Squadron formation to allow me to follow it every mile of the long six leg journey from Stradishall to Nairobi. This formation was all AI Traffic and I was not flying any of them as a pilot...I just clipped onto one of them and took suitable clips of video with Fraps that I could clip together as one video for each of the six legs. I was able to pan myself around using the hat switch and zoom in and out as required. My next task now that I had a working Stradishall with a complete 208 Squadron was to train them to fly in the various formations required. This required a lot of work with AFCAD to make completely invisible airfields with a runway and taxiway and tower frequency for each aircraft...These invisible airfields needed to be positioned strategically relative to their REAL Departure or Destination airfield and furthermore there needed to be four invisible runways on each of the REAL airfield's runways. ALL these invisible runways needed to have a fictitious airfield name that could be programmed into an AI Traffic Flightplan...The object was that each of the twelve Hunters fly their own individual Flightplan and because they would all call ATC for Take-Off Clearance at the same time, on their own frequency, they would all move together and remain in their formation positions for the rest of the flight to their destination. At their flightplanned destination they would all land on an invisible set of runways SHORT of the REAL destination but alligned with the same runway heading and on the approach path to the real runway with about a mile or two to go. This invisible set of runways would arrange the aircraft in their new formations ready to take-off again for the short run in and break over the REAL destination (in the case of that final leg video that you watched it was three echelons of four aircraft). One other thing that I had to arrange was that the invisible runways on top of the REAL visible runway would link up with the visible REAL airfield's taxiways and parking and normal ATC frequencies...I also had to put special parking for the 12 Hunters in each of the destination's AFCAD files. I did make some YouTube videos of various formation training flights here:- Formation Training:- Squadron Scramble:- Boxes&FingerFours:- I also worked a bit at McLeland Field using the F16s there:- WIP2:- WIP 1080 Hope you can understand all this stuff...After all this time, I'm having enough trouble understanding it myself! If you want to click them up to 1080p resolution you might need to click the YouTube icon...They are best viewed at 1080 and Full Screen in YouTube Edited March 5, 2017 by petermcleland 2 Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted March 5, 2017 Report Share Posted March 5, 2017 (edited) I noticed on the F-16 vid,(and indeed the Hunter one) that a few of the aircraft on the ground got somewhat tangled up. Edited March 5, 2017 by dodgy-alan Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,285 Posted March 5, 2017 Report Share Posted March 5, 2017 Peter, thanks for the detailed explanation. That was quite a project you embarked on, totally impressed. Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted March 6, 2017 Report Share Posted March 6, 2017 You trained the AI to formation fly very well...rock steady fliers. Very very confudling process to create that piece it sounds...a Labor of love no doubt...and it came out great for your efforts. Phew. Link to post Share on other sites
petermcleland 48 Posted March 6, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2017 (edited) This is the final part of my post and contains the videos to see the other five legs...The videos of the legs were all made in 1080p resolution and these days some browsers don't let you go to that quality. However YouTube now have the answer to that in the form of a little YouTube icon on the bottom edge...Click this and you will transfer to YouTube to watch the videos in the top quality. The post ends with a picture of my Logbook page for these flights in 1960. Stradishall to Luqa on Malta Luqa to Nicosia on Cyprus Nicosia to Tehran in Iran Tehran to Sharjah in the Emirates Sharja to Khormaksar in Aden The final leg to Nairobi is at the top of this thread. Finally here is my Logbook page:- Thanks for looking Edited March 6, 2017 by petermcleland Errors 3 Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,285 Posted March 6, 2017 Report Share Posted March 6, 2017 Those Hunters sound so cool taking off I never get tired of listening to them. Thanks for the views. Cool seeing the logbook too, now I am guessing the entries for June 21-27th are for practicing gun runs for the 30mm cannon but my brain can't get around the R.P. part. Care to school me on that Peter? Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted March 6, 2017 Report Share Posted March 6, 2017 (edited) I found it interesting that the pilots didnt always fly the same aircraft...were the seats randomly assigned...or was there a reason for the tail number changes? Edited March 6, 2017 by Captain Coffee Link to post Share on other sites
petermcleland 48 Posted March 7, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2017 13 hours ago, brett said: Those Hunters sound so cool taking off I never get tired of listening to them. Thanks for the views. Cool seeing the logbook too, now I am guessing the entries for June 21-27th are for practicing gun runs for the 30mm cannon but my brain can't get around the R.P. part. Care to school me on that Peter? Rocket Projectiles Brett...They needed a totally different sighting method from that used for the 30mm Aden cannons. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
petermcleland 48 Posted March 7, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2017 13 hours ago, Captain Coffee said: I found it interesting that the pilots didnt always fly the same aircraft...were the seats randomly assigned...or was there a reason for the tail number changes? Twelve of us had our "own Aeroplane" with our name on the left side of the cockpit. When a flying detail was authorised a pilot would have his own aeroplane if it was available...If not then he would have any that were available. Reasons for an aeroplane to not be available...Already airborne, Unservicable or away on detachment etc. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
petermcleland 48 Posted March 7, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2017 On 05/03/2017 at 17:37, dodgy-alan said: I noticed on the F-16 vid,(and indeed the Hunter one) that a few of the aircraft on the ground got somewhat tangled up. You are looking at the point where an AI pilot flying exclusively along his own Flightplan line comes to a junction where he joins a common taxi line for all aircraft...The AI pilots do not "know" they are part of a formation or their position in the formation and there is no such thing as "Leader"...They just fly their own Flightplan and make all their own RT calls ( A nightmare to listen to when they are all on a common frequency!). this is why they each have their own ground frequency so that they will not have to speak in turn and can start moving together. When they come to use a taxiway common to all then it is "first come, first served" and they just use their ability to sit a bit behind the one in front when they have actually got onto the common line. That is why they get a bit close to each other as they join a taxiway from their own individual and invisible runway line...It is also why the leader of a four may not taxi in first. They may taxy in out of order but they will all taxy onto their own correct parking spot on the line. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted March 7, 2017 Report Share Posted March 7, 2017 Very creative use of the game mechanics. Especially the 4 parallel custom landing fields for each airport in the journey...an inspired "work around". Thanks for the explain of the plane swaps. Was E-609 "Your plane" that you started the log/flights in, and if so, how come you never got back into it? Did it end up in a maint. hangar after you thrashed it down to Embakazi? Link to post Share on other sites
petermcleland 48 Posted March 7, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2017 1 hour ago, Captain Coffee said: Very creative use of the game mechanics. Especially the 4 parallel custom landing fields for each airport in the journey...an inspired "work around". Thanks for the explain of the plane swaps. Was E-609 "Your plane" that you started the log/flights in, and if so, how come you never got back into it? Did it end up in a maint. hangar after you thrashed it down to Embakazi? Well I did fly XE609 "Echo" plenty of times after that...But It was on a major service for a while and I air tested it on 8th September and then flew it frequently after that. In fact I flew it many times more than any other Hunter and it was the last flight I did with 208 in Kuwait in August 1961 at the end of the Kuwait debacle with General Kaseem at that time...my last flight in "Echo" was Aerobatics over Ahmadi in Kuwait 3rd August 1961. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
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