More boats for Monowai


by SeanG

I know, I know… another post about boats on an aviation site! But bear with me, there is at least a screenshot of a helicopter this time!

Development has been moving along nicely on Monowai with the addition of some ‘proper’ boats to replace the generic placeholders I had in early versions.

Steaming South through the Red Sea with her new boats aboard

On the davits are two SMB (Survey Motor Boats), while on the foredeck is a Rotork Sea Truck… like a mini landing craft, which could carry a Landrover or Landcruiser ashore.

The main purpose of this project is to give the AI Wasps somewhere to operate from, and during the week I achieved just that; A small test scenery of Monowai with a Wasp operating from her helicopter deck.

Wasp ’04’ departing from Monowai on a test mission

Now that I have the process sorted for building working scenery around the ship I plan on placing multiple ‘copies’ of Monowai in various locations, with associated Waps flying meaningful survey or supply missions.

I’m pretty pleased with how Monowai is looking, and with a few final details I will be happy to draw a line under it and finalise the package and release it. I will be producing my complete package, as well as a ‘Scenery Library’ package for scenery designers to use.
So far this has been a cool project which I have really enjoyed. I am toying with the idea of continuing my ship modelling, and move on to HMNZS Endevour, but like anything in this hobby, that is likely to change!

Navy Night


by SeanG

I did a bit of fiddling around tonight to produce a ‘Static’ version of Monowai, with a ‘landable’ helipad. Regular visitors will notice that Monowai has lost her boats..after a long and informative discussion with a former Monowai crew member, I now have enough details to create new, and much more accurate boats, which is the next step!

Monowai in company with the 4 Leander Frigates in the Hauraki Gulf

As a quick test of the scenery object I added it to the RNZN Fleet in the Hauraki Gulf. The hardened helipad worked as expected, and Monowai looked great! (RNZN Frigates by Mike Hudson, available at all good FS sites)

One Quiet Wednesday Evening


by SeanG

Monowai is making progress on her delivery voyage. Having left Glasgow on Sunday, she stopped in London for a brief visit, and has now made her way back down the Thames and is heading for her next port visit in Gibraltar.

Sailing back down the Thames, trying to re-create a photo of her real maiden voyage

It has been interesting comparing the relative rate of progress of Monowai, at 14 Knots, to Canterbury.. The trip ‘home’ in Monowai is going to be a long, long journey!

After Monowai had left the Thames, and was safely on Autopilot I headed up to the loft to try and sort a PC issue with the 737 sim. After a wee bit of tinkering I got it up and running, and even had a short flight. Motivation suitably restored, I am once again looking forward to getting it shifted to it’s new home and doing more flying!

Monowai: Update


by SeanG

Another evening’s work on Monowai, and the details are starting to get filled in. The mission was to add the major structures to the fore deck and the various antennae around the top of the superstructure.

The blue coloured bits are yet to be finished and painted, but she is looking much ‘busier’ with more of the details being completed.

HMNZS Monowai: First Look


by SeanG

After completing the initial release of my AI Wasp, I started looking for places for them to fly… I have models of the Leander Class Frigates, but when I found out that Monowai also had an embarked Wasp I thought I’d have a go at modelling her. This is the first quick compile in the sim to have a look, and I think it is looking pretty good so far. Eventually I plan a static scenery object, to be part of the “destinations for the Wasps” but also as a pilot-able ship for my ‘Nautical Adventures’ series….

AI Westland Wasp Released!


by SeanG

It’s been a long time coming, but this evening I uploaded the finished ‘version 1.0’ of my RNZAF_AI Wasp to Military AI Works. It is a long time since I spent any serious time in GMax, and the Wasp has been a great learning experience. I was surprised at how much easier GMax was after the hours and hours of work I’ve done in Fusion360. Despite GMax being from a much older generation of CAD, a huge amount of workflows I use daily in Fusion 360 transferred over pretty well. I am quite happy with this, my first complete AI Aircraft package in a very **very** long time!

Wasps on the ‘Naval Support Flight’ flight-line at Hobsonville.

The package will be available for download from the Military AI Works website soon!

F421 Canterbury Update


by SeanG

Over the past few weeks I have spent some time in the evenings updating the visual model of F421, adding a virtual cockpit, hand rails and even a crew. The most exciting part of the upgrade has been the addition of animated parts, some simple, like spinning radar scanners and the flapping ensign, some a little more complex like the ‘lowering of the ships boat’….

Canterbury sails in the morning sunlight of the Caribbean

Now, with the push of a button the ‘Captains Gig’ lowers to the surface, then disappears so that I can deploy my own copy of the ships’ boat… more of that Nautical Madness!

  • Boat Secure Aboard
  • Davits Swing Out
  • Boat Lowered to the Surface
  • …And away!
  • Empty Davits Stowed
Boat Launching evolution, all by the press of a button!

Many more animations have been added but more on those later, along with a rundown on the other improvements around the ship.

SWN April 7, 2020


by SeanG

Last week’s Sim Work Night turned into a CAD exercise on the 3d Model of Canterbury.. so not much to show!
This week is a different matter. I started the process of swapping out the flight controls in the Skyhawk a couple of weeks ago, and this week I made some serious progress!

The mechanic’s of the stick were all stripped down and cleaned, then I ripped apart an old Logitech ‘Attack 3’ joystick and salvaged the circuit boards inside it. Now I have the stick extended, and interfaced with the Logitech boards. For now I have wired only the switches I intend using, as the stick has more buttons than the Skyhawk grip anyway!

The grip reassembled after being re-wired.

The stick shaft has been extended 100mm, which give a travel which feels about right, and now has a nice offset to make it fit in your hand nicely.

With the extension in place and the new cabling running out the front of the stick I interfaced it to the Logitech boards.
Switch wires attached to the back of the existing boards.
In place, with suitable ‘spacer’ to test the location

With the Throttle and Stick Rewired I tested the various axes and switches, and all worked fine!
The next step in the build is to design a pedestal to support the stick at it’s right height, incorporating an enclosure for the various boards cables and connectors, then make a suitable mounting structure for the Throttle. Part of the mount will include adding a Flap switch to the structure so that it is located correctly (finally) For now the Throttle doesn’t have any buttons interfaced, that is for a later time!