More tinkering and some Southern Soaring - Plenty of pics

More swearing at Photoshop resulted in my skin for GNM being completed, so that's another one down.
GOI was always going to cause some headaches - There isn't a DG-400 model available, so I resorted to using Wolfgang Piper's DG-202 17... So far so good, although I have a feeling the wingtip markings aren't quite as they should be.
Finally, after enjoying some wave down South in those two, I jumped into the Aerosoft Discus BM - It's just a shame that this model can't be re-skinned to represent one of the local Discii.

BKJ, V2.0 - Better, cleaner and now with more detail.

The learning curve was steep, but here's the results of 6hrs swearing at Photoshop - Nice clean straight lines, extra detail and that "just right" look. A little tweaking of the flight model and she'll be spot on.
For those Pawnee fans, I can't find a model with Hoerner wing tips so that rules out PNE for the sim - Matamata's BZA will be appearing soon though, after yet more swearing...

Now we're getting somewhere

My first crack at a powered aircraft repaint - BKJ now exists in Flight simulator! I still have a bit of work to do tidying up the blue stripes on the fuse and tweaking the config to get speeds and climb rates right, but it's a vast improvement on the Maule M7 default tow plane in FSX...
Here's a few teasers of BKJ with DS in tow:

Another joins the herd...

ASH-25 GTF has made it's first appearance in FSX! To be fair it's an old model, dating back to FS2002 so things are pretty basic. However like all of Wolfgang Piper's models, the polar curve is spot on - meaning that just like the real-world GTF, if you can see it you can more than likely glide there...

The fleet grows...

All this warm weather hasn't done much for the idea of sitting in front of a computer, trawling for hours looking for pictures of local gliders both past and present... However, I have managed to knock out a quick interpretation of a Discus CS and an ASW-15.
At this point they should be considered as working drafts until I get a better grip of Photoshop. Both models are available free of charge from Wolfgang Piper's website www.fsglider.de
Unfortunately, the Aerosoft Discus models are effectively unable to be reskinned to represent local machines due to the texture mapping used. However, I know some individuals are plugging away at this through trial and error.
A DG is in the works, and another individual is attempting photoreal skins for the Glide Omarama fleet of Duo Discuses (Discii?)

It has begun...

In the time since I last flew, I've been hitting flight simulators hard - FS2004, FSX and Condor (A pure soaring simulator) - Of these, Condor is by far the best in terms of aircraft and environmental dynamics... Just let down by the visual modeling.
FS2004 has a fair few models and a few external plug-ins to get you up and away on a 500km task, but never quite hit the mark in terms of "feel"... Enter FSX - It hit the market with a pretty damn good thermal generation setup, and a DG-808. Overall much better, so much so that Aerosoft (a payware addon developer) recently released a Discus available in 3 flavours: 2B/CS, BT and M for those who like self launching. More on that Discus at a later date.
This weekend saw some progress made: ZK-GKM - TGC's LS-4 and ZK-GDS - the Pink Ka7 have made their way into FSX. Early days yet, with a lot of tidying up to do on both models which will require photos to work from.