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[mikoyan99]

Beta 0.5:
https://www.mediafire.com/?56gtfjt8wlexw4z

I've recently got into modding Il-2; as a first project, I thought i'd have a go at a "Franken" aircraft. After reading through the autogiro thread, I came across this:

A-7-7A.

Further development of the series. Gyroplane - became a four bladed. Changed and the layout. Powerful offensive weapons has caused the need to move a power plant of two M-25 with  coaxial three bladed push  variable pitch propellers  to the aft of fuselage. The rotor has a mechanism of the provisional rotation for  power takeoff geared from the main power plant. Retractable wheeled landing gear with nose wheel. Design made it possible to fold the rotor blades back on vertical hinges, which, together with the lifting consoles was very valuable when transporting A-7.



A-7 was the last flying Kamov's autogyro. This was the first battle autogyro in the world and the first production rotary-wing apparatus in the USSR.

(Greif 11, page 12 of said thread)

I decided as it's my first project to go for a similar but fictional version, to make my life easier; this is progress so far:



It is of course based on the autogiro, with thanks to the original authors:
Greif11
Melissa
ton414 
SAS-Skipper
with additional parts from the stock game. I tried to get in touch with SAS-Skipper about using the model, but no response yet - if any of the above object to the use of the model/files etc, let me know and i'll take this down immediately, although I get the impression it's share and share alike here.
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The model is built up from the autogiro, Pe-3, Pe-2 (cockpit) and He-162, scaled and roated etc to fit. The exterior model is nearly complete, but there are a large number of issues to be addressed:
Major
[1]Landing gear made retractable, or at least practical. Constant prop strikes and a problem, with the front wheel sticking into the ground currently
[2] Texturing. I know nothing about texturing, but I need to generate a decent map in order to get it looking good, especially the glass parts.
[3] Weapons. With the change of model, the forward firing .50cals dissappeared. I don't have a clue as to how to fix this yet. Also, the 20mm cannon from the "stock" autogiro are poitning in the wrong direction.

Minor
[1] Armour/damage model. At the moment, even light machine gun is sufficient to blow it up completely.
[2] Additional weaponry. It'd be nice to have a wide range of weapons available, including bombs, rockets, cannon, and perhaps even a bow turret like the original.
[3] Cockpit location. Currently too far forward. Should be case of changing CF_D0 around a bit.
[4] Flight model. Would be nice if the aircraft was faster, thanks to the retractable landing gear
[5] Contra-rotating propellers.
[6] New wings with better damage model. Thanks to Crazyflak who told me how to add extra parts, this should be quite straightforward
[7] elevators, or a refined tailplane. Currently I can't get the twist right, it looks like a nightmare job even with Kumpel's matrix program.
[8] its own slot

https://www.mediafire.com/?qua5h0vbapsj992
I've attached an alpha if anyone wants a go in it. Please let me know of any bugs I haven't spotted. Likewise, if you know of any solutions to the problems above, or if you'd like to help with texturing etc, i'd be most grateful.
It requires the same specs as the autogiro, and uses the same slot. see:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,16065.0.html
-Matt

[sluggs]

This looks pretty cool, and a mod like this is a breath of fresh air. Good job.

[ton414]

Nice project mikoyan  , you have a long list of things to make, but sure you will do everything, if you put your mind to it.

[spitfire-MKIX]

Not bad for a first project!  I couldn't do even the half of your work!! And I think this autogyro looks like a tiny piston-engined A-10 Thunderbolt II 

[max_thehitman]

*Big Applause* That is coming along very nicely. Its starting to look great, just
 a few more tweaks and it will be ready in a little while.
Congrats on the job done so far!

[mikoyan99]

Cheers for the complements guys; fair progress in the past few days:

Got a much nicer base texture, still needs work but not too bad.  I've managed to restore the .50cal machine guns using the [Hook] entries in the .msh files, they now fire through external mg's at the wing roots. Still no success with the external cannon model, although I did also manage to get them firing from the same point - I can't find exactly which entry it is in the.hier file which controls it. For now, i'd be happy to hide it and have the cannons internal to the wing, but no joy with that either.
I've also added new wings, with anhedral tips like the original, and a new, more solid rotor pylon and larger rotor disc.

The landing gear and weapons are still being a PITA. I can't figure out how to animate (Isuspect must be done at 3d modelling stage), or utilise exisiting animations, in order to get them folding. I suspect the answer, along with the answer to the flight model and total weapons load lies in the files in the uppermost folder with names like "C4BD99BA7540F8AC", although when I open them, all I get is meaningless code.

If anyone could shine some light on these issues, that would be extremely handy.
-Matt

[razor1uk]

This is kinda cool looking, although linked the plans seem to suggest perhaps it having a tiny nose turret - like a shrunken B24's..
I wonder how this relates to the Japanese Naval Gunlaying/Recon/ASW 'Kayaba Ka-1/Ka-2 autgiro's in the ww2 timeline-wise....

Good luck, keep it up and an early Merry X-mas to you

[mikoyan99]

It does indeed - that's a job for the future, when I figure out how to install turrets. I have a side profile as well, and it looks most like a Lancaster nose turret. I tried to put the Pe-2 turret on behind the pilot as an experiment, but no joy - the model wouldn't load.

Edit: I know the precursor to this aircaft, the Kamov A-7-3, was used in the winter war with Finland - apparently the first use of rotary wing aircraft in combat, although i'm not sure if that definition of combat includes artillery spotting and whether the Japanese were doing just that in China in the mid 30's.

[RealDarko]

the precursor to this aircaft, the Kamov A-7-3, was used in the winter war with Finland - apparently the first use of rotary wing aircraft in combat, although i'm not sure if that definition of combat includes artillery spotting and whether the Japanese were doing just that in China in the mid 30's.

Spain used Autogyros in the combats against the 1934 revolution.

[mikoyan99]

Next beta:

https://www.mediafire.com/?56gtfjt8wlexw4z

I think this is almost as far as I can go without being able to edit the classfiles - so this is it for now; if anyone fancies having a go at getting a decent texture mapping and void, that would be greatly appreciated. There's another texture issue with the textures "popping" to orange when you zoom away from the aircraft; I don't know if that's related, or to do with the .mat files.
-Matt

Spain used Autogyros in the combats against the 1934 revolution.

I looked that up, and apparently that was for artillery spotting - the A-7-3 was used as a light bomber and ground attack aircraft.

[HotelAlpha]

It's an autogyro amazement!

[RooMan296]

This is a great little autogyro, even with the few bugs. Taking off and landing is still a little scary as to not knock out the engine but it flies perfectly once it's up. Thanks!