As an experienced 3D modeller and long time flight simulator fan I thought it would be fun to build my own aircraft. I chose to model for the IL2 series of WWII flight sims as the designer Oleg Maddox accepts third party models and there is a good community of modellers to give advice on the Netwings forums. My next problem was deciding which aeroplane to model. I wanted to do a British aircraft as they are under represented in the game and because I’m British. As a lot of the major type were already in game or under development it came down to a chose between the Gloucester Meteor jet fighter and the Mosquito. I was influenced to do the Mossie because more people seemed to want it and it also a beautiful design.

It took me less than a month from the start of April 2004 to complete the basic models of the Mk IV and MkVI as well as creating the skin. I then showed my work on the Netwings forum and was contacted by Enbriac a Czech modeller and Mosquito enthusiast who wanted to help. Enbriac checked my models for errors and built the main undercarriage and canopy frames. I carried on modelling the level of detail (LOD) and damage models. These are time consuming and are often the point in the project were a lot of models get abandoned. There are six LOD models including the full detail version and five more that reduce in complexity as the in game viewing distance increases. There are also two levels of damage to model and skin plus caps to cover removed sections of the wings and tail.

The external models plus drop tanks, bomb racks and rockets was finished by mid August 2004 and I turned my attention to the cockpit. I decided to only model a cockpit for the fighter bomber Mk VI version as it would be more fun to fly. I was sent a copy of the existing Hurricane cockpit and managed to reuse some of instrument as well as getting a good idea of how to build one. The hardest part was finding enough reference and I ended up investing in a lot of books and back copied of magazines. The cockpit was finally completed for the beginning of October 2004 and sent to Oleg along with a large collection of original flight data supplied by Mark Huxtable.

Development update on the official UBI Pacfic Fighters site.

Click on the pictures below to see larger versions.