NZFF

Hi everyone, well I have been a busy beaver, no pun intended , and what better way to while away Christmas day than doing a skin for FSX. I present the Volcanic Air Safaris de Havilland Beaver ZK-VAS.



As most will probably know the actual VAS located at Rotorua is an Otter, but since the beaver is a close sister aircraft, thought it made for a great skin. The Otter has a very interesting history, as it was built in 1954 and served the Canadian Air Force for many years. The Otter served with a rescue unit in Nova Scotia first and was later shipped to Egypt as part of the United Nations duties to supervise the ceasefire between Israel and Egypt after the Suez crisis.



In 1975, the Otter was transferred to the Province of Ontario to fly for the Ministry of Natural Resources. It flew government personnel to remote areas and was used for VAS websirescue work, fire fighting and cargo carrying. An American company bought the Otter in 1986 and from then on, the floatplane became a tourist carrier. Not long after, it was purchased by an Alaskan company who used the Otter for commuter type services. A few years later, The Otter made its way back to Canada and in 2004 it was shipped to New Zealand. YAY!

Note: Unfortunately I'm not flowing with wisdom on this aircraft, the information provided above was taken from the VAS Website



The Beaver will be available to download exclusively from the ARNZ website in a few hours. Cheers.

Great Stuff Jon, I'll DL it as soon as I can find it (along with the Helipro repaint - I can't find it anywhere!)

Looks very nice I will d/l soon, as I enjoy flying that little aircraft (its not too bad on fps lol)

btw i didnt know the fsx water reflected your aircraft!

It does james, you just gotta turn your warer settings up.

Nice shots, good to see this plane now represented in FS.

Very nice paint Jon
Is there a reason you elect to package the file as an executable, rather than a plain zip file?
I generally prefer zips as I can see what's in them, and control where they go.
Case in point, the VAS.exe has a small glitch in creating the texture folder, which I only saw after manually checking through the unzipped folder.
It kind of defeats the purpose of the executable package, really.

It was also my first real look at FSX.
The stock install does deliver textures almost as good as the best custom FS9, on my system.
Can't wait for DX10

PS I had a splendid FSX/FS9 back-to-back screenshot pair using Steve Jenks' VAS Otter as comparison.
But I am married to a lady who, by walking into a room, can cause hard drives to cease all activity, and computers to freeze.
I'll maybe have another go, another time.

Yeah I agree with Charl on the EXE/ZIP thing.

And, I found where to DL these files!

Dam, this really makes me want to get FSX.... good job Jon!

The reason they are exe files, plain zip are also my preference, is I have had trouble uploaded plain zip files to ARNZ at the moment. However i find that the exe zips are no problem, I generally unzip them to desktop in a temp folder, the files should unzip with folders intact.

EDIT

Well prove me a liar, I tested this again and shazam! They uploaded. So all the exe's have been replaced with .zips now. Thanks for the feedback guys, I wouldnt have bothered looking into this again without it.

Hi all's , had some fun doing this , got a few other models in the AH plane Hanger . I need to install the others , but this is a start , This was to view X with Robins Wanaka , We all agree fantastic! .. and Jon has kicked the doors open for default paints
I flew into Wanaka
Albeit without any load and plenty off flap , hokay .. got the keys to these not to touch


But its still not the same !



Anyways all this fun , I really enjoy this REAL NZ and NZPaints

HECKS ... Can never get sick off this !

Great shots Ian, good to see you getting FSX up and running on your new monster!

Nah not yet Jon , put a new DVD into other pc , mainly to find out what off my FS9 payware works in X , ooooo the Andover better get me a inta G and get that paint finished along with 748's .

Whoo Ian, love that cranked-wing thing!
Is it that French model or which? there are soo many F-4's around

Hi Ya Charl , thats the Aeroplane Heaven payware jobbie , the models start with the Birdcage( Tim Wallis NZ intro to a real back in 94/95) to a Reno Rocket Ship ! that thing near fly's like a Helicopter on takeoff !