Rated
May 16
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1 review
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nature, wildlife, aviation history, painting, aviation
• roychaffin.com
"Spirit of the Jaguar" by the wildlife artist Roy Chaffin
Roy sent me this picture last year as an electronic Christmas Card. I am lucky enough to receive one of his paintings each year in this way, and thereby hangs a tale.
Roy is not only a talented wildlife artist, he is also one of the brightest stars on the Flight Simulator horizon. He and a small team of equally talented people, collectively
R.C.S. Panels, produced among other things one of the best aircraft/panel combinations for Microsoft Flight Simulator that there have ever been.
The picture below is not a painting. It is the flight sim model of the R4D, a military version of the DC-3 aircraft. You can walk around it, get in it and sit down in one of the most amazingly realistic cockpits ever produced for the flight sim, and fly it. Whether you view it from inside or outside as you fly, it looks, sounds and behaves like the real plane. And it is freeware - a true labour of love, the result of countless hours of dedicated, unpaid work.
Roy and his team supported aircraft restoration projects at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum (MAAM), Pennsylvania, with a "donationware" CD containing a special collection of flight sim models. I made a small donation... and have received a wonderful Christmas card from Roy ever since.
BTW: Roy has some interesting views on what has happened recently to Microsoft, which you can read if you click the aircraft picture.
[MAAM's "World War II Weekend" with restored aircraft, attended by Roy Chaffin]
[The R4D flight sim package with details of cockpits]
["Fantasy of Flight", Florida, an amazing collection of privately restored aircraft]
[My "Flight Simulator" page]
