The US Navy operated Lockheed Neptune P-2V7 aircraft 1955 to 1978. This package contains three textures representing color schemes during that period. Also included is an accurate panel (with some small concessions to use in MSFS!).
I attempted to contact both Tomohito Unayama the designer and Michael Cantrell the air dynamics designer prior to release of this package but without success. I thank them both for their original work, which made this package possible. I have included their original readme files.
I would also like to thank Michael Vader for permission to use his original bitmap as the starting point for my panel and Ron Hill for the use of his wonderful gauges from his original FS 98 CP122 panel (cp122pnl.zip). I have included Ron's readme file as it provides information on use of the gauges.
I contacted Barry Magann who had also done some repaints of the Neptunes in RAAF colours and he gave me some good feed back on the texture mapping.
Textures
The three versions are:
135552 circa 1955 in the dark blue scheme.
143178 circa 1964 in the white and dark blue scheme.
147959 circa 1968 in the white and grey scheme.
There is only one inaccuracy in the textures I am aware of. The limitations of the texture maps mean that insignia are shown on both upper wings whereas they should only be on the port upper.
Panel
This was put together from photos using Michael's bitmap and Ron's gauges (plus a few others) It is pretty accurate in layout with the exception of the radio stack which is not on the panel on the real plane. I have also included a zoom panel for IFR panel. It is activated by the compass panel icon in the upper left hand corner. Standard MSFS gauges have not been included.
Flight Dynamics
I have used Michael Cantrells flight dynamics with one small adjustment. The original file had four engines, two for the Wright Cyclone engines and two for the Westinghouse jet pods. The problem was that the jet pods were 1 and 4 so the engine gauges were mapped wrong. I thought about renumbering the engines but the jets had start up and run sounds like a Wright Cyclone! In the end I elected to eliminate the jets as from my reading they were
infrequently used anyway. So the jet pods are now eye candy. I think this is the best solution.
My research also revealed that Neptunes were generally flown with aux tanks empty the exception being when doing a long patrol. You may want to change the tanks before flying; this certainly helps with the takeoff weight!
Sounds
Sounds from the CP122.zip package should be used.
This is the second in a series of repaints of Tomohito Unamaya's Neptune. The first was the RCAF CP122. I am continuing with packages for the French Aeronavale, Dutch Kon Marine, and RAAF and will release these over the next few weeks.
