I feel the Rainbow is one of the best looking aircraft of any era. I obtained the following info from the Goleta Air and Space Museum website.
The Republic XF-12 Rainbow was a high speed, high altitude reconnaissance airplane powered by four 3,000 horsepower R-4360 radial engines. It was able to cruise at over 450 miles per hour with a service ceiling of 45,000 feet. The fuselage contained three separate camera compartments with facilites to process film in flight. Eighteen high-intensity flash bulbs were stowed in a hold in the belly for night photography. The Rainbow had one of the highest power to weight ratios of any multi-reciprocating-engine airplane. It could maintain a sea-level rate of climb of 1,680 feet per minute on three engines and 320 feet per minute on just two engines. Two prototypes of the Rainbow were built. They carried Army Air Force serial numbers 44-91002 and 44-910003. When the Rainbow first flew on February 4, 1946, the Army Air Force used the letter F to designate reconnaissance airplanes (F stood for Foto) and the letter P for fighter planes (P stood for Pursuit). In 1947 the Air Force changed their designation system so that the letter F was used to designate Fighter airplanes and the letter R was used to designate Reconnaissance airplanes. The XF-12s were redesignated XR-12 for the remainder of their careers. The most famous accomplishment of the Rainbow was operation "Bird's Eye". On September 1, 1948, the second XR-12, 44-91003 took off from Edwards Air Force Base and headed out to sea. It climbed to 40,000 feet altitude and turned to the east. Its crew shot 390 photos on a continuous 325-foot long strip of film as it crossed the country in six hours and fifty-five minutes, landing at Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York.
I found good drawings of the Rainbow at Bob's Air Doc's to use as backgrounds in FSDSv2.24. This model features the usual moving parts, alpha channel type reflective textures, transparent windows, nav and landing lights. White engine exhaust contrails are available "on demand" by use of the "I" key. I honestly don't remember if the white exhaust effect came with FS9 or not, so I included it in the upload. It must be added to the "Effects" folder if it is not already there. I produced this project directly into FS2004 and then copied it back into FS2002. It works in both sims.
INSTALLATION: Unzip XR12.zip into a temporary folder. Copy the folder called Republic XR-12 into the Aircraft folder of the Flight Simulator. Open the gauges folder and copy the contents into the Gauges folder of the Flight Simulator. Copy the contents of the effects folder into the Effects folder of the Flight Simulator (if needed). Close everything and fire up the Simulator. This project will show as the Rainbow under Republic in the aircraft selection list.
PANEL: Everytime I do an unusual or "one of a kind" project I find it impossible to find photo's or other data regarding the instrument panel. Such was the case with the Rainbow. Consequently, I included Ken Mitchell's very fine Constellation panel and gauges. I took the liberty of modifying the main panel bitmap because I know the Rainbow windshield did not look like a Connie's. Caution, I do get the "sound-file ungueltig" error message when I switch panel views, probably because I have a panel or gauge sound file missing on my system. Just click OK a couple of times and the message goes away and everything works just fine.
SOUND: I aliased the Cessna sound to save file space but obviously this plane deserves a more robust sound. Personally I use the Stratocruiser sound file available at Tom Gibson's very fine website: www.calclassic.com.
LEGAL: This project is released as freeware. You may modify it, repaint it, etc., upload to another website as long as it is not for profit. You need my written permission to use any of these files for commercial purposes; otherwise just give me credit for the original design. This airplane should not hurt your computer but I am not responsible if it causes problems.
