FSX French Navy SNB-5 Esc. 55S

French Navy SNB-5 Esc. 55S, late sixties. This is a repaint of the Beechcraft D18S originally produced by Milton Shupe and Scott Thomas, adapted for FSX by David Caroll (B18DC05.ZIP). This SNB-5 was received by the French Navy on 18 June 1953. It is shown in the later markings of Escadrille 55S that was then stationed in Aspretto, Corsica. Characteristic of this period are the huge wing roundels and serial number. Repaint by Michel Gerard.

French Navy Beech SNB-5 Escadrille 55S late sixties.

Installation is quite straightforward. Just extract the contents of this archive with the “Texture.France_55S15” path to your FSX\ SimObjects\Airplanes\D18SX_DC folder, ensuring that “Use folder names” is selected, and everything should go to the right place.

However, it is not sure whether this particular machine had a red surrounding to the emergency exit window on the starboard side of the fuselage, although most planes in the unit did have it. Therefore I have supplied alternative DDS files (fusemain_x_t_ALT.dds and fusemain_x_t_spec_ALT.dds) which you can use if you so wish by renaming them to fusemain_x_t.dds and fusemain_x_t_spec.dds (not forgetting to back up the originals first, obviously).

Nest, paste and copy the following text in the aircraft.cfg, not forgetting to replace [fltsim.XX] by the next number available in sequence:

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[fltsim.XX]
title=Beech SNB-5 French Navy 134709
sim=D18S
model=xdc
panel=xblk
sound=
texture=France_709
kb_checklists=Beech18_check
kb_reference=Beech18_ref
atc_id=NAVY 709
ui_manufacturer="Beechcraft"
ui_type="SNB-5"
ui_variation="French Navy 709"
ui_typerole="Twin Engine Prop"
ui_createdby="Shupe-Carroll"
description="SNB-5 French Navy Escadrille 55S late sixties. D18 VC model by Milton Shupe modified with permission."

================================================

This plane will appear in the aircraft selection menu as "Beechcraft SNB-5 French Navy 709".

The French armed services (Air Force and Navy) used various types of Beech Twins.

As far as the Air Force is concerned, the first machines (UC-45Bs) were received in September 1944 by the Free French Air Force, being pressed into service with GT (Groupe de Transport) II/15. The ultimate fate of those aircraft is unknown, although several are known to have served in the post-war years.

A grand total of 78 Beech Twins of various origins was acquired by the Air Force, many of them supplied under MDAP, and the last ones were struck off-charge as late as 1972. Worthy of note, more than one third of those machines were ex-RCAF (6 Expeditors Mk.3Ts and 23 Expeditors Mk.3Ns). At least 7 others are known to have been former civilian machines.

The Navy received an as yet undisclosed number of ex-US Navy JRB-4s together with 20 SNB-5s (S/N 134698 through 134717). The JRB-4s were mostly used by Escadrille 56S for aircrew training (flight engineers, navigators, radio operators, etc…) whilst the SNB-5s were on the strength of Escadrille 55S which was in charge of multi-engined aircraft pilot training. Those planes were retired in the early seventies.

As usual, antenna arrangement varied greatly from one airplane to the other, especially the size and the shape of the DF loop fairing. Nearly all French machines were fitted with propeller spinners. As far as can be ascertained from photographs, Navy aircraft had the tailwheel locked in the down position.

It seems that most Air Force machines retained a natural metal finish all through their career, some being very glossy indeed, and in the late sixties many of them had the fuselage top painted white.

Navy machines were sprayed overall silver from the outset, and they were by no means as glossy as the Air Force aircraft were. I have never seen any picture of a Navy machine with the fuselage top painted white although this might have existed, who ever knows…?

Now and as usual, if ever your computer takes fire after installing this repaint, if your hard drive gets flooded by Coke or if your dog eats the mouse I can accept no liability whatsoever!

Comments and feedback will be most welcome, although experience shows that simmers are prone to download what they are being offered for free, but that they very very seldom think of sending any feedback (except in the case of asking for a particular paint scheme that would suit them, obviously!).

July 2010

Michel GERARD

Complementing Files & Dependencies

This add-on mentions the following files below in its description. It may be dependent on these files in order to function properly. It's possible that this is a repaint and the dependency below is the base package.

You may also need to download the following files:

• b18dc05.zip

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