Greetings fellow Flight Simulator/Flight Shop enthusiast. Thanks for your interest in the Convair CV-580 AFX/PCX file set and in visiting the Freeflight Design Shop.

The changes in version 1.1 resulted from testing the aircraft in FS98. The opening main door for the CV-340/440 fleet was originally made in two pieces. This worked fine in FS5 and FS95. With the increased clarity of 3D in FS98 the bend in the doors was very obvious. In the process of remaking it into four pieces for a smoother bend and repainting the graphics, is was discovered that main cabin door was too far towards the rear of the aircraft. It was necessary to move it towards the front about a door's width. This in turn caused some bleed through problems with the open door parts when viewed from the front. The solution I went with was to split the FUSE1 into two pieces and insert a piece of glue between them. Except for repositioning the outline of the closed door, none of this has resulted in any need to remake any texture files.

Version 1.2 addressed some visual aspects of the shape of the extreme rear fuselage. The bullet curvature in this area has been emphasized by rebuilding that section completely. Some rework of the base of the vertical tail was necessary as well. This in turn revealed that the windows were a little too far forward. They have been repositioned and the accompanying texture files reflect this.

Version 1.3 was purely aesthetic. I increased the chord of the propeller blades and repositioned the left set for a more candid appearance. I also added some 3D effect to the wing and tail textures.

Here are a few notes to consider as your repaint the enclosed PCX files to create your own CV-580 version.

The textures are a little unusual, in that the area used on the 580FUSE2 and 580FUSE3 textures doesn't extend across the entire 256 pixels. This is to maintain the proper ratio for lettering, etc. The 580FUSE4 texture is compressed, though, by about 2-fold. Thus, any lettering/ details placed on that texture should be compressed laterally by 2X - easy to do with most paint programs. Just draw the lettering/logo with the normal proportions, and then compress it to half (50%) width.

If you are skilled (or just bold) at working with AFX files for propliners there are a few areas of this aircraft that could use some attention. There are still many parts available to work with.

1) The engine textures (580ENGIN.PCX) have been extended onto the landing gear doors to take attention away from the visual effect as the doors dominate the nacelles and vise-versa, as you move around the aircraft. If you can eliminate this visual tug-of-war it would be appreciated.

2) Typical of most propliners, the landing gear shows through the extended flaps at extreme angles. To see this, set the spot plane altitude to 2 feet or less, lower the gear and extend the flaps, and view from behind. The flaps have been darkened to draw attention away from this but that is only a workaround. A solution to this problem would be appreciated by all propliner builders/painters worldwide, I'm sure.

3) There is still some bleed through of the front windscreen when viewed from the lower front. Depending on the nose color this may or may not be noticeable.

4) Despite hours of work, there is still some problem with the lining up of the seams on the lower inner wing components and nacelles. Help would be appreciated here. Or a complete rebuild of the wings.

If you can help with any of these problems please do so and then email me the corrected AFX so I can credit you accordingly* and make the revised file available to all others at the Freeflight Design Shop.

* These folks (the crew) have contributed to the CV-580 project in one way or another.

Thanks and enjoy,

Frank Safranek
March 1998