Nicely done.
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Just another reason why I love these wild early Cold War planes!
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Really wild!
To test the escape capsule young bears were used… fortunately most of them suffered only minor injuries or no damages at all, but I can imagine it wasn’t a pleasant experience!
But engineers tried to do their best to make the capsule safe for the pilots, and many of them survived thanks to these capsules.
Watching the video I realized that some things were missed up and I fixed them, and I also added some orange paint to the shells and some signs… looks better now to me.
Not finished yet, but on the way to be complete, some more details, just for the fun of it.
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Are you going to model the escape sequence?
Wow… I imagine that would be a TON of work, but really cool!
Floating down, swinging under that parachute, scenery out the window… the landing… rolling over… getting stuck so you can’t open the clamshell… uh oh…
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I watched another video and discovered that likely the leg retractor beams moved inward and not upwards ad I did…
have to study this thing now.
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This is the definitive version.
Leg retractor beams now move downwards and this is how they forced the legs of the
pilot inside the shell volume, allowing the shell to close.
From some other images I desumed that the seat horizontal cushion rotated rising the pilot’s leg towards the chest.
In my animation this happens quite slowly (40 frames on 100 total) but in real plane the movement was very fast, the bars were stuffed with soft material, but the retraction of the legs was quite “brutal” - no time to lose when the pilot decided to eject from the plane.
Now I’ll get back to plane design and see how the new capsule fits inside the cockpit!
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This is so cool…
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we could do with an F111 too
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Yes maybe my next model will be the F111, I love it. But I think it will be very complex to develope, it will be a huge project.
The funny thing is that, beyond the XB70 and the B58 I am working at another plane…
well… it is…
the SHORT SKYVAN!!! Not exactly a cold war nuclear whatsoever… but I like it!
If someone like it please give me a hint… I dont’ think it is the right thread for it though…
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OMG… they REALLY fitted this thing inside an (existing) B-58 cockpit!!!
The capsule was designed later, after a “normal” ejection seat in the previous versions, so they had to shape it according to the space available… it seems a sort of an engineering miracle.
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Encapsulation sequence inside the full cockpit
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Interesting. Wouldn’t you want to open the hatch after the shell is closed?
Or is it enough they have a pressure suit on? (Do they?)
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The sequence of animations follows only the 1-100 rule, no connection to real flight situation,
when each animation is triggered by an event, a control or xml code or else.
This is only the blender interface, all animations play simultaneously (unless you disable one or the other of course).
In real world, pilots no longer needed pressure suites after the introduction of escape capsules.
In case of depressurization of the cabin they could seal themselves inside the capsules, the pilot continued to see the main instruments and could use the control stick to make the plane to descend at a lower altitude, where they could decapsulate and continue the flight to a safe landing.
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A lot of people in the Black Box Shorts SD3-30/60 topic have expressed interest in a Skyvan as well, so there’s definitely interest in buying the flying version of the box the plane shipped in. 
Can’t wait to fly all your upcoming efforts!
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Wow… this is interesting. thanks…
I thought I was one of the very few people that love this plane! It is not “beautiful” since it really resembles a shoebox with wings… but it is sturdy, reliable and powerful.
I lack decent reference images of the cockpit, specially of the overhead panel and lateral panels, that are pretty complicated.
My current version seems to fly reasonably well, but of course some expert beta testers would be really useful (not immediately though), but it helps me to know the opinion of simmers!
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In the last two weeks I have programmed in xml and activated so many systems and controls that I have lost the count…
This is one of the most “painful” jobs to do : converting the fuel supply system from the flight manual into an MSFS fuel system.
Now I have to write down all the configuration lines that describe the diagram in form of text, just a matter of patience…
There are still a few problems, as MSFS doesn’t like lines with 2 possible flow directions, but some of the B58 fuel lines work this way…
Initially I followed the flight manual scheme, but then - when I understood reasonably well how the system worked - I decided to follow the control panel schematic diagram, so that all the controls (valves, pumps, indicators) respect what the pilot sees on his fuel panel.
I also modelled the knobs according to how they look in real panel, different from pump to valves and to other functions like CG shift or electrical.
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And this is how it looks on the 3d model. All knobs, switches and indicators are animated and operative.
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Thanks to the images sent from @Unstopy I refined the models of the gears and the animations. The movements of the nose gear are really awesome… how could they make this big gear fit inside a small bay and avoiding to hit to giant belly pod…
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This looks amazing! I can appreciate the attention to detail in the systems.
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I won’t be flying this as I have a home cockpit based on another aircraft but I’ll buy it along with the XB-70 just to support your work.
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