Is Il-2 Air Racing still around?

[Megalax]

Years ago I used to fly in Air Racing servers on Hyper Lobby and the squadron I was in held racing events from time to time.

Just wondering how alive the Air Racing community is now, especially with the newer Bodenplatte and Normandy planes coming into the sim.

 

[[DBS]Browning]

It would be nice to have some air racing assets. Pylons and such.

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

Haven't seen any dedicated racers in a couple of years. Guys asked for wingtip smoke and the Dev's delivered. They used to use various objects and the bonfires in place of actual pylons.

[Stoopy]

I'm up for it!  Used to do a lot of online air racing on the PROPS server from WestCoastATC, using FS9, organized mass "River Races" up the Rhine river in CFS3, and also did some in the old IL2.    Online air racing is about the most fun you can have with your clothes on!

 

I also tried my hand at making a pylon course with gates to fly through, and an AI plane to run the course against so you could at least do a single player race.  Unfortunately the AI aircraft don' t try very hard to make each pylon no matter how high the waypoint priority is set.

 

But if you need someone to make a pylon course for a coop racing mission, I'm game -  Dig that P-51 skin BTW!

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2020 by =[TIA]=Stoopy

[[FAC]Ghost129er]

We used to have a dedicated Racing install for 1946 at SAS1946, we had a server running and a separate game install with just Reno Aircraft, objects and what not, a lot of custom content and tracks and would to a lot of time attacks and air races together. It was really fun however, on the down side, it can get rather dull and boring pretty fast - we even if I dare say, burnt out our liking for it too fast by doing it too much...

Since we can't import objects into IL-2 GB - I had the idea of re-texturing objects such as hangars, some sign boards, and not sure what other placeable objects are there in IL-2 GB (can use Chimney stacks/chimneys/idk what to call them) but my point is, re-texture them, make it a JSGME pack, enable, go race online, disable, go back into combat/dogfight mode.

I thought that was the best way to do it, if at all.

I made a few racing skins, but still haven't gotten to releasing them or finishing them yet.... I've currently fried my brains and motivation from making approximately 32 skins recently (Bodenplatte Aircraft, just obtained the DLC as a generous gift from SCG_Tzigy) and I'm currently working on designing my own Throttle Quad for Flight simming (never had one, so it's a first real big project for me at the moment).

[gimpy117]

in these isolation times, an il2 air race would be a great stream to watch 

ironically there's a p-39 at the Air Zoo here in Kalamzoo that flew as  "Bendix Racer #15" and later survived getting hit by a car (drunk driver) that crashed through the hangar in the late 90's early 2000's 

 

now painted as whistlin' britches. when you have a chance to see the air zoo in Kalamazoo after this virus thing is over, do it, and make sure to call me to have a beer! 

 

Edited April 3, 2020 by gimpy117

[Talisman]

I love air racing

 

It would be great to have regular air racing events.

 

Found this:

 

But having contacted the thread OP I found out that this racing is not currently active.

 

Happy landings,

 

56RAF_Talisman

[RTA_Macgivre]

If somebody is interested to host the event, I can share the mission file (and the skin pack) ?

Unfortunately I cannot host a new cup at the moment, we are already hosting a campain for the french community ... and it is quite a demanding task ... especialy with this mission editor ? 

 

Edited April 7, 2020 by RTAmistermystere

[CSW_Tommy544]

We used to run official races on the Air_Race server in Hyper Lobby every weekend. Honestly, it was the most enjoyable time I had in any flight sim. I was thinking whether it would be possible to recreate something similar in today's popular sims and I would definitely try to help if others would also be interested in air racing.

 

There are a couple problems with simply taking the league concept we had in IL-2 1946. We used to choose a race course and 5 different planes that we would practice with during the week and then have official scored races on weekend. All racers always raced the same plane during a specific race to make it as fair and exciting as possible. Points would be awarded for each race and we would have 3-4 championships per year. The great thing about 1946 was that there was a big selection of planes keeping races fresh and everyone had access to all the planes. The way it is now with IL-2 GB, we would have to come up with some different system to allow anyone to compete and have some sensible scoring system to keep people interested in joining races regularly.

[Megalax]

10 hours ago, RTAmistermystere said:

quite a demanding task ... especialy with this mission editor ? 

 

 

I've never even given any thought to that. The ME is difficult to use. If the mission is set up as a dogfight rather than a coop would it be easier?

[Lusekofte]

I have only played with the ME when it was publicly available. 
It is developed further now. It was not as I call it intuitive, but placing oje ts on a map is not a complex issue. @Gambit21 and many other mission builders are more capable to explain

If you go in section for mission building and read a bit , you will make sense of it. 
But hosting a server is another matter 

[RTA_Macgivre]

The mission is already a dogfight
Each spawn point is linked to a specific race. 

The P-38 air race mission file is finished and working properly, I can make it available (with P-38 skins) to anyone interested to host it and / or adapt it to it's own tastes. 


The problem with this piece of sh... of mission editor is that I spend 30 hours a week to make work a simple text display in game ... it's not even stupidly complex, it just doesn't work properly : from one mission to another, the same group doesn't produce the same results ... it's a headache generator... and I don't talk about the 20 differents missions editors manuals, the shitty forum search function that is supposed to help us to find something in what is now a true junkyard...

It's unacceptable to have this level of low quality on a product that is now a few years old and cost me more than 250€ ... 

Seriously to make a spawn point I have to check 20 to 30 parameters ... for each plane !!! You want to lock a payload on a plane ... ok you have to modify a server setting ... and hard code the available payload for every others planes on the map ...
Even the icons don't work properly ... on a local server they work and on the dedicated server they don't present the same apparence ... it's mind blowing ... but in the wrong way ...

 

On 4/3/2020 at 10:24 PM, [DBS]Browning said:

It would be nice to have some air racing assets. Pylons and such.

 

Plus the actual objects such as bridges are invisible when you are below 30 meters ... 

[Rjel]

On 4/3/2020 at 7:31 PM, gimpy117 said:

in these isolation times, an il2 air race would be a great stream to watch 

ironically there's a p-39 at the Air Zoo here in Kalamzoo that flew as  "Bendix Racer #15" and later survived getting hit by a car (drunk driver) that crashed through the hangar in the late 90's early 2000's 

 

now painted as whistlin' britches. when you have a chance to see the air zoo in Kalamazoo after this virus thing is over, do it, and make sure to call me to have a beer! 

 

A great museum, I really enjoyed my visit there a couple of years ago. Definitely a place I want to go back to.

[Velxra]

If the race is relatively soon. I would be interested in partaking in such events.

[HR_Tofolo]

We did an air race last week, after a week of qualifying sessions, with an old map that is lost in the forum:

 

After some custom adjustments on the mission and creating special skins for the final race, here's some shots of the grand final:

[ShamrockOneFive]

Combat Box just announced Project R. Should fill in your air racing needs and it looks super fun! 

 

[CSW_Tommy544]

5 minutes ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

Combat Box just announced Project R. Should fill in your air racing needs and it looks super fun! 

 

 

That looks awesome, thanks for posting that here!

[Thad]

21 hours ago, RTAmistermystere said:

The mission is already a dogfight
Each spawn point is linked to a specific race. 

The P-38 air race mission file is finished and working properly, I can make it available (with P-38 skins) to anyone interested to host it and / or adapt it to it's own tastes. 


The problem with this piece of sh... of mission editor is that I spend 30 hours a week to make work a simple text display in game ... it's not even stupidly complex, it just doesn't work properly : from one mission to another, the same group doesn't produce the same results ... it's a headache generator... and I don't talk about the 20 differents missions editors manuals, the shitty forum search function that is supposed to help us to find something in what is now a true junkyard...

It's unacceptable to have this level of low quality on a product that is now a few years old and cost me more than 250€ ... 

Seriously to make a spawn point I have to check 20 to 30 parameters ... for each plane !!! You want to lock a payload on a plane ... ok you have to modify a server setting ... and hard code the available payload for every others planes on the map ...
Even the icons don't work properly ... on a local server they work and on the dedicated server they don't present the same apparence ... it's mind blowing ... but in the wrong way ...

 

 

Plus the actual objects such as bridges are invisible when you are below 30 meters ... 

 

Yea, but what do you really think about the FME?

[GregP]

On 4/7/2020 at 4:58 AM, RTAmistermystere said:

If somebody is interested to host the event, I can share the mission file (and the skin pack) 

It seems interest in air racing is starting to pick up across various threads here, Combat Box’s announcement of Project R, and the excitement that ShamrockOneFive’s Sturmovikfest is generating.  Is the mission file something you could upload to this thread so that those of us interested in looking at it could do so? I just checked your site and it appears the skins are still available for download, but I didn’t see the mission file anywhere. Thanks!

Edited April 20, 2020 by GregP

[[FAC]Ghost129er]

20 hours ago, HR_Tofolo said:

~snip~

@HR_Tofolo Wait, are those custom objects or something???

Edited April 20, 2020 by [FAC]Ghost129er

[HR_Tofolo]

17 minutes ago, [FAC]Ghost129er said:

@HR_Tofolo Wait, are those custom objects or something???

 

They are MCU (translator: animation operators) - graphics\helpers\waypoint.chr

 

 

[keeno]

Shit the bed........... that's great!

[Stoopy]

HOLY MOLY!  

 

To say that there's an interest in Air Racing at this point seems quite an understatement considering the amazing confluence of events leading up to Sturmovikfest 2020!

 

In an absolutely remarkable coincidence, just last night, on the exact same day of the jaw-dropping announcement by the fine folks at Combat Box announcing their Project R, we also held our inaugural IL2 River Race in Coop MP, and from all accounts I do believe everyone had a great time!  45 minutes of heart-pounding action in 3 races along the scenic, yet deadly Don river in Stalingrad - screenshots don't give as great an idea of the action as a video would, but there's more than a couple shots of the action highlights in the thread below for anyone interested.  

 

And if we had THAT much fun with a little homegrown set of river race courses, I can't WAIT to leave y'all in the dust in whatever courses the mission masters at Combat Box have whipped up for us!  ?

 

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by =[TIA]=Stoopy

[-TBC-AeroAce]

As far as I know you can not put timers or any logic in to determine if people miss gates or to see what position people come in ... Meaning that it is all down to pilot honesty.

 

 

[ShamrockOneFive]

5 hours ago, AeroAce said:

As far as I know you can not put timers or any logic in to determine if people miss gates or to see what position people come in ... Meaning that it is all down to pilot honesty.

 

 

I'm secretly hoping that if air racing takes off (pun intended)... 1CGS might be able to throw us a couple of new triggers for the mission editor if needed and maybe a couple of racing objects.

[RTA_Macgivre]

On 4/20/2020 at 3:58 PM, GregP said:

It seems interest in air racing is starting to pick up across various threads here, Combat Box’s announcement of Project R, and the excitement that ShamrockOneFive’s Sturmovikfest is generating.  Is the mission file something you could upload to this thread so that those of us interested in looking at it could do so? I just checked your site and it appears the skins are still available for download, but I didn’t see the mission file anywhere. Thanks!

 

Excuse me for the late answer. Here are the files : 

Mission file containing all the track. 
https://www.mediafire.com/file/7ip1ybuf91fmcvh/Course_de_la_rose_Kuban.Mission/file

 

The msbin file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/pjprw59z7m3sd3u/Course_de_la_rose_Kuban.msnbin/file

 

And the skinpack. 
https://www.mediafire.com/file/ndly50br21na55g/Skinpack_coupe_de_la_rose.zip/file

 

 

This is a guest acount so those files will be unavailable in 14 days. Feel free to rehost them or ask me again in the future

 

Here is a little taste of the latest skins

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by RTAmistermystere

[GregP]

Awesome, thank you so much!  Excited to give the mission a try.

[DeadlyDisco]

I used to participate on the Air Racing servers on Hyper Lobby some 20 years ago. 'Billy885' was the person who had it all going if I'm not wrong. There was also a French guy named 'Lapinot' who was also involved...(passed away after illness)
You had to do a lot of training and airplane type tweaking to be successful in the races.
Example: 'How long can a certain type of plane overheat, and at what point in the race can you let it overheat so that the engine fails just after crossing the line (closing/adjusting the radiators causes less drag). I once came in first just because of knowing that I could take the last turn flat out....you also had to land safely to have a valid race result.
Lovely days!....had to wake up in the middle of the night (Belgium/Europe) to go racing...it was serious business with serious contenders!
I flew as 'WreckHunter'.

Edited September 1, 2020 by DeadlyDisco

[CSW_Tommy544]

18 hours ago, DeadlyDisco said:

I used to participate on the Air Racing servers on Hyper Lobby some 20 years ago. 'Billy885' was the person who had it all going if I'm not wrong. There was also a French guy named 'Lapinot' who was also involved...(passed away after illness)
You had to do a lot of training and airplane type tweaking to be successful in the races.
Example: 'How long can a certain type of plane overheat, and at what point in the race can you let it overheat so that the engine fails just after crossing the line (closing/adjusting the radiators causes less drag). I once came in first just because of knowing that I could take the last turn flat out....you also had to land safely to have a valid race result.
Lovely days!....had to wake up in the middle of the night (Belgium/Europe) to go racing...it was serious business with serious contenders!
I flew as 'WreckHunter'.

 

I participated in that air racing league too, however only in its last few years. I remember Billy appearing on race days every now and then. It was the most fun I had with the old IL-2.

Edited September 2, 2020 by CSW_FMF_Tommy544

[Gambit21]

On 9/1/2020 at 11:09 AM, DeadlyDisco said:

I used to participate on the Air Racing servers on Hyper Lobby some 20 years ago. 'Billy885' was the person who had it all going if I'm not wrong. There was also a French guy named 'Lapinot' who was also involved...(passed away after illness)
You had to do a lot of training and airplane type tweaking to be successful in the races.
Example: 'How long can a certain type of plane overheat, and at what point in the race can you let it overheat so that the engine fails just after crossing the line (closing/adjusting the radiators causes less drag). I once came in first just because of knowing that I could take the last turn flat out....you also had to land safely to have a valid race result.
Lovely days!....had to wake up in the middle of the night (Belgium/Europe) to go racing...it was serious business with serious contenders!
I flew as 'WreckHunter'.

 

If the engine fails just after crossing the line how do you land safely. Are you saying a crash landing was acceptable?

 

I never took part, but it sounds like a ton of fun. 

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

On 4/3/2020 at 1:24 PM, [DBS]Browning said:

It would be nice to have some air racing assets. Pylons and such.

 

We have observation balloons.

[Stoopy]

5 hours ago, US63_SpadLivesMatter said:

 

We have observation balloons.

 

And lighthouses... and big circular gates....