Wow, it was a long journey...
The Mitsubishi F1M2 was finally completed this month, in early September.
It can only be downloaded from the "Flightsim.com" and "Simviation" sites.
I have not uploaded it to any other sites. Please read the enclosed read me carefully!!
A year has passed since the release of the previous XF10F.
Work on this F1M2 started in November 2023, and I decided to build it from scratch on a whim.
Soon after the release of XF10F_v1 in July last year, I started building a US Navy prototype fighter plane from the late 1950s, which was my long-cherished dream.
However, while searching online, I came across "MARU MECHANIC THE LAST BIPLANE TYPE0 OBSERVATION SEAPLANE".
The cover of this magazine features the F1M2 with its wings folded and facing forward, so cool!
I fell in love at first sight.
My FS model beliefs are "prototypes" and "never built aircraft", but I fell in love with the F1M2 and really wanted to build it.
I immediately got hold of this magazine, and the USNAVY prototype under construction was put on hold.
Also, I had actually seen this F1M2 in my father's photo album when I was a child.
In 1944, during the war, my father volunteered for the "Yokaren".
However, while my father was still a trainee, the war ended and the military disappeared.
My father had received a photo of a floatplane as a memento of his time in the navy, and kept it in an album.
When I was a child, my father often told me that he was supposed to fly this Type 93 Akatonbo trainer.
It was only after I became an adult that I found out that the plane in the photo in this album was actually a Mitsubishi F1M2.
My father had always been mistaken, but he insisted that this photo was of a Type 93 Akatonbo trainer...
When I looked up the gray F1M2 in the photo, I found out that it was one used on the Sagara Maru seaplane carrier (UVI).
I just had to make this.
I also made one in dark green that was used on the Musashi battleship.
And since I like planes with metallic skin, I decided to make an F1M2 with metallic skin.
Until now, I had only built FS models using FSDS, but this time I built the F1M2 using two 3D software programs, Blender and FSDS.
I used Blender partially for the previous XFV-1 and XF10F, but for the F1M2, I built the exterior model in Blender from the beginning.
Blender also has an "FSX model conversion tool", but my model was not successful.
So I converted the Blender model to an FSDS model and then extracted the FSX model.
In the first stage, I built the exterior structure of the aircraft, such as the fuselage and wings, in Blender.
Blender is a new 3D software that is constantly evolving, so it can be used efficiently.
It is far superior to FSDS in terms of tool automation and screen visibility.
In the second stage, I displayed the Blender model in FSDS, divided the parts, built the fine parts, set animations, and mapped textures.
FSDS is an old 3D software that is no longer updated, but it can be used more precisely and accurately than Blender, and it is specialized in building FS models.
The material settings are immature, but I compensate for that by using "Model Converter X".
But even though I use Blender, in the end it becomes a pure FSDS model... hahaha.
The F1M2 is a biplane, so it has two wings, and because it's a seaplane, it has floats similar to the fuselage, so it felt like I was building two airplanes.
As a result, it felt like I used twice as much time and patience as any other model I'd ever made.
The cockpit is more complicated than a jet plane, and is made up of a lot more parts!
Yes, it was very, very difficult...really...
With FSDS, the vertices of the mesh that makes up the 3D are limited to 65,000 vertices.
I build it at first without worrying about the number of vertices, so when I finished it roughly, it exceeded 80,000 vertices.
I then cut down the vertices to bring it down to 65,000 vertices or less.
I was attached to the parts I had made, so I reluctantly deleted a lot of them.
That's how FS models are constructed.
I thought using Blender was efficient, but it may have been more difficult than usual...
My father passed away a few years ago, so I wonder if he would have been happy to see this F1M2 completed?
I would like to dedicate my Mitsubishi F1M2 Type Zero observation seaplane to my father.
I hope you fly around happily in heaven, thinking of yourself as a red dragonfly!
I also dedicate this F1M2 to Kazunori Ito, a master of FS models and a fellow Japanese.
He also built the Mitsubishi F1M2 in the past, and his models influenced me a lot.
