19 September 07
Yes, you are not blind or affected by anything in you eye...  You actually see an update on this website!!!

As you can see, the project has been dead for almost a year.  This is my last try to salvage the project itself.  If no one comes forward, I  guess I'll have to can this whole thing for good.  Visit the forum for the latest and greatest...

10 October 06
New pictures of the NFD in the picture album. You can have a sneek peek at the "in development" NFD with all different modes. You will also see the new central console that has been sliptted in two for better reading...

Have a good sight seeing!

05 October 06
Updates are still ongoing with the gauges. The FN/DMS and the NFD are still being worked on. The Navigation Flight Display (NFD) is getting close to have it's first stage complete. The FN/DMS has been modified heavily to communicate with the PFD and the NFD. The final push for release should intensify by mid-october as one of our gauge designer will be back home by then.

11 September 06
Today, we celebrate with great sadness and sorrow, the tragic birthday of September 11. Five years have gone by... strange enough, people can hardly remember what they did or where they were 3 weeks ago but, everybody knows exactly what they were doing at 0846hrs when the first plane hit the first tower. 

There is a lot of controversy around what really happened on September 11, who were responsible and why it happened. We may never know what really happened... Even if we ever figure it out, it will never bring them back. One thing remain a true fact: numerous people died on that tragic day.

Unfortunately, when someone dies, time finally heals their wound and people forget. These families will never be able to forget as every year; the newspapers and televisions will always remind them that they lost a loved one.

The Team would like to take this opportunity and express their condolences to the families who lost their daughters, sons, wifes, husbands, mothers and fathers... We are hoping that somewhere in time, they will finally heal.

Lets hope it will never happen again...

08 September 06
The Directorate of Flight Safety (DFS) is an organization within the Canadian Forces (CF) that investigates CF aviation accidents and incidents.

DFS was tasked to investigate the Cormorant crash of CH149914, which occurred near Canso, Nova Scotia on 13 July 2006. DFS asked CH-149 Project team for the use of its CH149 Flight Simulator aircraft model as part of a field investigator flight data playback trial. The trial aims to provide investigators with an idea of the cockpit layout and inside and outside views of the crew at the time of the accident. While not a primary flight analysis tool, this flight replica will help the investigators in approximating the aircraft location and its flying environment and may help in their investigation.

In any case, CH-149 Project team is really proud that our model, a very accurate and detailed representation of the CH-149, was used.

04 September 06
It has been a while... we know. But rest assured that we are still working hard. We did not sleep all that time! Numerous gauges have been completed and fine tuned.  The sound is still being developped, the panels are modified and the configuration files of the aircraft are also fine tuned.

For instance, the CWP has been completed, the MCL and MWL have been completed, the PFD, PPSDP and few other gauges will now be blank at startup and will go thru proper boot sequence once the AC power is present.  The PFD, PPSDP, FN/DMS, OverHead panel, PAL and few others have been fine tuned.

As everybody asked, this is now more realistic than ever!  Users will have to read the Aircraft Flight Manual and follow the appropriate Startup procedure in order to have this bird up in the air.

We will try to post screenshots of the cockpit / gauges very shortly.  Please check in the picture section for development.

19 July 06
To pay a small tribute to our fallen comrades which died in the crash of 149914 last week, we have changed our CH-149 Cormorant texture to reflet the number of 149914. Our model used to wear the number 908.  It is now 914 and we are hoping people will be pleased with our small action.

Please visit our picture section to see the related pictures...

13 July 06
It is with great sadness this morning, at around 0630 hrs (Ottawa time) that we learned the loss of a CH-149 which has crashed in water roughy past midnight near Canso, Nova Scotia, Canada.  The impact was so violent that it killed 3 crew members while injuring the remaining 4 ones.   It is unknown at this time why the Cormorant crashed into water, the only "known" info is the crew had time to radio that they were going down on the Coast Guard frequency.

The members of CH-149 Projet would like to express their deep sorrows and extend our sincere condolences to the families and friends of these brave Canadian Forces members who lost their lives this morning while practicing to save lives.  We also wish a prompt recovery to the remaining 4 members involved in this morning's crash.

12 July 06
We are happy to say that we may have discovered what caused all our problems within the VC and variables. We recently discovered that XML and C variables are not compatible in nature. As Peter Nemeth modified for us the makemdl.parts.xml file to incorporate our custom animations, we could not have the variables to change when we clicked on a switch in the VC.  We now have to modify the C code of the gauges to make sure there is some sort of translation between the two type of programming variables.  We can see some long nights for Michele et Jeff in a very near future!!!

20 June 06
I know, it has been a huge amount of time since we have published anything here and we are really sorry.  Rest assure that even if we looked like we were sitting duck, we were still moving ahead.  The gauge dev has slowed for quite much as Michele is extremely busy.  Christian is still working on the models and fine tuning the textures.  Nevertheless, we have a huge announcement to make:

We are extremely proud to announce that Peter Nemeth, from Nemeth Design will be joining us for the VC development.  Peter will implement a fully functionnal VC for the Cormorant.  He will modify all required files to "accomodate" MS FS and have the VC fully animated ...

06 May 06
That it folks! The modeling of the virtual cockpit is now completed. You can go in our picture section and see the first picture of the completed VC. We will add more tomorrow as Christian produces more snapshots. We are extremenly pleased with the end result!

We now have to animate all relevent switches that FS will recognize.  This will be a big task as to make sure the gauges are set appropriately over their respective places.

More to follow...

06 May 06
The modeling and texturing of the central console is now completed.  Christian is now attacking the overhead panel.  It should be completed this weekend.  We will post new pictures as we get them!  Keep on looking as it is worth it!

30 April 06
We have new pictures of the interseat console in the picture section.  Have a quick look to see it.  You will notice that it is fully textured and modeled with all switches and knobs.

27 April 06
We're still moving ahead!  This week, we have few features that have been implemented:  animation of cyclic and collective, addition of APU with sounds in the overhead panel, heading bug in the NFD working correctly...  and few other items.

We're moving along nicely.  As you can see, we're adding new screenshots in the slideshow in the home page.  As some may have noticed, a new/old texture as been added: the Italian Navy!  We had that texture since the beginning of the project but Christian just forgot to pass it along with all other textures.  We noticed that earlier last week!  We're now proud to add the texture back into our big range of textures that will "dress" our model!

16 April 06
Revamping of the website. Few little things have been changed. We're trying to make the all  the pages standard with each others with Cascaded Style Sheet.

Navigation Flight Display is still being worked on.  In fact, the sound and NFD are the only items being worked on as Christian's PC is still broken and Michele is too busy at work at this time...  We're hoping the full crew will be back at 100% production very shortly.

17 March 06
The Navigation Flight Display is still being worked on.  We have issues with the Heading bug and the autopilot.  Should be resolved very soon...

The sound package is being revamped as there was few misconfigurations.  We should have a new package very shortly.

Christian, our modeler/texturer has problems with his PC.  His video card died during the week.  His operations within the project will be halted until he gets a new video card.

04 March 06
We have performed a good multiplayer flight yesterday with excellent frame rates. The pack of 2 EH-101 in the prototype livery flew round Ottawa for the first official multiplayer flight testing with Roger Wilco. Even when engaging comms, the frame rate was not affected at all.

You can see the pictures of the multiplayer flight in our picture section...

01 March 06
We have new pictures of the virtual cockpit that will be used for the model. Visit our picture section for more details...

Also, the PAL and overhead panel are going pretty well. These are completed at almost 75%, they also have new features that will bring realism quite good.

14 February 06
We finally have a breakthrough in the Virtual Cockpit. We were able to map gauges into it. This put an end to the trouble we had with mapping the VC. You can expect screenshots to appear in the picture section over the upcoming weekend.

Also, Michele put the automatic pilot gauge aside and started to work on the throttle gauge. According to the survey, people do not give too much priority to the AFCS. They would rather want to have the normal gauges
functioning rather than the autopilot gauge. Based on that, we started working on the other gauges.

8 February 06
Same as before, the gauges are still being worked on. Still having issues with the VC unfortunately. The 500MB of digital sound from the real EH-101 is still being worked on.

The AFCS (autopilot) has now the following modes imbedded in the gauge: BAR, RAD, GS, IAS and HDG hold modes. They are fully functional and requires just little fine tuning.

7 January 06
The gauge development is still going. We now have a complete BAR hold, RAD hold, Attitude Hold and IAS hold autopilot. The Primary Flight Display is also configured to display the appropriate Autopilot mode. 

The sound package is still being worked out. Same situation for the virtual cockpit.