CFS 3 Aircraft Carriers

It was said it couldn't be done. Carriers would never be in CFS 3. Only an official patch by Microsoft would solve the problems. Well, with the help of many people from the community, several key players have been able to mimic and produce landable aircraft carriers in CFS 3.

Here are their stories.

BSS_Cerberus:
When I started this project I had never taken a look at all aspects of the game engine. I had excluded myself to only designing aircraft, and being busy on them all the time, never really got the chance to master how the game works. One day I set my mind to adding a landable carrier to CFS 3. The first step was to finally get around to studying the game engine. Within an hour I had managed to paste a few things into the .xdp that I believed would add an airfield to a moving object. With my newly modified .xdp, and a pink box I made in gmax as my aircraft carrier, I set out to test my idea. To my surprise I was able to land on the aircraft carrier. However, one problem troubled me. I was unable to elevate the runway above sea-level. I posted my findings on the Internet, and immediately people with ideas and answers flooded in to support the cause. You may view the thread here: Possible Carrier Solution.

Corrado:
The next big breakthrough came from an idea from an old friend of mine. I had all but given up on elevating the runway above sea-level. So I went to the message boards asking if anyone could figure out any use for a none elevated runway. Corrado came up with an ingenious idea of making an aircraft carrier with multiple lods. The aircraft carrier would start out at normal height, and as the lods increased it would seem to sink. It would continue to lower until the deck was just above sea-level. Corrado already had some available carriers he had created for CFS 2. He immediately began converting them to utilize our new found ideas. An even greater breakthrough occurred while he was making test missions for the carriers. He discovered we could employ AI formation takeoffs. AI formation takeoffs were not even present on carriers in CFS 2. Corrado is still hard at work on getting a final package put together.

Condor:
Condor quickly provided me a working version of his Graf Zepplin that utilized our ideas. His contribution greatly increased the development progress of this project. He currently is working on a CFS 3 version of the Ark Royal and Graf Zepplin.

46th_Terror:
After Corrado released his beta aircraft carriers, Terror immediately began working on setting them up in the CFS 3 global layer. After the carriers are placed in the Global layer, we will be able to select and spawn from them like any other airbase.

Here is a list of the Plus's and Minus's of carriers in CFS 3.
Plus List:
1. We finally have carriers to land on.
2. We now have AI controlled formation takeoffs from carriers.
3. We can select the carrier as a regular airbase.

Minus List:
1. We have yet to elevate the Flight Deck
2. The mod required in the aircraft.cfg to get a desirable tailhook     effect disables normal spoiler functions.
3. Moving carriers slide out from under your aircraft.

What's Next?
      The next step is to get other designers to begin converting their carriers to CFS 3. Corrado has written a tutorial with this in mind. TUTORIAL.

Where can I find the Carriers?
      Until more designers use Corrado's tutorial to create more carriers, the only place to find them is directly off of Corrado's website.                         http://www.isoliti4gatti.com/ships.htm