Many of you may have noticed I have not been very active around these parts and a bit slow to get back with you. The main reason for this is the Zeppelin L-11. After quite a bit of rethinking, I decided to tackle the Zeppelin damage model to make it even better and more realistic than before. After months of retooling, I have finally done so. I did not wish to reveal this beforehand, as I did not know what I wanted to do was possible or not within the current game engine. Well, it is!

Here's what I've got:

The Zeppelin never blows up the same way twice. This means that when she goes you might see it stall out after the gas bags explode, then head straight for the ground intact and break up upon hitting. Or, you could see it burn up slowly floating to the ground intact and crash landing there if the altitude is low enough. Perhaps you blow it up, and it floats down for a while intact at a steep angle to the ground, hits hard and breaks up. Or, maybe it slowly spirals down, only to break in half mid-air because the massive fire has taken its toll on the airframe. If the Zeppelin crew is unlucky enough, there will be a total frame failure and the Zeppelin will come crashing down in four sections (As it did all of the time before) and the crew won't have any time to even jump out to avoid burning.

Next, there is now a MUCH better looking damaged skin. When the Zeppelin blows, the skin blows out sections, now with holes in the canvas and burnt looking. This of course burns away after a short time (About 2 and half minutes) and all that is left is the frame.

When the Zeppelin gas bags blow up, the crew will now jump out of the fire ridden airship to avoid burning to death.

You can blow this Zeppelin up anyway you wish, and the game will not CTD on you (A problem before under certain rare cases). There are many many combinations on the path to destruction... There are 4 large cells, in any order and the frames supporting those cells and of course when it blows up it could stay whole, or not.

The Zeppelin of course will lose its engines when it blows up if it stays whole.

Exploded and burnt gasbags have been added to the interior. I have a beta version ready for public testing! Instead of waiting for offers to beta test I have decided to post this for public download and test. You MUST have the FS-WWI Plane Pack 5 standard for this to work. Link:

(8.69mb): http://www.fsww1.com/Downloads/Aircraft/Zepp_Dmg_Beta.zip

This is a short YouTube video I made of the new Zeppelin L-11 damage model: