For me, personally, amphibious assault ships have a mystic of their own. They are a special kind of vessel that, among several other features, are the mothership for short and/or vertical take of and landing aircraft such as AV-8 Harriers, F-35s and, of course, helicopters.
The LHA-1 Tarawa was the lead ship of her class and has served the US Navy for 33 years and she is now on her way to X-Plane 11.
After understanding the amazing hobby and the universe around flight simulation, Juan Montenegro started developing his own set of controls for helicopters and, as he continued to enjoy rotor-wing in sims, he started to look for new places to take-off and land from. Eventually, Juan fell in love with moving ships.
Sadly, X-Plane does not allow to add new moving ships to the sim (the aircraft carrier and the frigate are both hardcoded) but Juan started to learn and develop his own models, eventually replacing the 2 hardcoded models by his own.
This caught the attention of another community member, Brian Warn, who provided Juan with information coming from his vast experience as a member of the US Navy. And the idea of modelling the USS Tarawa popped up.
Brian flew UH-3H Sea Kings off the Tarawa during part of his US Navy service, so he knows the ship quite well and, along with some other sailors that have served in the vessel, he is providing invaluable information to Juan.
A fitting replacement
You’ll be able to replace the current carrier or frigate with the USS Tarawa (you can replace either one or the other) but you will also be able to use it as a static object.
The Tarawa will also be distributed in 3 pre-configured models:
- Deck in "combat ready" mode whit a few landing spots free for helicopter pilots
- Same with deck ready for VTOL/STOL operation of harriers and F-35 pilots
- Parade model with deck full of stuff, personnel, etc. with only 1 spot for helicopter landing
Juan is planning on releasing the USS Tarawa at the end of 2020 or early next year but don’t quote him on that as he is working on this as time allows. He does intent to release a beta earlier than that, though.
