[lt_eurofighter]

I am using FMB to creat missions featuring air raids against harbours and after placing tons of ships in harbours, I still think there need to be something more-seaplanes. IL2 provides us such a small number of ships available that the presence of seaplanes is a must to make a harbour really lively. At first I was thinking about using stationary aircrafts to go for this job but I find it not that authentic to place a number of stationary aircrafts using one skin in the harbour so I am thinking about AI seaplanes.
But I'm running into a problem, is it possible to have AI seaplanes take off from water rather than land (where they can never take off because they have no landing gears) and I think if I can make them take off on water and set the fuel amount to 0, they will do a better job than their stationary counterparts.

But how to set their takeoff point on the water and how to decide the direction they face?

Thanks for your reply and I hope I will make it come true with your help.

many thanks

[Boris The Spider]

Set your first waypoint near a "Seaplane Base" (the airfield icon placed on water). In the View/Objects/Aircraft select the 'Waypoint' tab. Go to the 'Type' box and select "Takeoff". The waypoint should snap to the airfield icon.
As for direction it depends on the surrounding terrain. As there is only one airfield icon for seaplane bases the aircraft will takeoff in the direction of open water/lowest terrain even if you set the second waypoint to go over land.
As for similar paintschemes on Stationary Aircraft, consider that most countries used the same basic paintscheme for all it warplanes. I don't think it would look unusual at all. However if it's a matter of historical correctness or country insignia......

You can set the fuel to "0" for an AI but if the plane is too close to shore it may jump up and destroy it's props when the mission starts or exhibit other erratic behaviors. If that's a problem try setting a stationary aircraft in front of it's flight path. As dumb as the AI is they won't (usually) fly into another parked aircraft. (They will run into/pass through other stationary objects though).

I hope this has been of some help.