Restoration of a DC-10 Cockpit for use as a KC-10 cockpit

[747_Classic_Sim]

Hello Sim Community! 

Before I began on the massive 747 sim project, I began my first real airframe restoration with a DC-10 cockpit for the company I work for.  It was a filthy mess upon receipt, but a lot of hard work, mostly on my own time, brought it into a very attractive tool to help demonstrate pruducts used for legacy aircraft avionics upgrades.  Thake a look.  some of the restoration tips may be helpful in your own projects. 

Thanks.

Matt

[Sean]

That's one heck of a restoration project Matt. Thanks for sharing it with us.

I've not seen the external visuals done like that before, wonderful!

[Trevor Hale]

Wow,  I think I just lost all of my Chicklets. What a beautiful restoration.  Thanks a bundle for sharing it.  I am just amazed at the ammount of time that must have taken.

Trev 

[kondrat]

Waw!
Amazing!

[G-BVOB]

Matt,

Thanks for sharing that with us, your pdf is stored on my system now for inspiration.

What material did you use over the windshield to project onto? That's a neat idea I'd like to look at for my own project.

Cheers and superb work
Jon
www.g-bvob.net

[747_Classic_Sim]

Hi!

The rear projection system worked very well for the demonstrations in the DC-10 cockpit.  Most projectors have selectable options for front and rear projection. 

The DC-10, like the 707/727/737, and most other airliners, use flat pieces of glass for their two main front windshields.  With the projector pointed down to match the slope of the glass, and the excess light blocked with shades around the projedtor lens, the effect was pretty dramatic.  Yes, you could fly and land the aircraft with this system, and the fact that the DC-10's windshields are so large, it fills most of your peripheral vision, which really tricks your brain.  But there are severe limitations to this approach:

1. Because the two windsheild sections slope back, there is obvious optical stratching near the outside edges.

2. The film I used to cover the clear plexiglass restricted some light from passing through and removed a lot of fine detail.  This worked well with this low resolution projector since it hid all the pixelation, but would NOT be acceptable to a flight simmer who wanted the decent outside visuals that exist out there today. 

3.  I tried initially to coat the plexiglass with a fine layer of flat white paint, but could NEVER get it consistent and even though the outside looked great, when something was prjected on it, you could easily see where there was more or less paint applied.  So I found this big roll of some kind of thin white material that had no name on it.  It was like the texture of a cheap plastic disposable table cloth and appeared to be some sort of synthetic rubber.  But it was 100% consistent in density, so there were no splotches when an image was projected onto it.  It was thin enough not to block a lot of light, but still muddied up the image somewaht.  But since the objective was to demonstrate the avionics, not the ad-hoc visual system I threw together, it didn't matter.  People loved flying it even with the limitations. 

If I ever find out what that roll of material was, I'll be sure to post it.  I think they make material exclusively for rear-projection systems that would work a lot better than whatever that stuff was I used.  I'd go that direction first. 

Matt

[G-BVOB]

Matt,

Thanks for taking time to add the further info.

I've been looking online at the rear projection material, at the moment can only find the manufacturers, no distributors - time to make some phone calls I guess. My cockpit has the original windows still installed. I was actually thinking of splitting the forward image into 2, projecting one onto the captain's side the other on the F/O's. The pro's are getting away from the hassle of a curved screen and keeping images aligned, the cons may be as you've already described. Never a dull moment with this hobby !?

Jon
www.g-bvob.net

[Nat Crea]

Firstly Matt....I am absolutely blown away by the Flight Deck!

Hate to bring up the visuals, but how did you find the parallax?
I experimented with this technique a while ago but found it impossible to even taxi without puking

Nat

[Bob Reed]

Since no one has asked, I will be brave and ask, what ever happened to this cockpit?

[747_Classic_Sim]

Rockwell won the Air force KC-10 upgrade program.  The whole DC-10 cockpit was elevated from the floor, completely air conditioned, rewired, and now a whole new avionics suite is being installed.  A whole lab surrounds it and it is being fitted with the new technology.  Since it's a defense project, I can't show pictures of how the final configuration is. 

[Bob Reed]

Ah so it is still in use. That is great to know!