my DC-8 Project

[JCRL]

Excellent work

And as Heretic said, don't trust a lot at the blueprints, you can use photos (from airliners or jetphotos) for the 3-views, they're very helpful when you'll make the little details

 

[Mr.FaosFX]

Excellent work

And as Heretic said, don't trust a lot at the blueprints, you can use photos (from airliners or jetphotos) for the 3-views, they're very helpful when you'll make the little details

That gave me an idea to do another photo comparison, the results made me very, very happy! :-]

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this. Took a picture of a real DC8-73F and overlayed one of my left views from my DC8, it was a 90% match. You can see that only the cockpit windows are off too low and a little too big, also the inward engines seem to be ahead but using this photo I corrected this and moved the engine back, its out of position now with the 3 views I have but now that this is the correct location thanks to the photograph...you guys are right!!

When I correct the nose section, I might just redo the entire nose cone area, fix up the windows again and re-compare.

I also did lots of engine work today since I was off from work. I was going to take a break from this but, it's just too fun to stop!!

Fixed up the engine pylons, added thrust reverser section, etc.

And this is where I got stuck so far, *reverse thrust* I'm not sure if this is correct (at the rear of the nacelle) no images on the net that show this moved back like this showing a view form behind, so I had to guess.

I'm not sure if I should have done this or not but it's got 42 blades according to the data for the CFM56-2, each blade has 4 visible polygons ... that's 672 polygons in total for all engines which isn't bad and it makes it more realistic than using a flat bitmap with blades "yuck."

I'm just refining the model now, adding bits here and there ... I know the wing requires major work but I don't have the wing correct yet so I'm not focused on it until I get it looking right.

 

[Heretic]

Hint: Texture a single blade and clone it to save some space on the texture map. The blades look all the same anyways.

 

[Mr.FaosFX]

Hint: Texture a single blade and clone it to save some space on the texture map. The blades look all the same anyways.

That what I'll be doing with all of them. Would be pretty crazy to have a texture 168 blades on it LOL

 

[hairyspin]

...this is the correct location thanks to the photograph...

Beware of viewpoint and perspective effects in photographs, especially if photos are taken fairly close to the aircraft. I can think of one aircraft that looks gull-winged in some photos because the viewpoint is just below the aircraft's centerline - the wings actually have a few degrees of dihedral throughout their span.

All 3-views agree with each other anyway - they agree to differ.

 

[Heretic]

That what I'll be doing with all of them. Would be pretty crazy to have a texture 168 blades on it LOL

Well, you could also combine all the blades into one part and map it as an entire fan "disk".

 

[Mr.FaosFX]

Well, you could also combine all the blades into one part and map it as an entire fan "disk".

That is required or FS as it is the most efficient way to have FS rotate the blades as opposed to one. I will texture one, re-array the blades and attach them and adjust rotational pivot point.

I still have to use a flat bitmap for lets say when the turbines are up to full speed, FS replaces the blades with the version that looks like its spinning fast but you prob. already know this :-]

 

[Tibo]

I looooove your work

 

[Mr.FaosFX]

I looooove your work

Thank you very much!!

Today's update since I got some work completed.

Wing design and air foils implemented. The wing uses 3 different air foils!! One the wing root, another at the first engine pylon and yet another at the wing tips; Douglas did this because there are no vortex generators on the DC-8 instead, during high angles of attack, there are two ports located on the leading edge of the wing that open to allow air from bellow to travel to the top of the wing, this feature will be on my DC8 model!! :-]

Wing root now mated to fuselage, some smoothing errors to correct on fuselage.

- Bottom of nose fixed.
- Nose inlet ports widened adjusted.

Top of nose area still not fixed, although the nose appears to look incredibly accurate, i'll still correct the minor issue anyway. The adjustment at the bottom really changed the appearance of the nose, it looks more DC8 now I should say.

It's just a matter of time before I finish with these modifications/corrections. I think gear doors maybe next before I attempt to cut out flaps, ailerons for wing area but still far from this.

That's all I have for now, later folks, always, comments welcome!!

 

[JPetroSS]

This is really freaking awesome already!!

 

[alexczarn]

Just saw this and it is amazing!!! Great work mate!!!

 

[n4gix]

Thrust reverser deployed on DC-8:

http://www.airliners.net/photo/338848/

On the DC-8-10 to DC-8-40, the reverser system was the same.

There was a sliding "ejector" that slid back on a rail aft of the engine. This was for two purposes, one was sound suppression, the other was that for the thrust reverser to work, the ejector had to be in the aft position.

Inside the ejector was a "daisy" for sound suppression, and two reverser "buckets" or clamshells.

The ejector was 'aft' for takeoff so that reversers could work in the event of a rejected takeoff. Also, the ejectors were 'aft' any time the flaps were extended for sound suppression near the ground, and thus were armed for landing.

The engine pods were different in the DC-8-50, and DC-8-61, then changed again in the DC-8-62/63, then of course when re-engined in the DC-8-70 series.

Apparently the actual thrust reversers are going to be very different depending on both the model variant as well as the type of engine used. I don't envy you're task of sorting it all out!

 

[N2056]

On the -71's it was possible to deploy the reversers on the inboard engines inflight. I very much remember riding one from Orlando to Denver many years ago and experiencing them being used to "expedite our descent" into Denver.

It was pretty impressive!

 

[Mr.FaosFX]

Thanks for the photo n4gix but thats the JT3D ... I need one of the CFM56-2 ... I wont be messing around with JT3D engines until I get to the 60 series .. I'm on the 70 series right now.

 

[Mr.FaosFX]

Apparently posting an update at flightsim.com was a bad idea. I came from work today to find my e-mail flooded with all kinds of messages. Some payware teams are asking me to come on-board and join them

I'm keep my updates here and I don't know how they got my e-mail address must be from the ATI repaints I did.

I was planning to release the series one by one but the attention on the DC8 is enormous .... everyone claims no gmax models exist for fs9 or fsx ... everyone is saying that I have the best model designed and blah blah. ... I am no master people, I am no expert, I'm just an average guy making some old plane in gMax, I'm nothing to be praised for.

Not going to work on the birdy today, I'm tired after all the drama. Going to bed, I work a night shift zzZZZZZ later guys.

 

[Heretic]

On the -71's it was possible to deploy the reversers on the inboard engines inflight. I very much remember riding one from Orlando to Denver many years ago and experiencing them being used to "expedite our descent" into Denver.

UAL, hm?

...

Or, as I like to put it: "Users are idiots."

 

[mdm248111]

... I am no master people, I am no expert, I'm just an average guy making some old plane in gMax, I'm nothing to be praised for.

Look pretty good to me! Much better than I could do at modeling an aircraft

 

[n4gix]

Apparently posting an update at flightsim.com was a bad idea. I came from work today to find my e-mail flooded with all kinds of messages. Some payware teams are asking me to come on-board and join them

I noticed this in the thread at flightsim.com, but didn't want to reply to it there for obvious reasons:

I could make the DC8 VC in less than 1 week if I wanted and the cabin as well.

I do hope you understand that the 3d modeling part of a VC is only about 10% of the work required, right? The embedded XML script required makes up another 60% or so, with the remaining 30% devoted to the systems logic required to make it functional.

 

[Mr.FaosFX]

From what I've read so far, XML is just a mark-up language which lets you describe what data is. Most of the functions to design a gauge are already implemented into the flightsim architecture ... so if you wanted to create a gauge to display knots ... you only need to describe in XML what the gauge looks like, background bitmap, the bitmap to use for the needle, the variables to use, etc and then flightsim takes all of this data and uses it approrpriately making use of which ever variables were described, this doesn't mean its easy, I'm just saying it is a bit more involved.

I've already it also has a space to store variables and the like and a panel has many many many variables which is why I plan to program a load configuration application in C++ to allow people to set their weights, fuel load, before a flight ... I've never talked to FS before but I'm pretty sure I can find the API somewhere.

Hopefully its not any harder than the spaghetti contraptions I've done in C++ using templates which sort of represents the same idea as XML to represent data.

The following C++ program, describes data for each type and also employs programming for how to handle the data and what to do with it.

/// CharToNum.h ; 1/22/2011
/// Rafael Perez-Santana (C) 2011
/// mr.rafael.ps@gmail.com

/// CharToNum ALSO PARSES THE <CHAR STRING> (I.E "a4556@#!!78!!2") WILL
/// CONVERT TO "4556782" GIVEN THE TYPE SUPPORTS THE SIZE OF THE OUTPUT.

/// IF YOU GET A PLAIN 0 DURING CONVERSION, TWO EVENTS MAY HAVE OCCURED;
/// 1. YOU CONVERTED A <char string> 0 TO A 0.
/// 2. THE OPERATION WAS ABORTED DUE A TYPE NOT SUPPORTED BY CharToNum.
/// SEE --> @@

#ifndef CHARTONUM_H
#define CHARTONUM_H

#include <cctype> // FOR; isdigit()
#include <cstring> // FOR; strlen(),strcat()

class CharToNum
/// CONVERTS A <char string> TO A NUMBER YOU CAN STORE IN TYPES; SHORT,
/// INT, UNSIGNED INT, LONG, UNSIGNED LONG, LONG LONG & UNSIGNED LONG LONG.
/// :: UNSIGNED SHORT IS RETARDED & NOT RECOMMENDED TO USE WITH CharToNum!!
{
private:

class SupportedTypes
// THIS CLASS HELPS TO IDENTIFY DIFFERENT TYPES.
{ public: /// IF THE TYPE IS NOT SUPPORTED; 0.
operator int() { return 1; }
operator long() { return 1; }
operator short() { return 1; }
operator long long() { return 1; }
operator unsigned int() { return 1; }
operator unsigned long() { return 1; }
operator unsigned long long() { return 1; }

/// THE FOLLOWING TYPES ARE NOT SUPPORTED BY CharToNum.
operator unsigned short() { return 0; }
operator double long() { return 0; }
operator double() { return 0; }
operator float() { return 0; }
} TypeSupport;

char*pNumStr; /// USE .c_str() FOR C++ STRINGS.
unsigned int iMemAlloc; // AMOUNT OF MEMORY TO ALLOCATE.

public:

CharToNum() // :: CONSTRUCTOR.
/// ALLOCATES MEMORY TO STORE THE <char string> THIS WAS DONE SO THAT
/// STRINGS ARE CONCATENATED WHEN THE << OPERATOR IS USED.
{
iMemAlloc=128; // SHOULD BE ENOUGH.
pNumStr=new char[iMemAlloc]; // ALLOCATE THE MEMORY.
if(pNumStr)*pNumStr='0'; // SET FIRST ENTRY TO 0.
}

~CharToNum() // :: DESTRUCTOR.
/// FREES THE ALLOCATED MEMORY.
{
if(pNumStr)delete[]pNumStr; // ONLY FREE IF NOT NULL!
}

// OVERLOAD OPERATOR << TO GET POINTER TO <char string>.
// USAGE: CharToNum YourObject; YourObject<<ACharString; (^_^)
CharToNum&operator<<(const char*pNumStr_)
/// GETS POINTER TO <char string> & STORES LOCATION IN pNumStr.
// IF YOU USE; YourObject<<"123"<<"679"; THE RESULT IS "123679".
{
if(strlen(pNumStr)<iMemAlloc) /// DO NOT EXCEED ALLOCATED MEMORY!
strcat(pNumStr,pNumStr_); // APPEND NEW <char string>
return*this;
}

/// NOTE: EVEN THOUGH << CONCATENATES THE <char strings> TOGETHER, IF THE
/// CONVERSION OUTPUT EXCEEDS THE TYPE MAX LIMIT, YOU MAY NOT GET ALL THE NUMBERS!

// OVERLOAD OPERATOR >> TO INVOKE TYPE CONVERSION TEMPLATE FUNCTION;
// USAGE: int iSomeNumber; YourObject>>iSomeNumber; LOOKS NICER!! (^_^)
template<typename T>CharToNum&operator>>(T&xData)
/// THIS CREATES A TEMPLATE THAT INVOKES YET ANOTHER TEMPLATE, LOL!!
/// IF pNumStr IS NULL, NOTHING HAPPENS, ELSE THE TYPE CONVERSION TO T().
{
if(pNumStr)xData=this->operator T(); // INVOKE TEMPLATE FOR; operator T().
return*this;
}

/// NOTE: IF THE >> OPERATOR IS USED MULTIPLE TIMES;
/// YourObject>>Number1>>Number2>>Number3; THE CONVERSION IS STORED IN
/// Number1 & THEN Number2 EQUALS Number1 & Number3 EQUALS Number2.

// INTERNAL TYPE CONVERSION TEMPLATE FUNCTION; THE HEART OF CharToNum!
template<typename T>operator T()
/// IF THE CONVERSION EXCEEDS THE MAXIMUM ALLOWED MAX LIMIT FOR A TYPE, THE
/// TYPE REVERTS TO 0 OR NEGATIVE, IF THAT HAPPENS, THE CONVERSION OPERATION IS
/// ABORTED AND THE FUNCTION RETURNS THE LAST CONVERSION OPERATION. SEE --> ##
{ T iGetNum=0,iBuffer=0; // TEMPORARY VARIABLES.
T iTYPE=TypeSupport;if(!iTYPE)return iTYPE; /// IF 0 ; TYPE IS NOT SUPPORTED. @@
for(int i=0;*(pNumStr+i)!='\0';i++) // LOOP UNTIL NULL IS FOUND.
{
/// *(NumStr+i) IS CAST TO THE TYPE (T) THE RESULT IS THE char CODE FOR
/// THE NUMBER; char(48 TO 57) REPRESENTS 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. BY SUBRACTING
/// 48 FROM THE char CODE, WE CAN OBTAIN THE ACTUAL NUMBER.
iGetNum=*(pNumStr+i)-48; // CONVERT char CODE TO ACTUAL NUMBER.
if(!isdigit(*(pNumStr+i)))continue; // IGNORE IF NOT A DIGIT.
if(!iBuffer){iBuffer=iGetNum;continue;} // SET TO iGetNum ON FIRST PASS.
// WE MUST CAST THE CONDITION (iBuffer*10+iGetNum) TO THE TYPE (T)!
if(T(iBuffer*10+iGetNum)<iBuffer)break; /// MUST NOT BE LESS, ABORT IF SO! ##
iBuffer=iBuffer*10+iGetNum; // MULTIPLY BY 10 & ADD iGetNum.
/// WARNING! iBuffer=iBuffer*10+iGetNum; MUST BE UNCHANGED!!
/// iBuffer*=10+iGetNum WILL CAUSE 10+iGetNum to EXECUTE FIRST!!
/// YOU DO NOT WANT THAT, iBuffer MUST BE MULTIPLIED BY 10 FIRST
/// BEFORE ADDING iGetNum!!
}

return iBuffer; // iBuffer HAS CONVERSION.
}
};
#endif // CHARTONUM_H

As for creating the VC n4gix, I was referring to the modeling part ... I know the XML markup takes longer and how to make it work takes longer but this can't really be any hard because my bud, that is were all the fun is ... anyone can make a robot but, can you make it walk and drink a glass of water? I consider this to be fun and a learning experience ... NOT a laborius task as so many refer to at flightsim.com projects stop being fun when you STOP having fun.

Just one more thing before I go, you might get an electrical failure if you make that robot drink water ....... use gasoline instead and run for cover.

 

[Mr.FaosFX]

- Top of nose fixed.
- Wing tips added.
- Fixed some parts of the nose.

Sorry if I was worrying you guys with my lack of updates. No pictures today sorry but the DC8 still looks the same, except for the newly added wing tips.

The nose area was worked on a lot.

I plan to cut the landing gear doors today at some point when I get back on this and the nose gear doors.

The fuselage will under go lots of work to get it to 73F status, might not see another update "IN PICTURES" for atleast a couple of weeks, not until anything major is added.

I'm going to bed now. bye all.