P3 Orion

[BlackWidow]

Hello all

I have been doing some research on various aircraft. I have fallen in love with the old propliners of the 50s - 60s. which led me to find the lockheed L188. I have been looking for cockpit dimensions for the DC6, DC7, L188 which i think was used by the navy as a P3 Orion or close too the panels look almost identical. Anyway would it be safe to say that the cockpits are roughly the same size as a 737? There is tons of info on building that cockpit but not much on the old propliners. Thanks everyone.

[spitfire9]

Hello,,, yes the L188 and the P3 are the same. P3 military and the L188 civilian.
Nice aircraft ! Me and a couple other guys have been building a Convair 580 sim for the past couple of years and ,, you would think that it would be easier, because the aircraft isn't as advanced as , say a 737. But because you are breaking new ground,, support for those types of aircraft simulators is hard to find.
You will definitly find plenty of help and encouragement here.

[Ronson2k9]

I found a few sites on the Orion but most of them are technical. Based mostly on the on board detection equipment. The CP-140 Aurora of Canada is a close duplicate if not the same aircraft. I also found this line drawing of the Orion at FlightGlobal. I'm sure you know about the P3 Cockpit at AIRLINERS.NET and other cockpit photo sites.

Based on this schematic I found online the fuselage is 11'-4" wide OA and the cockpit (most right corner to most left corner) front windows is 9' exactly.

The Orion was a favorite of mine at airshows back when we used to have them -- airshows I mean.

Best of luck on your build should you start down the road on this aircraft.
Ron

[BlackWidow]

Thanks for the reply's. WOW 9' that is bigger then the 737 IIRC the Cockpit rear bulkhead of the 737 is about 8ft. Thats ok though because building the shell like the 737 and just changing the windows would work out just fine. I love my Super Cub sim but I built it with the intention of building bigger latter anyway. I am not sure this is the way i will go still just doing research. but i very much appreciate the info. Spitfire9 is there any photos or a website for the Convair build? Thanks.

[spitfire9]

Sorry for the late reply! Busy with the holidays!

I have some pics of the Convair project here posted but none that are very recent. I will post some recent ones very soon.

here is a youtube link to a test flight Lee and I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKVA2t9q57s

[BlackWidow]

Cool video. What program are you using for the gauges the panel looks great. I plan on using PMRJ but I want to build my own gauges to display the engine data. I am going to build the L188 but figured more people here might know more abut the P3 then the L188 anyway I look forward to seeing more of your pics.

[spitfire9]

We are using Fs9,, easier for me to modify stuff. The gauges were built by myself using a program called "Easygauge" which unfortunately is not available anymore. No support either !! They are .gau gauges anyway and I don't think they work for Fsx ??I guess I will have to learn more about the xml files and FSpanel Studio.

[spitfire9]

I added a couple of albums to my profile page.

There has been more work done since so I plan on taking more pictures soon.

[fsaviator]

Mike, if you are interested in the P3 Orion, I suggest you get in contact with Scott (XOrionFE), here on MC or on CB.com. He's spent some time in them.

Can't promise he'll have what you need, but in light of his past, I'd wager he can point you in the right direction

[BlackWidow]

Thanks for the heads up fsaviator i sent a PM to XorionFE.