A day in the MD 80 cockpit

On 23 November, Frank and I had a great trip to Billund airport / Denmark.

We had received permission from DAT to come into their MD80 cockpit and take all the dimensions of cockpit and panels. We met with Soren from DAT at 9:45 and after we had been registered and checked by the airport security staff, so we could get to the fun.

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/3443/dsc0097a.jpg


DAT was very helpful and we got the aircraft connected to ground power, so all instruments and panels were illuminated.

There was an intense measurement and photography in this small cockpit until about 13:30 o'clock. At thise time, Soren got another task to be performed. Soren then drove us back to my car.

http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/7118/dsc0096.jpg
Frank my friend and Soren from DAT in the cockpit

Frank and I went into the bistro at the new terminal building, here we sat down and a got a bite to eat, With our heads full of figures, we sat there and talked about the fantastic experience, and we can not thank DAT enough that we got access to their cockpit.

In thise last days/weeks we have worked very hard to get our dimensions transferred from paper to computer, this seems also to be a very big task, and it is now that we will find out what dimesioner we forgot to take in the cockpit.


Many data and pictures will come on this site: http://www.md80project.dk.
Frank is currently working on a 3D version of the cokpit

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/1601/dsc0054f.jpg

Just give me the word: "take off" 8-)


http://www.md80project.dk/

WOW, fantastic pics and what a nice tour. Glad you were able to experience the real cockpit. Nice going Claus!!!! :) :) :)

Thanks for sharing the photos Claus.

Thats a very good start. We made all measurments in a Learjet 55, Longhorn 2-3 years ago. That was very helpful. I also got, I think, a very good recommendation from Jonathan Richardson from Project Magenta. One of the most important things in cockpit building is the planning part of the project. Take photos, make sketches, go through what gauges and systems are actually simulated in the software of your planned simulator.

Very nice pics!

Looking forward to see more!

Regards