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DC-8 50 series update

Closing in on a completed exterior model. I have finished modelling the wing, except for a few little pieces on the underside of it. Still need to finish the landing gear and texture the wing, pylons and horizontal tail. Textures that are mapped are still very basic. Here we are landing with flaps 35:

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There are 29,000 polys at present, and I guess I need less than 1,000 to finish. It all ends up as triangles, from what I understand, so poly count maybe a little misleading. Most of what I have are two triangle polys, but there are a fair number that already are single triangles and just a few polys with more than two triangles in them.

I'm inclined to believe my poly count is pretty reasonable; not sure what's typical these days for an airliner release. I have made efforts to keep it low.
 
I switch back and forth between the VC and exterior. The VC is not all that much to look at right now as I spend as much time coding the gauges as working on the model. Also, the VC textures will be shaded with texture baking and I can't carry that out until the physical model is completed. So at this point there's not a lot of point in posting VC screenshots. I posted the one above just to show there is in fact a VC in progress.
 
I was recently able to obtain access to a recently retired DC-8 62, which although not the same variant I am modelling, still has a lot in common with the 50 series aircraft. I took almost a thousand photographs and was able to get into the cargo bays and see how all the doors opened. Below is a screenshot of work in progress on the fuel panel in P3D together with a photograph of the real thing. Bear in mind that some textures need to be updated from copied parts and that I still need to add some dirt, scratches, screw heads, etc.

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The fuel transfer levers, will they work?
Click to expand...

The panel isn't coded yet, so it's too early to say how functional the cross feeds will be. The intention is to have cross feeding from the main centre tank into the wing tanks which supply the engines, but more complex cross feeding from one set of wing tanks to another may not be modelled and would in any event only be needed to cope with leaking tanks or pump failures (which will not be modelled). At this point, it's all a bit speculative.

Here is another shot with P3D cockpit shadows off -- the lighting looks a little closer to how it appears in the photograph.
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Now that I do look at it I see that I in fact downloaded Edi's panel ages ago and then forgot all about it. And there is a panel background photo with some detail on the fuel gauges shown that I had pretty much given up trying to find. Thanks guys.
 
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