FFX/SGA
McDonnell-Douglas DC10
README AND INSTRUCTIONS
OVERVIEW
After waiting several years for a viable DC 10 to be built, we took it upon ourselves to finally build one and offer it to the Flight Sim community. But we didnt limit ourselves to just one, we built the entire DC 10 family! All the series have been accurately modeled. The series include the 10, 10F, 15, 30, 30ER, 30F, 40, 40I, 40D, and 40F. Please note that the freighters will be released a few weeks after the passenger variants have been released. The freighters will feature opening cargo doors with visible cargo containers in addition to the features listed here.
Features include what has become the standard in GMAX design for FS, dynamic shine, internal wing views, 3D fans modeled on all 3 engines, fully animated flight control surfaces, opening passenger doors, opening galley service doors, opening cargo access doors, animated landing light assemblies, animated flight crew, and visible interior components textured. And lastly, close to real flight dynamics. We would never be so bold as to boast that our flight dynamics were the real thing or of pay ware quality. FS is incapable of true real dynamics and we do have our own limitations in knowledge as well. But we feel youll enjoy what we have.
There were a total of 446 DC 10s built by McDonnell-Douglas from 1972 to 1989; 131 DC10-10, 7 DC10-15, 206 DC10-30, 60 KC10A, 42 DC10-40. It is a sorely missed aircraft in the real world as many airlines are retiring their fleets. It has also been sorely missed in FS as well. Not since the Freeware Flight Groups (FFG) DC 10 release for FS2000 has one ever come into existence except for AI use. FFGs DC 10 set a standard in design for that period, but unfortunately was never upgraded to todays standard in design. Although out dated, it still reigns supreme as one of the all time best aircraft ever built for Flight Simulator.
SPECIAL NOTE!
There are some minor issues with the aircraft that some will notice and some not. WE KNOW ABOUT ALL OF THEM! So please do not flood our mail boxes or the forums with complaints. All issues will be addressed in a scheduled upgrade. This upgrade will feature dynamic speed compensated flexing wings. The forthcoming FS2004 requires a change to be made in order to enable this new feature. Once that is addressed by Microsoft , we will issue the upgrade.
We felt that the minor flaws were small enough and should not affect the overall enjoyment of the aircraft.
INSTALLATION
In order to properly install our aircraft, please follow the following steps closely.
Step #1
Extract this zip file to your main FS2002 folder. The files will automatically be put in their respective areas.
Step #2
The landing lights on this aircraft fold in and out of the fuselage when turned on or off. To realistically simulate this effect, we had to link the landing lights to the tail hook animation. In order to use the landing lights, you must first setup a key that is used to activate the tail hook animation, as it is not set by default.
Go to the Options-> Controls-> Assignments menu
-At the bottom of the "General aircraft commands", you will find the "tail hook" command.
The passenger doors animate with the following commands; L2= Shift+E, L1= Shift+E+2
The cargo doors and galley service doors open with the FOLDING WING command. Follow the above instructions for the tail hook to assign a key command for this animation.
Step #3
To view wings from the cockpit without needing to switch to Active Camera, please follow these steps.
This will allow you to view the wings from 3 passenger perspectives without affecting the set viewpoint in the aircraft config file or ever leaving the cockpit.
Please make a backup of your panel.cfg file before continuing.
DO NOT CHANGE THE VIEW POINT SETTING IN YOUR AIRCRAFT CONFIG FILE!
1)-in your panel config, remove the LEFT REAR, RIGHT REAR, and REAR bitmaps. Remove the FIXED WINDOWS lines and the FIXED WINDOW information lower down in the panel config.
2)-place the following information in your panel config file, highlight (copy paste) and overwrite;
This will give you the normal cockpit views when looking forward, right front, right, left, and left front. But when using the HAT switch on your controller or using the #1, #2 or #3 keys on the number keypad, you will have a passengers perspective looking out across the wings on either side.
#1 key looks left rear, forward of the wing
#2 key looks right rear, forward of the wing
#3 key looks left, behind the wing
#5 still looks down (or up) and cannot be used for wing views in case some of you may be considering changing it. It is mapped and coded differently and cannot be used. When trying this you will only see the wing shadow.
This configuration is merely a starting point; you can make adjustments to the eye points to custom tailor it to your preference.
We do have a panel project scheduled for development. It will feature the old steam gauges with INS, a semi digital with FMC as the aircraft were later upgraded and an MD-10 panel which is similar to the MD-11. Another feature will be a First Officers option. All the panels will have a working overhead and engineers panel as well. Development should begin later this year (2003). In the meantime, we recommend using Staffan Ahlbergs DC10 panel which can be downloaded from http://hem.passagen.se/primeavi/. With minor modifications to the panels config file by removing the INS gauge, it will work properly in FS2002.
Step #4 (OPTIONAL)
(FOR THOSE THAT DOWNLOAD ERICK CANTUS SOUND FILES)
FS defaults to 22,050 Hz and appears to convert all sounds to that. This makes anything recorded at a higher sample level sound horrible. To get around this, you will need to open up your fs2002.cfg file (Found in the root FS folder) in a text editor such a Notepad. Find and delete all content under the header [SOUND]. Next replace the text under the [SOUND] header with the following:
SOUND=1
SOUND_FADER1=1.000000
SOUND_FADER2=0.470000
SOUND_FADER3=0.620000
SOUND_FADER4=0.800000
SOUND_FADER5=0.810000
SOUND_FADER6=1.000000
SOUND_QUALITY=2
Channels=2 (4 for surround sound)
SamplesPerSec=44100
BitsPerSample=16
If done right, you should have something that looks like this in your fs2002.cfg file:
[SOUND]
SOUND=1
SOUND_FADER1=1.000000
SOUND_FADER2=0.470000
SOUND_FADER3=0.620000
SOUND_FADER4=0.800000
SOUND_FADER5=0.810000
SOUND_FADER6=1.000000
SOUND_QUALITY=2
Channels=2
SamplesPerSec=44100
BitsPerSample=16
NOTE: If you use surround sound speakers with your computer, use a value of 4 instead of 2 for the "Channels=" section.
For your convenience, here is the default entry should you need to restore this section:
[SOUND]
SOUND=1
SOUND_FADER1=0.500000
SOUND_FADER2=0.100000
SOUND_FADER3=0.300000
SOUND_FADER4=0.800000
SOUND_FADER5=0.500000
SOUND_FADER6=0.800000
SOUND_QUALITY=1
Note: I have tested this modification on many different systems running FS, and it did cause a noticeable increase in sound quality on all systems.
Liveries by: Erick Cantu, Mike Baumann, Steve Drabek, Cameron Bowerman, Takehiro Nakamura, Rick Bores, Tyler Johnson, Jason Diaz, Kiki Mazboudi, Daniel Pimental, Danny Fritsche, Tommy Hansson, Daniel Halpern
SPECIAL THANKS
To FFG (Freeware Flight Group for giving us one of the all time best DC10s ever built. It gave us a live visual model to examine and cross reference with our own, and their flight dynamics which was referenced together with real world data to produce the current flight dynamics files.
To all of our supporters who have seen us thru thick and thin since the beginning
To all our painters for putting up with Erick, Mike and Jon
And to our remaining group members for sticking with us all this time.
CONTACT
Jonathan Stewart: jonathan@sgair.net
Erick Cantu: erick@sgair.net
Mike Baumann: mike@sgair.net
FFX/SGA
OUR RESPECTIVE WEBSITE:
http://www.sgair.net/
(CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION)