Research
I had toyed with the idea of building a full tandem pit back in the days of Longbow2….but I didnt have the means to follow through with that lunacy back then, but now…. so once the apache was release in DCS, I decided to make an entire cockpit I had everything I needed to reference visually in the model explorer, all I needed was some basic dimensions.
Where I got my plans….
What plans…. when I made the decision to go full apache and build an entire tandem simulator cockpit, I kind of knew there was nothing available & this was going to be a ground up situation.
I had to forage for anything I could locate on the web. I think my Eureka moment was when i stumbled on this image for a apache mock-up build, so all I did was threw it in Gimp, scaled it up, then took as many measurements as I could
So once i had a relative idea of what i needed to do, I started to design a 3D model for the metal frame, taking into account the sheer size of this pit though, I had to make sure that the frame was modular so that it could be dismantled & pieces would fit through a standard domestic doorway…. you know …. so you could leave the roof on the house if you needed to relocate it.
So the basic dimensions I had, but for the things I couldn’t measure, there was a lot of ‘guess-ti-mation’, most things were near enough, but a couple of items came back to bite me once I had the frame & shell built & started filling up the pit with internal fixtures, like instrument dash, left & right consoles, seat, controllers….. as large as the pit is & as carefully as i measured everything, it all started to get a little crowded, until i realised a few of my design faux pas.
So I will need to revamp the 3D model to reflect a lot of the changes that were made.