PROJECT F-84F

Just a short quick update since I’ve not posted in awhile. This year has been eventful for the project. I’ve picked up two A-6M gunsights for the cockpit and made the exterior presentable for Cockpitfest USA 2012. Here is a pic of it and the KAM F-84F with the Thunderbirds flying overhead at the show. Sure is a lot of “thunder” occurring in that picture. *chuckle*

Here are two pics of the current status of KAM’s F-84F. Overall I’m happy with how it turned out so far. A gun sight will be installed soon also to help round out the missing pieces in the cockpit.

Justin wanted me to post some pics of the cockpit condition when we opened it up. Here you go.

I didn’t think to get any pics of the left panel side, but it’s similarly stripped like the right but with the throttle quadrant and landing gear handles still there.

I’ve been digging around for a few years for the F-84F maintenance manuals. I finally broke down earlier this week and picked up copies of the 1F-84F-3, 1F-84F-4, REF-84F-MTR-C and 1F-84F-06 from Essco. I dread feeding money to manual scanning businesses but I couldn’t find them anywhere else. If you happen to have any manuals related to the F-84F, let me know. I’d like to either scan or copy them to help with the project. I’ve had a 1F-84F-1 flight manual for a few years now and a few air guard crew checklists, but I’m always looking for new reference material to help document things.

Another last photo before I get some sleep for the night. I figure with the long delay in recent updates, the site needed a few extra entries. Here is the MIP that KAM’s F-84F uses. It’s painted gray and the gauge layout is different than my F-84F MIP. Some of the gauges in the panel look to be random filler. That needs to be fixed I guess. Hopefully the museum has some more correct spares laying around in storage.

Last night Justin and I started a little spring cleaning project over at KAM. (It’s me in the pic) We’re looking to get KAM’s F-84F into presentable condition for potential future open cockpit days at KAM. While my F-84F has the first version of everything in the cockpit, the KAM F-84F seems to have been kept updated all the way to the last version. It’s interesting to see just what all is different between the two. The most apparent differences are the MIP configuration and the ejection seat. The side panels look the same. (although the KAM side panels are mostly stripped, so I’m merely guessing based on what is still there). We pulled the MIP to clean it up and get it out of the way for a clean up of the overall cockpit tub this coming Sunday. (btw, pigeons are evil little rats with wings that make museum aircraft a mess)

Due to the sheer amount of senseless spam, I’ve turned off user comments. 15 comments a day about things not remotely related to any of the site content was getting on my last nerve. If you’d like to contect me, please use email contact <at> f-84f <dot> org.

What has kept me buisy in the last year is the development and refinement of computer based simulation visuals. It’s been a long on-going process where I’ve collaborated with ImmersaView to help develop and promote their NTHUSIM product line to be accessible to hobby simpit builders, surround-screen gamers and home theater enthusiasts. Without their vision and insight, circular projection visuals simply would not exist for hobbyists in an affordable manner.

A big thanks also goes out to the staff at EVGA and the EVGA forum community for assistance and some price breaks to build the projection computer. It consists of an Intel i7 930, EVGA X58 4-Way E762, 6GB of G.Skill DDR3 2000, three OCZ 60GB Vertex SSD for system, two WD 1.5GB HD for data, LG Blu-Ray for movies, one Corsair PSU, two Thermaltake PSUs, three EVGA GTX470 for Tri-SLI and one EVGA GTX465 for PhysX/CUDA. Lastly, the projectors — three Optoma EX525ST. All of that makes for some serious gaming horse-power.

Here is a picture of my current prototype triple projector gaming screen. I’ve been using  this setup since October of last year. It uses standard COTS hardware and can be done in a cost effective manner. It just takes a nice bit of space and some patience to set up. This will eventually be adapted for the use for the F-84F simpit.

Ug, it got up to 104F today. it’s definitely the heat of Summer. I have a few more things to do on the tent, but the fuselage is now safely out of the sun.

Since transporting the fuselage back from Texas in 2008, the trailer has for the most part been out in the open under shade trees in the back yard. After seeing what Summer heat can do to aircraft canopies out on an open tarmac at museums I’ve decided to give the trailer it’s own tent to get the fuselage better out of the elements. I’ll update the post in the next few days once I have the tent setup.