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Lightning drawings


J.C. Bahr

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So what is considered to be accurate BAC Lightning drawings? I've seen the Huntley and Caruana drawings and it would seem that what is in the AirDoc on the Lightning is based on Caruana's. Are there any others?

Interestingly, Huntley and Caruana's drawings seem pretty close in their total profile, but Huntley seems to place the cable runs about 4-inches higher on the fuselage than they should be and Trumpeter's kit seems to follow Huntley's drawing pretty close. Thoughts?

Just curious as I've seen a lot mentioned about the ventral tank on the Mk.6. It definitely seems too bulbous on the the sides, but I'm wondering if the bottom is that far out of shape?

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Virtually all of the published drawings are poor IMHO - and the Trumpeter Mk 6 belly tank is way out both in cross section and profile/depth (at least the 1:32 one is).

It's believed Trumpeter based their molds on one of those sets of drawings...

There's a whole list of other areas for improvement though - canopy/nose/undercarriage/length/wing - I could go on (see link in my sig.)

Most accurate drawings are the one's Frank Brown had from BAC/Brit Aerospace when he created his 1:32 vac masterpiece - which includes some pretty accurate drawings with the kit.

I've been using those, thousands of photo's from various publications and measurements of the real thing.

Iain

Edited by Iain (32SIG)
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It's believed Trumpeter based their molds on one of those sets of drawings...

Get's my vote! Most likely the Warpaint/Huntley drawings.

There's a whole list of other areas for improvement though - (see link in my sig.)

Yeah, don't think I'll be getting that involved! I plan to do the Quickboost nose-ring, Aires tail section, shorten the gear and droop the wings, but otherwise on the fence about the tank. Giving thought to hacking off the tank from the old Hasegawa (Frog?) kit (1/72) and seeing if that might be able to work.

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If you have a Hasegawa/Frog kit for the belly that's the way to go (or Matchbox) - but if anything like the bigger kits - they may be a little long (as the fuselage is a little short) - not so noticeable in 1:72 however...

Good luck - and we want photo's! :)

Iain

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If you have a Hasegawa/Frog kit for the belly that's the way to go (or Matchbox) - but if anything like the bigger kits - they may be a little long (as the fuselage is a little short) - not so noticeable in 1:72 however...

Good luck - and we want photo's! :)

Iain

I bought the 1/72 resin F6 belly tank from Heritage (IIRC) but the whole project has stalled and buried itself at the bottom of the naughty pile! Even my Neomega T4 conversion using an F3 has crashed and burned as the F3 belly tank shape (which is also wrong on the Trumpeter kits) is carried over onto the Neommega resin fuselage.

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As the issue of accurate Lightning drawings pops up frequently and the answer is invariably that the best are in the Echelon kit, I wonder if it could be possible to check with the author if he's interested in making these available ? I can see some interest in this forum alone

Edited by Giorgio N
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  • 1 month later...

Hi Fellas.

I've just picked up on this thread.

With regards to the Echelon 1/32nd drawings, I am that man, I'm afraid. I did the drawings for Frank all those years ago. He had a load of British Aerospace and English Electric Lightning drawings, which I studied for months on end. It turned out that every one of the drawings had an error in them in one way or another! I couldn't believe it, to be honest, but after a shed-load of research and lots of phone calls, I came up with the 1/32nd scale drawings in Frank's kit. I also did the painting and decal placement guide, but that's another story!

Anyway, the point of this is that if anyone would like a copy of the drawings (which i still have), It's fine by me. I would check with Frank that he doesn't mind, of course (I'm sure he wouldn't), and for the cost of the copying and postage I would be more than happy to send them to anyone who's interested.

I'll check this thread regularly, but you could always fire off a PM to me anytime.

Cheers

Stew

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Hi Fellas.

I've just picked up on this thread.

With regards to the Echelon 1/32nd drawings, I am that man, I'm afraid. I did the drawings for Frank all those years ago. He had a load of British Aerospace and English Electric Lightning drawings, which I studied for months on end. It turned out that every one of the drawings had an error in them in one way or another! I couldn't believe it, to be honest, but after a shed-load of research and lots of phone calls, I came up with the 1/32nd scale drawings in Frank's kit. I also did the painting and decal placement guide, but that's another story!

Anyway, the point of this is that if anyone would like a copy of the drawings (which i still have), It's fine by me. I would check with Frank that he doesn't mind, of course (I'm sure he wouldn't), and for the cost of the copying and postage I would be more than happy to send them to anyone who's interested.

I'll check this thread regularly, but you could always fire off a PM to me anytime.

Cheers

Stew

I'd be interested in a set of these as my F.6 ones are getting a bit tatty . How I wished I'd bought a few more of the Echelon kits and that they had done an F1/F.2/F.3

Andy

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Hi Fellas.

I've just picked up on this thread.

With regards to the Echelon 1/32nd drawings, I am that man, I'm afraid. I did the drawings for Frank all those years ago. He had a load of British Aerospace and English Electric Lightning drawings, which I studied for months on end. It turned out that every one of the drawings had an error in them in one way or another! I couldn't believe it, to be honest, but after a shed-load of research and lots of phone calls, I came up with the 1/32nd scale drawings in Frank's kit. I also did the painting and decal placement guide, but that's another story!

Anyway, the point of this is that if anyone would like a copy of the drawings (which i still have), It's fine by me. I would check with Frank that he doesn't mind, of course (I'm sure he wouldn't), and for the cost of the copying and postage I would be more than happy to send them to anyone who's interested.

I'll check this thread regularly, but you could always fire off a PM to me anytime.

Cheers

Stew

Stew,

as I was the one who suggested to see if the author of those drawings would be ok in making them available again, I'm really happy to see this reply !

You are very kind to offer the result of what sounds to have been a lot of hard work for so little, I am very grateful to you for this and I'm sure many others will be too !

As soon as you can confirm that Frank is fine with this, I'll PM you with a request !!!

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Hello again chaps.

I've just replied to a PM saying that I have four of you interested in copies of the Echelon drawings, so I'll touch base with Frank in the next couple of days and get back to you all.

As I said earlier, I'm sure he won't mind. There was a one-man publication some years ago that asked to scale them down to 1/72nd scale, and Frank always said that the drawings were mine to do with what I pleased (bless 'im :) ), but it seemed the decent thing to insist that any copyright issues were shared, as the drawings were for his kit.

Anyway, watch this space.

I'll also get an idea of costings for copying and postage (if I recall correctly, they're A3, possibly A2), and maybe some sort of robust cardboard tube to post them in.

Cheers.

Stew

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Stew,

Please put me down for a couple of copies of the echelon plans, I would be very grateful if this came to fruit :)

JB.

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So what is considered to be accurate BAC Lightning drawings? I've seen the Huntley and Caruana drawings and it would seem that what is in the AirDoc on the Lightning is based on Caruana's. Are there any others?

Interestingly, Huntley and Caruana's drawings seem pretty close in their total profile, but Huntley seems to place the cable runs about 4-inches higher on the fuselage than they should be and Trumpeter's kit seems to follow Huntley's drawing pretty close. Thoughts?

Just curious as I've seen a lot mentioned about the ventral tank on the Mk.6. It definitely seems too bulbous on the the sides, but I'm wondering if the bottom is that far out of shape?

I'd also started to bash the Trumpeter 1/32nd kit about at roughly the same time as Iain, and I used Echelon's drawings as the basis of those corrections.

Regarding the F6/F2a belly tank, you'll note the mofifications made by Iain and myself. However, looking at the built up fuselage (still waiting paint some two years on !) I've noticed that the fuselage is an awful lot wider than the drawings! Is there no end to Trumpeter's erm..............folly here? Luckily I have an Echelon F6 in the stash!! Now this extra width COULD well contribute to the overall bulbous nature of the tank!

Oh, and welcome on board Stew!! Did you do the drawings for the Hunters as well?

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I suspect that the drawings Trumpeter used were the ones published in a Japanese publication those name escapes me for the moment. as the major errors are the same as those present in the kit. When I made my Lightnings I used drawings from a number of sources and live measurements. I am intending to go and do some more live measurements on a Lightning when I can find time. The drawings in Scale Models are also suspect. I would be interested in a set of your drawings as I often spoke to Frank when he was making the moulds. Please pass on my regards.

As regards the drawings if they can be available please PM me with details so I can send you some recompense.

Regards

John (Aeroclub Models)

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Crikey!

The list is getting so big, it'll take me longer to collate all the names and addresses than it will to copy and post the drawings! :)

No worries chaps. I'll keep you all posted.

Stew

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