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A-4 Skyhawk fuselage cross section


Jacarre

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I can't say how accurate the Aeroguide drawings are. I'm using pretty good factory drawings that appear to be accurate, certainly in dimensions. I haven't tried to compare the various 1/72 kits for size and shape other than noting the new Airfix A-4B nose is notably off in shape as is the location of the bottom of the rudder. It would appear, glancing at the Fujimi and Airfix kits just now, that the nose of the Fujimi A-4C is a bit too long relative to both the Fujimi A-4E/F and the new Airfix A-4B.

The A-4M aft fuselage is identical in basic size and shape to the earlier versions. Note that you have to be cautious with respect to fuselage-length measurements. The A-4M is 40.26 feet long (tip of the nose to the aft upper tip of the rudder) when measured with respect to its waterline but 41.27 feet long when measured parallel to the ground (its "shadow"), a more useful number from the standpoint of planning how many will fit on the hangar deck.

I would be very interested in knowing more about the flaws your group sees in the Fujimi kits. For a pretty good outline of the A-4A/B, see (including the link embedded in the post) http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2012/11/airfix-172-a4d-outline.html

Thank you again Tailspin, we're working with your blog's excelent drawing. But, do you have the dimensions that you indicate to scale print the drawing in milimeters? We have some problems with measurement conversions. And -another question - do you have a side view drawing based in the outline that you drew in Airfix A-4 outline? Thanks a lot in advance.

Javier

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Thank you again Tailspin, we're working with your blog's excelent drawing. But, do you have the dimensions that you indicate to scale print the drawing in milimeters? We have some problems with measurement conversions. And -another question - do you have a side view drawing based in the outline that you drew in Airfix A-4 outline? Thanks a lot in advance.

Javier

I revised the top view drawing in the post (http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/08/a4d-skyhawk-one-more-time.html) to add a mm box. I'll add a side view tomorrow.

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Hello,

Steve Ginters Naval Fighters #49 page 24 states for the A4D-1 / 2 a max. fuselage width of 5' 4" which equals in 1/72 to 22.6mm. I suspect the max fuselage width for the A4D-1 is just behind the intake lips and when comparing it to my Fujimi A-4F (the only I have on hand) and taking into account the bulged intakes, the fuselage width of it is 23.5mm. So it seems Fujimi is slightly fatter than the original.

Naval Fighters #55 page 118 provides a side, planview and sections drawing for the A-4M in 1/72. Fujimi's A-4F is almost spot-on in side and planview, only in cross-section it is the same amount fatter as seen before.

Hope this helps a bit.

Regards,

Martin

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Thanks Tailspin Turltle again. Martin, our worries about Fujimi A-4s fuselage width are in the nozzle area. Do you have the real measures of this area? The rear fuselage and the height of the front fuselage seemed wrong. But, we have now the 1/72 scale plain view of Tailhook topics. In our weekly meeting we're going to measure Fujimi, Esci, Italeri and Airfix kits with the drawing. Thanks to all!

Regards.,

Javier

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Thanks Tailspin Turltle again. Martin, our worries about Fujimi A-4s fuselage width are in the nozzle area. Do you have the real measures of this area? The rear fuselage and the height of the front fuselage seemed wrong. But, we have now the 1/72 scale plain view of Tailhook topics. In our weekly meeting we're going to measure Fujimi, Esci, Italeri and Airfix kits with the drawing. Thanks to all!

Regards.,

Javier

Javier - I have been trying to resolve some detail differences among the Douglas drawings that I am using for a reference before I add the side views to the post. One is that there were three different aft ends under the "sugar scoop", successively extending a little farther aft than the original one. However, I think you can use 7.8 mm for the width of the fuselage at the end of the tailpipe.

Edited by Tailspin Turtle
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But, do you have the dimensions that you indicate to scale print the drawing in milimeters? We have some problems with measurement conversions.

Javier, aviation is almost always in Imperial measurement; all the tools we use and station numbers, fastener types etc are all in inches. You have to learn how to do conversion of units, or you could just learn to work with inches. :)

Edited by nuuumannn
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Javier, aviation is almost always in Imperial measurement; all the tools we use and station numbers, fastener types etc are all in inches. You have to learn how to do conversion of units, or you could just learn to work with inches. :)

Mmm not at all... Russian aviation works with metrical system. But photoshop permit us easy conversions!

Regards.,

Javier

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Javier - see this updated post for pretty good profiles: http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/08/a4d-skyhawk-one-more-time.html

Thanks a lot Tailspin! We take measurements of different 1/72 kits with your plain view, but sadly my cell phone with notes and pics brokened today. I'm trying to recover it.

Regards,

Javier

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Hi, after a crash on my cell phone, Fernando Diaz, my friend of IPMS-Chile was able to take accurate measures on different A-4 Kits.

Thanks to Tailspin Turtle, we have an accurate top view to wich we added three lines: A), middle fuselage counting the intakes; B ), rear fuselage before airbrakes; C) middle fuselage without counting the airbrakes. This is the scheme:IMG-20160910-WA0000_zpsod4sqqtg.jpg

My friend Fernando put the masures in mm in the drawings, but for more easy view i'm going to put it here:

Line A:

Drawing: 20 mm

Old Airfix A-4A: 20,3 mm
New Airfix A-4B: 19 mm
Esci A-4E: 21 mm

Italeri A-4F: 20 mm (spot on)
Fujimi A-4E: 21mm

Line B:
Drawing: 12,5 mm

Old Airfix A-4A: 12,8 mm
New Airfix A-4B: 13 mm
Esci A-4E: 12 mm

Italeri A-4F: 11,8 mm
Fujimi A-4E: 14,8 mm

Line C

Drawing 12,8 mm

Old Airfix A-4A: 12,5 mm
New Airfix A-4B: 12 mm
Esci A-4E: 13,2 mm

Italeri A-4F: 13,2 mm
Fujimi A-4E: 13 mm

I 'll put an interesting rear view of (left to right): Esci, Italeri, Fujimi and New Airfix fuselages. The Fujimi one seems to be "fat" in the tailpipe zone:

20160902_220904_zps8f4hnoqs.jpg

We are printing the side view of Tailspin Turtle to take measures of fuselage shape and height.

Any comments?

Regards.,

Javier

Edited by Jacarre
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Hi Javier,

Thanks to you and Fernando for taking the time to investigate; while this confirms what I've suspected about the Fujimi kit for a long time, it's equally interesting to see how closely the other kits come to getting the dimensions right.

I would love to see Airfix expand their range of Skyhawks into the later variants, but only if they corrected the nose and tail profiles as they went.

cheers,

Andrew.

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Javier,

None of your dimensions are the same as on my drawing although none of your reference lines is on the drawing, making exact locations a bit iffy. As best I can determine, A on my drawing is 21.9 mm (not 20), B is 14.6 (not 12.5), and C is 15.1 (not 12.8). I recommend that you recheck both the width and height of the rectangle on your print. The update to my post, http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/08/a4d-skyhawk-one-more-time.html has an additional rectangle dimensioned in millimeters for your convenience.

Another check point is the split line between the forward and aft fuselage sections. On my drawing, this is 18.6 mm wide in 1/72 scale. The end of the fuselage that surrounds the tail pipe is another reference: my drawing has it at about 7.8 mm in diameter. The Fujimi kit appears to be correct in that regard and the Airfix, very slightly smaller.

Thanks for your efforts in this evaluation.

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I

Javier,

None of your dimensions are the same as on my drawing although none of your reference lines is on the drawing, making exact locations a bit iffy. As best I can determine, A on my drawing is 21.9 mm (not 20), B is 14.6 (not 12.5), and C is 15.1 (not 12.8). I recommend that you recheck both the width and height of the rectangle on your print. The update to my post, http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/08/a4d-skyhawk-one-more-time.html has an additional rectangle dimensioned in millimeters for your convenience.

Another check point is the split line between the forward and aft fuselage sections. On my drawing, this is 18.6 mm wide in 1/72 scale. The end of the fuselage that surrounds the tail pipe is another reference: my drawing has it at about 7.8 mm in diameter. The Fujimi kit appears to be correct in that regard and the Airfix, very slightly smaller.

Thanks for your efforts in this evaluation.

It's strange, because we scaled the drawing in photoshop in inches as originally appears in your blog. And we have another drawing that appeared in Aeroguide nº 14 that matches almost exactly with our printing of your drawing. They only omited the bulged intakes on A-4M:

Aeroguide%2014%20McDonnell%20Douglas%20A

At last, the Aeroguide one and our printing matches the fuselage length of long noses Skyhawks. And in the comparative picture, the fuselage shape differences between Fujimi and new Airfix fuselages are notorius...

Regards.,

Javier

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Javier,

I just printed out my drawing direct from Illustrator (this gives me the correct dimension box, verified by measurement) and checked A.B, and C as well as the split line. They are the same as I listed above although the measurement accuracy using a ruler is +/- .1 millimeter at best. The measurement accuracy using Illustrator is better but not much (the basic line weight is about .1 mm).

Check the wing span on your print out. It should be 11.6 mm. When I overlaid the Aeroguide bottom view on my drawing and scaled it to the correct wing span, the Aeroguide fuselage was a little short (it is not unusual for a drawing to become differentially stretched in the reproduction process; that's why I provide a measurement box). I also don't know if the Aeroguide drawing was actually printed at 1/72 scale; again, check the wing span. The wing span dimension is more trustworthy than the fuselage length.

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Javier,

I just printed out my drawing direct from Illustrator (this gives me the correct dimension box, verified by measurement) and checked A.B, and C as well as the split line. They are the same as I listed above although the measurement accuracy using a ruler is +/- .1 millimeter at best. The measurement accuracy using Illustrator is better but not much (the basic line weight is about .1 mm).

Check the wing span on your print out. It should be 11.6 mm. When I overlaid the Aeroguide bottom view on my drawing and scaled it to the correct wing span, the Aeroguide fuselage was a little short (it is not unusual for a drawing to become differentially stretched in the reproduction process; that's why I provide a measurement box). I also don't know if the Aeroguide drawing was actually printed at 1/72 scale; again, check the wing span. The wing span dimension is more trustworthy than the fuselage length.

You are right Tailspin Turtle. Our measurements had an error. First, let me show you our print of your drawing:

ancho_zpsiv2dlyxj.jpg

We have now a ruler with two measurement systems, and this side of the drawing has the 5 inches. Sould be correct. But, let's see the wingspan:

Envergadura_zpsclexjm3n.jpg

We have here 11.7 mm, one more than your measurement. I dont' knows what's going on in the printing process! Let's see the error: our caliper:

caliper_zpsfu8ivlgf.jpg

Caliper shows wrong measurement of line A. I think that we need to make again the measurements. But, after seeing the tail pic of all four kits, i still think that Fujimi has the rear area not so accurate. Thanks Tailspin!

Regards.,

Javier

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Ah - there's your problem. The caliper is showing the width of the "jaws" as a little over 22 mm just like the ruler. However, the distance between the jaws is not where the left edge of the right jaw meets the cm scale to which the left jaw is attached, but where the left-hand "0" on the scale mounted on the right jaw is. Note that if you close the jaws together (zero width), the 0 on the right jaw (lower) scale should line up with the 0 on the cm (upper) scale (which is how you calibrate the caliper). The rest of the scale on the right jaw to the right of the left-hand 0 is used to determine how much more than 22 mm the width is.

Edited by Tailspin Turtle
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My guess is that all your original measurements were 2 mm off, which does make the Fujimi fuselage a little wide at the thickest part of the upper fuselage aft of the intake and too wide in the vicinity of the trailing edge of the wing. Also, the Airfix tail cone (the most aft part of the fuselage surrounding the tail pipe) is 7.7 mm (7.8 is about right) while Fujimi's is 8.55.

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Hi Tailspin, at last i can send my response, we are here all very busy with the chilean national holiday. Fernando made a table with our measurements, and compared with your measurements:

 

IMG-20160918-WA0000_zpskuabqgbc.jpg 

 

We added two more points to measure, acording to your recomendations. "D" is the split line between the forward and aft fuselage sections. I made a mistake and point "E" isn't the tail cone diameter, but the fuselage width inmediately BEFORE the tail cone. This is the cause for the larger difference in the measurement of your drawing in this point.

 

This is the summary of width measurements:

 

First line is "Plano en mm." This is our measurements of your drawing printed by us:

 

Second line is "Thomason". This is your measurements of your original drawing.

 

Third line is "Diferencia". This is the difference between ours and your measurements of the drawing.

 

And now then, four to last line, the kits.

 

Thanks for all! We hope in our next meeting take measures of your side view.

 

Regards.,

Javier

Edited by Jacarre
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