Bikitzer

Hello, everyone, Need your help with finding photos of the F11F-1 Long Nose with the following units: F11F-1 LN with the VF-51 (July 58); F11F-1 LN with the VF-24 (Dec 58) or / and with the VF-211 (Mar 59); F11F-1 LN with the VF-111/ VA-156 (Dec 59)? Any pointers where I can find such photos? I saw some graphic images/artworks on the Internet done on some of the F11F-1s with these units/squadrons but cannot find the photos that might were used by the artist to create his artworks on... Please help? And yes, we are developing an F11F-1 Long Nose model kit in few scales... https://www.facebook.com/people/DBMK-Model-Kits/100084846155184/ 

Hello, everyone, Can anybody help me with finding photos of the F11F-1 Long Nose with the following units: F11F-1 LN with the VF-51 (July 58); F11F-1 LN with the VF-24 (Dec 58) or / and with the VF-211 (Mar 59); F11F-1 LN with the VF-111/ VA-156 (Dec 59)? Any pointers where I can find such photos? I saw some graphic images/artworks done on some of the F11F-1s with these units/squadrons but cannot find the photos that might be used by an artist to base his artworks on... Please help? And yes, we also developing the F11F-1 Long Nose kit: https://www.facebook.com/people/DBMK-Model-Kits/100084846155184/

Hello, everyone, Can anybody help me with finding photos of the F11F-1 Long Nose with the following units: F11F-1 LN with the VF-51 (July 58); F11F-1 LN with the VF-24 (Dec 58) or / and with the VF-211 (Mar 59); F11F-1 LN with the VF-111/ VA-156 (Dec 59)? Any pointers where I can find such photos? I saw some graphic images/artworks done on some of the F11F-1s with these units/squadrons but cannot find the photos that might be used by an artist to base his artworks on... Please help?

We are taking our time despite the fact we use the 3D scan images (that make the creation of a 3D model much easier) and technical information available to us. The way things go, I might express a crazy thought that there will be more than one for you and other fellow scale modellers to buy in 2023 and later. By the way, just to remind to the audience - the kit will be plastic with added PE and 3D printed parts in the set. The demo model you see above is in resin, printed on a 3D printer for presentation at Telford this weekend.

These are the parts of a demonstration model that will be shown at our stand during SMW 2022 (12-13 November, Telford). Please note - these are fairly basic resin parts, 3-D printed, just to show the model in general. We are still working with the software on panel lines, detailing and keep checking the dimensions and proportions before milling the casts.

This is a Bulpup missile carrier role Scimitar.

We are working on putting two alternative arrestor hooks into the kit.

Well, After scanning about 20-25 manuals and going / sifting now through what we have gathered yesterday I still have quite few unanswered questions. I am going to post those here and hoping to see meaningful replies . Besides, the God has created a Man and the Naval Aviation. Everything else is secondary IMHO .

We have been granted unprecedented and unlimited access to the archives at Solent Sky Museum so we visited it and scanned all Scimitar related manuals, parts' catalogues and Pilot's Notes kindly prepared by Museum's curator and that can be used for kit production. Honestly, the Museum team was ever so nice to us I was ready to give them all a hug, so touched I was!!! It reminded me the assistance I received from the RAF Cosford Museum few years ago when we were developing 1/72 Folland Gnat, Bristol 166 and other great British aircraft at PROresin (www.olimpmodels.com). We also been shown some of the FROG's 1/96 master models from which the casts were made of!!! Some of them were made of wood and others - of brass. These and other FROG's bits are safely stored at the back of the Museum and dated back to 1930's. I shall come back to this thread later today - we are processing all the info we have collected yesterday. P.S. To all those who mentioned anything negative about Scimitar - we went through volumes of memoirs and notes of those who actually flew and maintained this A/C between 1957 and 1972 - no negative evidence found, quite contrary - praised for its performance and handling characteristics as well as for a clever design allowing maintain and repair the A/C with minimal effort considering the complexity of this machine and sometimes rough conditions at the sea.

It remains to be seen- I can assure you our team has a fountain of doable and potentially interesting and profitable ideas about the kit. There will be one or two nice touches to the kit to make it even more fun putting together and fun to look at when the model is finished due to few more extra bits we plan to add if I may say so . As of selling the plans - we are not going to do the 2D plans because it would deny the idea of developing a kit using 3D/CAD technology . I am sure there will be interested parties to buy a 3D model once the 3D model is done and put for a good use to mill the casts. As an example I can safely say that some of our WWII 3D tank models were bought by the "World of Tanks" PC game developers few years ago so you can see them in action if you have a game...

The kit is to be based on the 3D scans. Whatever drawings and schemes we have at our disposal are not trustworthy/cause more questions than answers. All we use from the official sources are general dimensions of this A/C. Also there as many opinions as many people, everyone is entitled to have one or a judgement for that matter This project is to go ahead as planned.

Some more of the projections:

An attempt to put the scans together

First rough comparison of the 3-D scan and the drawings using the measurements from the Wikipedia Never mind the nose wheel leg/UC

Thank you for your detailed response. I was in the middle of compiling my response to you with all possible references but something has happen and whole text I wrote got wiped out... I shall respond to you again on Wednesday, the 22nd of Dec.