WrathofAtlantis

But those 1997 Airfix Spitfire kits are still poor, too shallow in profile, with poor canopy shapes, and probably don't even depict, as far as I know, the correct wing tip leading edge washout. A now 11 years old Eduard Mk IX will just blow them away. Even the more recent Airfix kits, like the Mark XIV/XVIIIs, are hardly comparable to the Eduards (I absolutely had to put Eduard Mk XVI clear parts on my build), and this even includes the recent Anson, unfortunately... I'm pretty sure the 2012 Eduard Spitfire IX was the first Spitfire to attempt to depict the wing tip washout in 1/48. Virtually no 1/48 kit prior to that depicted the leading edge washout (except Tamiya's lackluster 2003 P-47, now thankfully obsolete, and their fairly good 2008 A6M5). The leading edge washout was almost entirely the preserve of 1/32 scale kits until that point. Just because the market in the West does not care (a point on which I only somewhat agree), because quite frankly the West is generally spiralling down, does not mean there are not other markets, closer to the manufacturers, where quality actually matters, and where the forums have an influence. There are huge Czech modelling forums where Eduard themselves routinely post, and you can be sure this has an influence on them. I can tell you here in Eastern Europe, unlike the West, the Hobby Shops are not disappearing, and they also do not carry many kits older than 2000, unlike Canadian shops that were still full of 1960-70-80s garbage, right up to the point they almost all closed their doors. The reason Hobby Boss has gotten a lot worse, after starting out with a few good kits in 2007 (the same exact progression as Trumpeter did 7 years before), is because they are now producing less for the West and more for an increasingly affluent local market, which is unsophisticated and can't tell the difference. The Japanese market is on another level entirely, and the kits correspond to that higher level, although that market does seem to be shrinking. The best manufacturers are now in Eastern Europe, simply because the market level there is the highest. All I am saying is save your money and efforts for the upcoming ICM B-26B, rather than consider that Hobby Boss is catering to you. Yes makers will absolutely consider other releases and will change their choices accordingly. This is so painfully obvious it hardly needs elaborating: Eduard never released an A6M5 because Tamiya already has a recent one that is competitive. Dora Wings released Razorback P-47s because Mini Art was doing the Bubbletops. Zvezda has yet to release a late Il-2M3, probably because Tamiya already has their own 2012 effort. Airfix recently did a Mk XIVe and a Mk XVIII Griffon Spit, because Eduard had all the earlier Spitfires variants covered. Wouldn't you know it, after the Airfix Mk XIV came out, Eduard stopped their Spitfire range and never released a Griffon Spit... Occasionally you will get 3 P-51Ds in quick succession, but this is more the exception than the rule. The Hobby Boss B-24J is likely a disaster for anyone who hoped to have an accurate 1/48 B-24 within at least the next 10 years, if not much more given the kit size. Maybe the technology will get so much better that subjects will come out faster, but until we know this for a fact, that is still the likely outcome.

This is indeed exactly what tolerance for garbage kits does. To keep buying crap that is presumed tolerable blocks the market for those who want an actual approximation of reality, instead of a caricature... And sorry, but most 1/48 WWII aircraft kits from before 2010 fall in the "caricature" category (one only has to look at wing tips thicknesses...), including many Tamiyas from before that date. Rivet counters complaining online actually improved the hobby, as I think the 2010 quality jump demonstrates. Unfortunately, they don't appear to have had as much sway over Asian makers. In general, Asian kits are now lagging behind Eastern European kits in avoiding major outline errors. The dreadful HK kits, European-researched B-25s excepted, are a good example of this: The contrast of other similar HK kits (and their absurd errors) with that one subject, the B-25, known to have used a different methodology, illustrates perfectly the nature of the problem: There is serious research, or you can just pull some General Arrangement drawings from the 1940s... Better yet, you can just make up your own. Claims that errors in basic outline are within reach are beyond optimistic. The reality is such ambitious corrections hardly ever cross the finish line. Just to take one well-known ship error as an example: The casemates edges of the Fujimi 1/350 Kongo are wrongly slanted. This is very obvious, and has been known since the kit's release over 15 years ago. Despite that being a very modest and easy fix (compared to most aircraft issues) I have never seen a corrected model in nearly a hundred expertly-finished builds. The big stumbling block is not the corrective work, but what happens when you try to put paint on it. To say "skill" can easily overcome outline issues is to not understand the current more demanding finish levels that have become the standard (prompted by the crisper close ups of digital cameras, if nothing else). Sheperd Paine's legendary diorama leaflets are now barely monthly club meet level... The grip of flawless results under close up scrutiny is such, aircraft builders will hardly even attempt to kit bash better parts from other same-type kits, let alone changing the basic shapes... Before I will believe in the fantasy of correcting shapes, try and show me that single type and single variant, brand to brand aircraft kit-bashing is actually going on... Armor builders have been doing this for decades, picking the best bits of multiple makers not for variant changes, but for quality alone... Aircraft builders are still way too much under the sway of "It looks like" to even think that way. Accepting any garbage thrown our way will not help us catch up to the Armour guys.

This is all the more interesting in that the way it is veering is opposite to the underside sweeping direction of the prop... This clearly indicates a massive interference of the wing interacting with the prop spiral, interrupting the spiral, and partly reversing the airflow opposite to the spiral's rotation. And a valid modelling observation to boot...

Very interesting that we are getting an accidental advance preview of a future boxing... Thank you for this. Unless there were variations on that fillet, the fillet's top edge seems much rounder and blunter than on photos of the real item, which in real life usually looks quite sharp, with hollow sides in the manner of a straight razor. The body of the fillet also seems to be slightly lacking in the curved concave joint surface I previously associated with this area. Not sure what to make of this, but I think I will stick to the fin less versions... P.S. As an aside, I am halfway through mine, and as long as the cowl is assembled separately, and all the alignment tabs and instruction assembly sequences treated with suspicion (or ignored), the fit is beautiful. The guns are, unfortunately, not perfectly parallel to the ground when the dihedral is correct, so I will use the Tamiya gun port leading edge inserts for those, which is no great loss, as this kit's clear parts just blow the Tamiya away in accuracy. Because of the gun port issue, I do think the Dora Wings P-47C is probably a simpler and better kit. On the Dora Wings the flaps are moulded in the up position, which I also think is a better call.

You mean seven different unambiguous quotes from first hand sources are a misrepresentation of what? To clarify, I am not saying the Zero can't turn, just that this was not the way it was usually used. Just like the P-47 could dive and zoom in hit and run attacks, but in practice it rarely if ever did, among other reasons because it had the worse downward vision of all fighter types of WWII. Just because historians have these theoretical performance notions, does not mean this is how they were used. According to Sakai, the Zero performed better in loops than in turns, so that is why it used the Hineri-Komi. And if you don't know what the Hineri-Komi is, let's just say that your not providing a contradicting time stamp just explained itself.

So why don't you quote time stamps contradicting those I made?

The Monogram is absolutely terrible, and I have been correcting mine for about 13 years now. Among the easy fixes: Scratch-built main canopy, tail planes widened by 4 mm, smash moulded turret tops. The turrets are still fat, but marginally tolerable, and unfixable anyway... Now the fun stuff: Imagine a cut slicing horizontally the fuselage section protruding under the rear turret, then running horizontally all the way to the bomb bay, then turning vertically to the spine, Then imagine that whole section tilted, rear up, 2 mm, the cut kept to a narrow joint by slicing two different kits, to raise the rear turret (and thus the rear 2/3 of the spine) to a more horizontal position by 2 mm. Now the nose 1/4 fuselage section had to be cut off to not be involved in the widening of the entire fuselage, which was done by putting 1.5 mm spacers between the fuselage halves. All the bulkheads will have to be widened by 1.5 mm... This creates an abrupt transition with the nose section, which is exactly what you want, as the transition is not the silly soft one Monogram made. Hasegawa brilliantly depicted this transition by cutting off the whole nose up to the rear of the cockpit, and moulding the whole front in clear(!!)... Hasegawa simply does not get enough credit how incredible their 1/72 kit is. It is one of the best models I have ever seen, and certainly one of the more accurate ones in 1/72. For my Monogram built, which a cost no object effort, I don't think there will be a single part of the HB kit that will be of help. The wings might be it, but they probably won't fit with the Monogram fuselage, and it's not like the Monogram wings fit well to begin with. Transplanting the entire wing roots sound like a plan, until you consider the amount of paint it would take to make it look like you did not... With rising shipping costs, these Asian companies rely increasingly on their nearby markets, which culturally consider these things to be toys. HB produced their excellent 1/48 Avenger and Russian tanks 15 years ago, because they knew they had a discerning global market. They have never repeated that level of quality since.

There is an incoming B-26B and Ki-21, and we just had an excellent HK B-25J (although incredibly pricy). It's not as bad for big 1/48 bombers as it used to be for 40 straight years... In fact the only really good big 1/48 WWII kit, in that whole period, was the still amazing Revell Ju-52 from 1999. We were then absolutely spoiled rotten with discerningly picked, sleek sexy subject I'm telling you...

It's not just that: The canopy does not have that slight drop from the spine, which is is why the nose deck has to climb up like a ski slope to reach it. Their 1/32 scale looks way better because there is a slight canopy top surface drop from the spine, and the canopy is also a bit too tall, so the nose does not have to climb as much to reach the front of it. The 1/48 cross section is also way too boxy, with way too sharp corners on the upper nose. Again the 1/32 was a bit softer there. The nose turret is way too fat. See the 1/72 Hasegawa for reference, which is absolutely dead-on in every respect, except for a wrong extra tiny window under the right tail plane... The canopy should look like it was smashed into the fuselage, denting the front of the spine and the rear of the nose downward. The entire cross section has no flare under the canopy side windows: From the edge of the side window it should NOT be straight down... The 1/32 even has a bit of that going on. Again, the Hasegawa kit provided an absolutely perfect 2/3 size reference over 15 years ago... Only the HB 1/48 wings look fine so far. The rest is an insult to bins.

They fixed the wing but made the nose far worse. It is simply as disaster, as usual with HB.

Not really. You have to read accounts other than the only multiple Me-209 killer of WWII (see the interesting score on his mount) Robert S. Johnson, to know how the Thunderbolt actually performed in combat. The P-47 definitely did mush badly if you pulled harsh on the stick, and the Razorback with a needle tip prop was definitely way better at turning than the Bubbletop, but a pilot who actually knew what he was doing would choose level left turns over any other maneuver, and in fact that's virtually all early P-47s ever did. Some choice examples, all Razorback, all needle tip props. Osprey, "P-47 Thunderbolt units of the 12th Air Force". P.32: 15th May 1944, 87th Fighter squadron operational report (Paddle-blade propellers only started to be delivered to the group in late May 44, and only with new aircrafts, so these are all needle-tip props). "That afternoon, the 87th FS took off (16 aircrafts) with 32 X 1000 lbs bombs underwing to add to the destruction in Acquapedente. Target: Acquapedente bridges. "A flight of 15 Me-109s and 5 FW-190s was encountered. One section kept the fighters occupied while the remainder attacked the bridges. Three enemy fighters were destroyed for one of ours damaged. A gratifying result of this engagement was that a P-47, not considered a low-altitude aircraft, can maneuver advantageously with Me-109s almost on the deck, even though under the handicap of being on a bomb run." [Meaning with 2 X 1000 lbs of bombs underwing...] (P-47Ds) "We started turning with several 109s and were having no difficulty doing it at 23 500 ft., with full tanks." "The E/A (109s)started to turn [12 000 ft.], and we out-turned them immediately." http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-47/er/78-covelle-7june44.jpg That being said, I do think the 109s above should be around equal to the P-47 in sustained turns (and better in hard high G turns), and that the poor 109G turning performance above was due to keeping the power way too high (there was no agreement on lowering power, as evidenced below): "I learned to fly with the "Cannon-Mersu" (MT-461). I found that when fighter pilots got in a battle, they usually applied full power and then began to turn. In the same situation I used to decrease power, and with lower speed was able to turn equally well. When the enemy decreased power, I used to throttle back even more. In a high speed the turning radius is wider, using less speed I was able to out-turn him having a shorter turning radius. Then you got the deflection. 250kmh seemed to be the optimal speed. (160 mph)" - Kyösti Karhila (36 kills) It was a contest of slowness, and whoever went the slowest won: It was even called "The race where the slowest won"... The only ones who stuck steadfastly with speed and "Hit and Run", all the way to the the War's end, were Japanese Navy pilots (not the IJ Army pilots, who rightly preferred the Ki-43 to all their other types)...: Quotes: 57:55: Useful intro to the discovery (of actual, as opposed to imagined, IJN wartime tactics...). 1:01:45 (USN pilot, late 1942) "[Japanese Zero] pilots have generally poor fighter tactics. Zeroes could not be shaken by us if they would chop their throttles and sit on our tails. [Meaning turn]" At 59:07 "Intelligence reports assumed that these tactics indicated the Zero lacked maneuverability." 59:22 "Judging from their apparently long fuselage, these planes do not have a small turning circle, and are not very maneuverable." 59:33 "The Chinese report in question noted the reluctance of the Japanese Navy pilots to dogfight." 1:00:05 "Chinese pilots report that the Japanese will not engage in a turning duel." 1:01:32 "Accounts of Japanese hit and run tactics against the Allies are so numerous, we'd be here for days..."

The clear parts are way too shallow: Nigel (below) combined a Tamiya Lancaster main clear part with the HK top or something like that, then gave up on Video 13: The four cowl fronts should be the same, but HK made them completely different from inners to outers... Brilliant. Epic face palm at 39:22 below (he never came back to it since): The four twin exhausts are drastically different in length from inners to outers: Again they should all be the same...:

I don't understand your point here: MW-50 is not compatible with underwing cannons (due to a compressed air device needed in the wings for MW-50), you see ALL "potential" red gears as having underwing cannons(?!?), therefore you conclude a red gear cannot mean C-3/MW-50 installation? Your point is made even more incomprehensible in that ALL the clear cut, undeniable, red gears in original colour photos in this thread have the underwing cannons removed. I would appreciate clarification on this point, as that is major news to me: I did not know about compressed air in the wing being needed for MW-50, and that this device negated the under wing 20 mm guns option... This is a very important fact (which I am grateful to know), but it does not seem to contradict the meaning of the red gears in the available evidence.

Obviously it was meant to be seen from a distance, and implies that the squadrons were routinely mixed fuels. The aircrafts being far from the junction lane on dispersals, sometimes catered to with fuel carts pulled by animals, it would be a waste of effort to go read the small triangle on every single one. That being said, it is not a given the practice was systematic. I have seen more red gear color photos in this thread than in 30 years of looking at 109s... Before this thread, I had never even seen a single bright red wheel hub in a colour photo, even in all those colour photos of post War wreck cemeteries. The few red 109 legs I did see usually had black or dark gray wheel hubs (or so it seemed to me).

Yes, but was the spiral in the photo red as well? I do know of confirmed cases of black and white Luftwaffe pictures where it is yellow that (alledgedly) shows up as near fully black, but to show red as white would require a completely opposite tonal shift: It would be like a negative of the image, yet the image is not a negative. Also, rlm 76 was often much lighter than assumed, and would often look white if the light struck it squarely. The wheels and legs could be light blue or light gray, and lit up by a low sun angle. If anything, red would look gray or black. It's not that I know for sure, but red seems unlikely. Somewhat unrelated: Higher in this thread we see red legs almost completely over painted with dark gray, and that to my mind confirms the downgrading of the aircraft away from C-3. At least it seems like a plausible reason. That would confirm my supposition that many of these aircrafts reverted away from the C-3/MW-50 option. There were additional problems with the MW-50 installation: It allowed climb rates so steep they led to oil circulation problems and engine seizure or damage, and the extra power, when the prop was unloaded for prolonged periods in a steep dive, would also cause the engine to over-rev and blow up... I have read at least one combat account in which a diving Me-109G-14AS, chasing a Mosquito, is lost for that very reason. With low hour pilots driving these things roughly, one can see how MW-50 could cause problems as well as having a significant cost in weight... While computer simulation discussion boards always bring up MW-50, actual late War Luftwaffe pilots, particularly those flying something other than a FW-190D-9, rarely mention it, if at all. Eric Hartmann's quote is one of the rare non D-9 quotes to mention it. Even in June of 1944, a pilot from a squadron of Me-109G-6AS mentions a single recent Eastern Front arrival as having a polished aircraft with MW-50 on board, making it stand out from the rest of the squadron... This new arrival Eastern Front pilot was 136 kill ace Weber, who ignored pressing and repeated advice by his 5 kill Western Front wingman to "use horizontal turns instead of the vertical". This 136 kill ace was then immediately killed on his very first Western mission, while using the vertical and making a MW-50 vapour trail, despite continuing radio pleas from his wingman to turn... It is one of those snippets that paints a very stark picture.