robvulcan Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Why does someone posting a legitimate question about the scale fidelity of a scale model kit on a scale modeling forum evoke "can of worms" responses? I just don't get it. What's the point of the forum if not that? Otherwise we should rename it "Everything's Rosy All The Time" forum. Just a bit of fun isnt it, For me nowt wrong with accuracy issues being spotted or dealt with, or building a model as is for the joy of it. Its all good. But the can of worms I think relates more to the fact there are likely to be a few who throw their toys out the pram get a bit hot under the collar and say something along the lines of "The kit has one rivet missing and is therefore unbuildable" ahahah. Entertainment central 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canberra kid Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 My 3 h'pth And possibly the most accurate measurements, unfortunately I don't have the rigging measurements for the fuselage John 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canberra kid Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Sorry I forgot, you need to know where to rig your Lightning from. John 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MVW Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Hello, If life was that easy... Found some time and when taking the fuselage length from the picture I posted earlier today and take a look at the Sword and Airfix kits then something is completely wrong - both kits seem far to long. Dug around in the AP and found another picture contracticting the earlier one: At 29.3 feet from the aircraft's C.G. there is the C.G. of the afterburners. So even the official documents have their flaws and now I try with canberra kid's posted 50 feet to get something useful.... Regards, Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canberra kid Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 The photo below is of all the 1/72 scale Lightning kits I have compared with the lengths as indicated in the official information. The two red lines are at 50 feet the green line is at 55' 3" the lengths with and without the pitot. Even allowing for the nose ring and jet pipes they all look well short! Having said that they (even the Tumpy) look like Lightnings to me. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 The photo below is of all the 1/72 scale Lightning kits I have compared with the lengths as indicated in the official information. The two red lines are at 50 feet the green line is at 55' 3" the lengths with and without the pitot. Even allowing for the nose ring and jet pipes they all look well short! Having said that they (even the Tumpy) look like Lightnings to me. John I would have thought the nose ring to be very important to the length comparisons shown in the above pic. The Trump and Airfix ones in particular as the rings are separate parts as is well known Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canberra kid Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 I'm not going to cut all the nose rings in half so I've measured each type and adjusted the position accordingly. There is still quite a discrepancy. The Matchbox F.6 is slightly shorter than the T.55. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 How about the Hasegawa/FROG kits? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canberra kid Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 How about the Hasegawa/FROG kits? That will have to be someone else's job Paul I don't have those two kits. I've just found two solid resin T.4/5 fuselages and they are well short too, so something fundamental is going on, but what? John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viscount806x Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 something fundamental is going on, but what? John Published dimensions being misinterpreted or just wrong dimensions perhaps? I'm possibly going out on an irrelevant limb now and I know that my comments refer to another a/c type but....I remember the Boeing 737 course which I attended back in 1980 told us that quoted dimensions for fuselage frames referenced from a point in space ahead of the a/c structure. Apparently this gave leeway for adding bits ahead of the then current forward most point of the structure and retain correctness of published dimensions for the fuselage frames. As I say though, maybe the Lightning wasn't privy to that system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tempestfan Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 (edited) Wouldn't the 50 feet be measured not only with the nose ring, but also with the radome, I wonder ? The CG diagram has ca. 14.5 before and 29.2 behind the CG, which still isn't quite 44, but then the rearmost point of the airframe look to be the tailplane tips, from one of the diagrams, so we may be inching up slowly. The "other " CG diagram has around the same measurement, but for the burner CG, which is substantially further forward. If the latter is true and there are around 4 feet "missing" at the back, and adding around 2 feet for the radome, then we'd arrive in the 50 region. The Trumpeter kit looks rather pregnant, but certainly this has been noted before. Edited August 5, 2014 by tempestfan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 I will check the matchbox kit against scaled down Echelon 1/32 plans, these are reputed to be the most accurate around. The Matchbox kit only, as it's the only one I have in the stash at the moment. Will have to be in a few days though. Oh, the Matchbox kit and the Aeroclub vacform T.5 conversion too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Navy Bird Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 The photo below is of all the 1/72 scale Lightning kits I have compared with the lengths as indicated in the official information. The two red lines are at 50 feet the green line is at 55' 3" the lengths with and without the pitot. Even allowing for the nose ring and jet pipes they all look well short! Having said that they (even the Tumpy) look like Lightnings to me. I guess I'm missing something. John Aero, in post 73, stated that the length from "top of the nose ring to the end of the jet pipes should measure 47' 6" (IIRC)." Why are we comparing to 50'? Dazed, confused, and needing education, Bill 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keefr22 Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 Dazed, confused, and needing education, Bill Oh good, I'm not the only one...!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tempestfan Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 Because that is the overall length that has been quoted (without pitot) - but that would include the radome, I guess, and perhaps a tiny overhang of the tailplanes. 2' 6" for the radome sounds plausible, even though the CG diagram has the nose ring perpendicular at something like 14' 6" but quotes length from CG to radome tip as 18'06, which would look around a foot too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Navy Bird Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 Because that is the overall length that has been quoted (without pitot) - but that would include the radome, I guess, and perhaps a tiny overhang of the tailplanes. 2' 6" for the radome sounds plausible, even though the CG diagram has the nose ring perpendicular at something like 14' 6" but quotes length from CG to radome tip as 18'06, which would look around a foot too much. The Canberra Kid's comparison photos of all of the fuselages do not include the radome. Shouldn't the lines therefore be set at a scale 47' 6"? The fuselages wouldn't all look so short... Cheers, Bill 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tempestfan Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 That was what I was trying to imply with my q. in # 86 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canberra kid Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 Wouldn't the 50 feet be measured not only with the nose ring, but also with the radome, I wonder ? The CG diagram has ca. 14.5 before and 29.2 behind the CG, which still isn't quite 44, but then the rearmost point of the airframe look to be the tailplane tips, from one of the diagrams, so we may be inching up slowly. The "other " CG diagram has around the same measurement, but for the burner CG, which is substantially further forward. If the latter is true and there are around 4 feet "missing" at the back, and adding around 2 feet for the radome, then we'd arrive in the 50 region. The Trumpeter kit looks rather pregnant, but certainly this has been noted before. Good call! I've just measured the the old Airfix kit and it comes in at around 1'3" short so near enough for government work I'd say. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canberra kid Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 Bill et al, you're right I wasn't thinking of the Radar as part of the fuselage, silly me! So it looks like they are all quite close (ish) Happy days! John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Lambess Posted August 23, 2014 Share Posted August 23, 2014 ive finally found my AEROCLUB conversion and the SWORD kits matches it very well....... ill try and post some pics later on 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MVW Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Hello, sorry for my late post … This thread is very interesting and with all the contributions about dimensions I thought it a good idea to look for long lense sideview photos and compare them to the dimensions now known. Frame 25, the fuselage separation, gives a good starting point about the proportions of the aircraft. Enclosed are two pictures showing them scaled to 1/72 and with the relevant dimensions drawn on, so everyone can used them for his/her own conclusions. The other pictures show the Airfix and Sword kits on these pictures. The panel lines indicating frame 25 seem a little bit away on both. So I concentrated to align the kit fuselages to the cockpit sections. The Airfix kit aligns almost perfect in length and proportions concerning cockpit, air intake ring, intake cone, placement of the front landing gear and everything else. The Sword kit is about 4mm short in overall length. Taking the cockpit as a starting point the addition of an additional intake ring as reported elsewhere in this thread and a slight relocation of the front landing gear and bay about 2.5mm forward seems the easiest way to correct most of this. My conclusion: I’m happy to have both kits and correcting Sword’s length issue is not beyond my modeling skills. I remember my disappointment when Italeri issued their Mirage 2000 kits in 1/72. Their fuselage is far too long (the length of the pitot is added), the model looks no way like the real bird and there is no decent chance for correction. At least the Sword kit can be improved like suggested above. Regards, Martin 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody37 Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 I'll be living in ignorance when I build mine! If anyone goes near the completed builds with a clumsy tape measure, they'll get their hands slapped 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viscount806x Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Hello, sorry for my late post … This thread is very interesting and with all the contributions about dimensions I thought it a good idea to look for long lense sideview photos and compare them to the dimensions now known. Frame 25, the fuselage separation, gives a good starting point about the proportions of the aircraft. Enclosed are two pictures showing them scaled to 1/72 and with the relevant dimensions drawn on, so everyone can used them for his/her own conclusions. The other pictures show the Airfix and Sword kits on these pictures. The panel lines indicating frame 25 seem a little bit away on both. So I concentrated to align the kit fuselages to the cockpit sections. The Airfix kit aligns almost perfect in length and proportions concerning cockpit, air intake ring, intake cone, placement of the front landing gear and everything else. The Sword kit is about 4mm short in overall length. Taking the cockpit as a starting point the addition of an additional intake ring as reported elsewhere in this thread and a slight relocation of the front landing gear and bay about 2.5mm forward seems the easiest way to correct most of this. My conclusion: I’m happy to have both kits and correcting Sword’s length issue is not beyond my modeling skills. I remember my disappointment when Italeri issued their Mirage 2000 kits in 1/72. Their fuselage is far too long (the length of the pitot is added), the model looks no way like the real bird and there is no decent chance for correction. At least the Sword kit can be improved like suggested above. Regards, Martin Cracking bit of research there Martin, nice one. Nige B 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marty_hopkirk Posted September 6, 2014 Share Posted September 6, 2014 The photo below is of all the 1/72 scale Lightning kits I have compared with the lengths as indicated in the official information. The two red lines are at 50 feet the green line is at 55' 3" the lengths with and without the pitot. Even allowing for the nose ring and jet pipes they all look well short! Having said that they (even the Tumpy) look like Lightnings to me. John Seriously. You are all mixing up metric and imperial dims. This country measurement system is metric. Work in metric and all will be right. Marty... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canberra kid Posted September 6, 2014 Share Posted September 6, 2014 Seriously. You are all mixing up metric and imperial dims. This country measurement system is metric. Work in metric and all will be right. Marty... True but the Lightning was built in Imperial and all the AP's are also Imperial so that's what I use I can't help it I too old/lazy to do otherwise John 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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