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New 1/48th Airfix Hurricane vs Bentley...


Troy Smith

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I don't build 1/48 scale so I don't have much skin in this game, but I'm not unsymphathetic to Airfix.

In my own line ofwork, all the data and observations are collected by trained staff, supervised by experts. All those data are checked by a different staff member after collation.

The expert assesses all of the data, compares it with previous findings, considers deviations/differences, accepts or rejects the data.

Final, accepted data is auditted by an independent expert.

The whole process is subject to external monitoring within a legal framework.

And errors still get reported.

Bottom line, people will make errors, other people won't pick them up at the time or for some time afterwards. It's infuriating, but at least in this case it isn't life-threatening.

I agree with you . . . I only mentioned the faults / omissions because the discussion was about the finer points of the kit. After all, as you say, no - one has died, and at the end of the day it's a hobby that's meant to be enjoyable. I think sometimes we get too bound up in minor inaccuracies, etc. instead of just building the model in question.

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Based on Troy's first photo, is the fin chord not also at odds with Mr. Bentley? Or am I missing something obvious?

I will still have to own the kit though...it looks wonderful overall.

I think this reflects that the fuselage is longer than the plan, so the whole fin (leading and trailing edges) is further back than the plan.

Mind you, I'm more worried that the plan doesn't show any big gluey thumb prints!

Regards,

Adrian

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The Blenheim kit in a way is my point...there was a reason ...they used a restored aircraft that was not 100% Blenheim....that not and excuse that a reason... they didnt just make it up.. and it alse give you a logical path to fix....

So on the hurricane kit ...it does not match the Bentley drawings...from 2005.... reprinted in a magazine... and Al Bentley himself has spoke of errors in his early hurricane drawing.from error in the original Hawker drawing that did not match the actual production aircraft...

Many time production aircraft do not even exactly match existing manufacture blueprints!

I know that's shocking to some but anybody has worked as an engineer understands revision revision revision of drawings and then once in production revision again that never makes it back into the manufacturer drawings

I just had this conversation last week with a well-known Warbird restore that I digital remaster a microfilm roll of set of production blueprints for particular aircraft....and we both spoke of the fact that even with orginal blueprints... and when he parts from a recovered airframe he finds that sometimes they simply don't match always exactly match tha blueprints here have been changes in production that did not made it back in the rev of production drawing

guess my point is yes if there is a discrepancy between the Bentley 2005 drawing from a magazine and the Airfix 1/48 kit dont assume the Bentley 2005 drawing are the final word....really like I said.. I would make good bet Airfix had copy of those drawings ...or should of had a copy of thoese drawings ... Al Bentley drawings are very well known and easy to come by ...its would shock me if the best UK kit maker did not make it first stop in research the best most well know craftsman accurate aircraft drawing who also happens to be UK... The Bentley drawing were your first choice for Hurricane drawing why wouldn't they been Airfix is first choice

and it would have been the easiest path for Airfix then to simply to utilize them as is... and also the cheapest.. hell what research do you need just port in to CAD and your done

Im just saying do not assume. investigate the reason it may be

fyi ...forgive the typos I'm doing this on my cell phone with my thumb

Edited by HBBates
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I just had this conversation last week with a well-known Warbird restore that I digital remaster a microfilm roll of set of production blueprints for particular aircraft....and we both spoke of the fact that even with orginal blueprints... and when he parts from a recovered airframe he finds that sometimes they simply don't match always exactly match tha blueprints here have been changes in production that did not made it back in the rev of production drawing

So how is the H-75/P-36 project progressing?

Vedran

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I think this reflects that the fuselage is longer than the plan, so the whole fin (leading and trailing edges) is further back than the plan.

Mind you, I'm more worried that the plan doesn't show any big gluey thumb prints!

Regards,

Adrian

That's the way it looks to me, that the Airfix is about 2.5mm longer than the plan, not enough for me to worry about.

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Perhaps someone can explain to me that with all this research and LIDAR technology Airfix have missed out the upper fuselage I/D light, as well as the pilot's rear view mirror ?

I know that not all Hurricanes had mirrors fitted, but it would have been nice to have them included in the kit.

Also, according to Airfiix the cowling fasteners are prominent round "Rings" which look nothing like the actual items. Perhaps I'm being a bit "Picky" but since we're discussing the finer details I thought I'd mention it. I'll now get me coat !

Yes it would have been nice if the Camloc fasteners (or whatever make they were on the Hurricane) were a recessed ring, like the real thing (though sometime they don't sit flush which I guess is what Airfix are trying to show), though I'm just going to run a drill in the middle and open up and deepen the hole a little and then sand them down a bit and they should look OK.

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So how is the H-75/P-36 project progressing?

Vedran

Good.... its a fixed gear R1820...found out lots of tibbits...cowl shape, engine mount, thrust line on the fix gear R1820 vs the retract R1820 are diffrent as are the landing gear mount points(ahead of the spar vs on the spar)

Also found the wing screen on P36/H75 vs early"Longnose" P40/H81 are not the same shape where it meets the fuslage..side glass lower edge two straight angles vs one soft curve and flared out, should of noticed that in photos before(well did but dismissed it as to vage to tell). Seem to be due to changes in fuslage guns setup.

I have open invite to go to the guys shop next time im on the US East coast and go through his files

Edited by HBBates
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MDriskil wrote:

"Based on Troy's first photo, is the fin chord not also at odds with Mr. Bentley?"

Maximum fin chord of the Hurricane is 3 ft 8.25 inches which (unless my math is rusty) translates into 23.41mm in 48th scale.

Perhaps someone who has the kit in hand could check this?

Cheers

Dave

Edited by tango98
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It's always rather depressing to see how, in the event of any discrepancy, the kit is automatically assumed to be at fault, so "I'd like to tell you a story."

When Peter Cooke was beginning his researches into the Hurricane, I decided it would be a good time to carry out my own checks on the Mk.I/II fuselage lengths, and Peter asked me to also measure the fuselage depth just in front of the fin/tailplane.

He did the same, on other airframes, and we both found that the fuselage depth was 2" less than Arthur's set of drawings. This set Peter off on a quest, and he found that Hawker had changed the set of the canopy, but had never altered the factory drawings. We know that he passed the information to Arthur, who, at some time, amended his drawings, but we don't know when, or how many wrong sets remained in circulation.

Now to return to the kit, and, first, Hurricanes were not fitted with mirrors (as with the Spitfire) until September/October 1940; pilots tended to go to the local car showrooms, and "borrow" one if they could, so find a photo of your particular airframe first.

When I measured Hurricane (six of them) front ends, I found that the forward part of the engine cowling was 50.5" to the join line just aft of the exhausts, with the second section, back to the panel line under the windshield 41" (45" on the Mk.II.)

In 1/48, 50.5" (128.27cm) = 1.052" (2.672cm) and 41" (104.14cm) = .854" (2.17cm.) Using a digital caliper on a borrowed kit, I have the following measurements - front section 1.051" (2.67cm,) aft section .858" (2.179cm,) or a combined difference of .003".

Maximum fin chord of the Hurricane is 3 ft 8.25 inches which (unless my math is rusty) translates into 23.41mm in 48th scale. Perhaps someone who has the kit in hand could check this?

At the base of the fin it's inordinately difficult, but I get about 23.62mm Edited by Edgar
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I think this reflects that the fuselage is longer than the plan, so the whole fin (leading and trailing edges) is further back than the plan.

Adrian

Ah, thank you. I had a feeling the fin couldn't really be that far off, and figured I was looking askew or missing an important point made along the way.

I will mention here also, that I enjoyed and very much agree with Mitch K's post above. I also work in a field (architect) where one is expected to meld wide-ranging variables into a perfect product, all while meeting schedules and budgets...and am reminded literally every day just how difficult that is! Having never produced a perfect project in lo these many years, It's hard for me to be TOO tough on model companies that don't make perfect kits!

Edited by MDriskill
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It's always rather depressing to see how, in the event of any discrepancy, the kit is automatically assumed to be at fault, so "I'd like to tell you a story."

When Peter Cooke was beginning his researches into the Hurricane, I decided it would be a good time to carry out my own checks on the Mk.I/II fuselage lengths, and Peter asked me to also measure the fuselage depth just in front of the fin/tailplane.

He did the same, on other airframes, and we both found that the fuselage depth was 2" less than Arthur's set of drawings. This set Peter off on a quest, and he found that Hawker had changed the set of the canopy, but had never altered the factory drawings. We know that he passed the information to Arthur, who, at some time, amended his drawings, but we don't know when, or how many wrong sets remained in circulation.

Now to return to the kit, and, first, Hurricanes were not fitted with mirrors (as with the Spitfire) until September/October 1940; pilots tended to go to the local car showrooms, and "borrow" one if they could, so find a photo of your particular airframe first.

When I measured Hurricane (six of them) front ends, I found that the forward part of the engine cowling was 50.5" to the join line just aft of the exhausts, with the second section, back to the panel line under the windshield 41" (45" on the Mk.II.)

In 1/48, 50.5" (128.27cm) = 1.052" (2.672cm) and 41" (104.14cm) = .854" (2.17cm.) Using a digital caliper on a borrowed kit, I have the following measurements - front section 1.051" (2.67cm,) aft section .858" (2.179cm,) or a combined difference of .003".

At the base of the fin it's inordinately difficult, but I get about 23.62mm

With all due respect to Edgar, we have had these points raised before, and their is no problem with the nose, but a measurement of the panel in question would be very useful.

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/64364-hurricane-noses-and-the-hasegawa-172-kits/page-2#entry1156952

It was Peter Cooke who started the ball rolling on the plans issue; he found that Hawker changed the geometry of the canopy, since it continually chattered open in flight, and refused to open above about 250 mph. If you look at side photos, the canopy top points down below the top of the windshield; Hawker added fittings to the front lower corners, which pulled the canopy in, as it was shut, and also changed the arrangement of the tracking, but never changed the drawings. Since most originators (rather than plagiarists) of drawings start from the canopy and work out, Arthur's drawing of the spine was too deep by 2". It might not sound a lot, but lift a tailplane by 2" and see what happens to the flight characteristics.

Edgar

And I have pointed out that in the cutting I keep posting

HurricaneBentleynotescrop_zpsc6a2675f.jpl

In the section starting 'the Fuselage decking' halfway down the second column Bentley mentions that the Hawker drawings are wrong, but these detail can be worked out from photographs, but that does seem to contradict what Edgar is saying.

Edgar does know Peter personally, but says he's no longer that interested, or words to that effect, I can't find the posting on this at the moment, but this is why he has not asked about the matter again recently.

The Article by Peter Cooke, 'Hurricane Veracity' talks about the drawings being wrong, and restorations being done to the wrong specification.

I will add details of the magazine the article when I find them again.

This maybe something as simple as minor misunderstanding of a detail in conversation, but this is a point I have made before to no response, except a repeat of the above.

Graham mention here

Graham Boak, on 16 Jul 2015 - 09:54 AM, said:

HBBates: Whilst what you argue is entirely sensible in general, this is not a new debate. The matter of how the published drawings scale has been gone into ad nauseam over these Hurricanes drawings in particular. The originals published in Scale Models magazine were done properly, but some of the later reprints were not, suffering from "printer stretch". This led to considerable debate in modelling circles, and he redrew them to avoid this problem with his own sales. However, when last year I asked him about buying new plans in 1/72 scale, he assured me that if I had the originals, then they still stand up.

A member here knows Mr Bentley, so I shall endeavour to find out what changes have been made when.

Peter Cooke was a fastidious researcher and scratchbuilder, and we know Edgar is a very careful researcher.

BUT

I have the 2005 MAM 1/48th Bentley plans, I have the original 1980 Scale Models, I have a 1/48th enlargement of these, and held over the 2005 reprint against a window I see no significant difference between them.

I have mentioned this before and not had a response.

AND, apart from the length and DH Spinner issue with the new Airfix Hurricane, the kit matches these in spine as far as I can tell.

Regarding the length issue.

Please note the kit over the plans, with the pencil lines on the fabric hatch, the drawing on the hatch, and photo of the hatch.

the kit hatch looks longer, making the nose end of the trapeziod shorter in height, noticeably so compared to the other sources.

Everything else is an excellent match for the drawings.

For ease of reference, the relevant images

New%20Airfix%20Hurricane%20vs%20Bentley%

stretched the first fabric access panel a bit, note pencil lines and full panel shown bottom right...and compare to the photo below.

lewis3.jpg

Personally I would be more than happy for the drawings to be wrong and the kit correct, but the shape is quite distinctive, and clearly shown on the photograph, and making the panel longer makes a clearly visible difference, so in this case it looks more like the kit is at fault.

regarding the cowl fasteners, this walkaround has some useful close up shots

http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/mark_hayward/hurricane_iia/index.php?Page=1

The fin looks fine, I was just showed the kit with the nose matching the plans, but the tail pushed back.

Hume, you make some very good points, but I am now too tired to answer them adequately, but one point.

So on the hurricane kit ...it does not match the Bentley drawings...from 2005.... reprinted in a magazine... and Al Bentley himself has spoke of errors in his early hurricane drawing.from error in the original Hawker drawing that did not match the actual production aircraft...

Where has A Bentley spoken of errors in his drawings? In the article I keep quoting, there is not mention, juts of his surprise at them not matching the Hawker GA drawings. Graham says he says the ones from the original magazine run are still good.

And I appreciate your dedicated efforts and in depth research knowledge on the Curtiss Hawks, so I understand you are speaking from personal experience.

I will make efforts to get clarification from Mr Bentley on this, as I am interested in the truth of the matter, not being right personally,

I'd much prefer the kit to be right and me wrong!

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On drawings in general, I have worked on many British and US types over the years (and years!) and have learned two things:

First, manufactuers general arrangement drawings always carry the warning that they are not to be scaled from and, second, manufacturers drawings, particularly British ones, often bear little relation to reality.

For instance, those for the Nimrod make absolutely no mention of the fact that Nimrods come in three different lengths, with one particular aircraft being the equivalent of a frame station longer than the shortest. The topic 6 Aircraft Repair Manual contained a pipe and cable interchangeability chart for this reason, yet I have never, ever, seen any drawing indicating any but one overall length for this type.

Unfortunately, the same is true of the detail drawings, so merely adding together all the theoretical component sizes and expecting an accurate final number is not necessarily any better a method than any other.

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Gents, first off this isn’t meant to ruffle feathers (Far from it) but just put over a point of view from a different perspective, that is the view from a person who has been a draughtsman now for 35 years (MOD, Petro Chem, Structural and err… Agricultural !!)

I actually agree with a lot of the points made in this conversation (plus have added a few more !), and will say that the Bentley drawing has been produced in a manner that I think is correct i.e. going back to source material to produce an accurate representation.

I’ve always found when reading the arguments both for and against certain drawings slightly amusing since there are so many factors that determine a drawings accuracy in relation to the real world subject. Here are just a few points to bear in mind when using ‘drawings’ to verify points on models. This actually relates more to paper hand drawn stuff but I do refer back to cad as well.

  1. Truthfully they are mostly not ‘drawings’ anyway! They are ‘illustrations’ or at their best ‘General Arrangements’, a drawing in this context is a form of pictorial information from which individual items can be made that includes instruction (i.e. dimensions) to enable you to do so. Just putting a scale bar on the bottom doesn’t cut the mustard to be honest. From component parts detail drawings are put together to make sub-assemblies drawings, and then onto General Arrangements (with many other steps in between, electrics, hydraulics etc.) this is what I refer to as the drawing pyramid. Most dimensional information is carried on the lower tier of this drawing pyramid and as you proceed upwards the type of dimensional information changes to suit the individual assembly (overall dims, check dims etc.) until the final drawing may not contain dimensional info at all but instead references back to the various sub-assemblies (not always but sometimes). The type of drawing used in modelling generally falls into the last bracket, but without reference or dims back to the btm tier source (i.e. the detail drawings), thus it becomes more of an illustration. The thing is in production is that you try not to duplicate dimensions, so if a detail part is fully dimensioned you don’t put those dimensions on the sub- assembly drawing , because it cuts down on errors creeping in.

  1. Scale- The most accurate way to draw anything is either full size 1:1 or larger 2:1 etc. then scale the drawing down, not draw small then scale up. What you must remember is that your ability to draw accurately decreases as scale gets smaller.Errors creep into drawings when they are produced in smaller scales and reason behind this is quite simple. To produce a constant line width for drawing (before the introduction of CAD, yes I am that old now!) on paper it was best to use a Rotring ink pen or similar which gives a dark line at a constant width examples being 0.18, 0.25, 0.35, 0.5 etc. (the nibs are colour coded so Red is 0.18, White 0.25, Yellow 0.35, Brown 0.5 and many more, a lot of CAD offices I know use this as I colour convention for printers now thus connecting to the past i.e. if it’s yellow on the screen it prints at 0.35mm). The thing is if you draw at say a scale of 1:72 then in the real world your 0.5mm nib produces a line 36mm wide and if it was out of position by 0.25mm in the real world that would be 18mm !! If you then blow that detail up on a photo copier to 1/48 to line width becomes 0.8 mm whilst keeping roughly the same real world dim (depending on how many digits you use beyond the decimal point!) But the thing is that’s just one line, if your detail has say 15 vertical lines suddenly you can have accumulated errors, exactly the same as accumulated tolerances in real world assembly of parts). Now maybe to you as individual this may not sound a lot and it isn’t but when I see people nit picking about a fuselage being a few mm too long on a 1/48 kit compared to a such and such ‘drawing’ I do smirk ! Sorry but I just do!

  1. Curvature – A bugbear for draughtsmen! If you say draw a part which contains a curvature then sod’s law states the centre point for the origin of the curve will be off the drawing sheet! So you resort to curve templates. These are plastic sheets with predefined curves cut into them that you draw around. Are they as accurate as bisecting angles to find the origin….well no but in any office time is money, but there is a way out of this covered below. Compound curvature where the curve has no one fixed origin point can be even more tricky, and thus the draughtsman’s old friend the ‘French Curve’ comes into play, similar to a curve template, and again helps to save time especially in the GA stage. There is no easy way out though in the detail stages you have to work out and plot the curves long hand for manufacture! (refer to the Bentley extract where he alludes to this at the beginning of this conversation)

  1. Dimensioning – This may sound odd (even bleedin’ obvious) but in any drawing used in manufacturing, it is the dimensions that rule, not the pictorial representation. Overtime as items change during the development process not all parts are pictorially ‘corrected’. The pictorial element will be left alone and only the dimension altered with the letters ‘NTS’ added ‘Not to Scale’. Again the draughtsman would have calculated the required dimensional change, but to save time it may not be possible to redraw the drawing (redraws cost money!). Because the dimension is King you will see other phrases on drawings to reinforce this fact ‘Work to figured dimensions only’, ‘Do Not Scale – If in doubt Ask !’ and other variations of the sort. The top tier General Arrangement could be quite often not changed during development or if it was very late in the day !

  1. Real World Items – I had an interesting conversation once with a chap about conserving old aircraft regarding Spitfires. He said something that really surprised me about parts and dimensions and that was ‘Sometimes it is what it is’! Critical component parts have to fit and work, but not all parts require the same level of tolerance. You may think say every Mk V spit was exactly the same to the last nut and bolt but there not quite. Material changes, manufacturing methods, expansion, tolerances, and field modification cause subtle differences in dimensions both at part and overall level, not huge but they are there. Some differences are huge like the mistake with the Tamiya Mk 1 meteor wing, not so much a mistake, but it didn’t represent a true Mk1 due to modification during the referenced airframes lifetime. What I’m saying here is that you can’t always believe what you see, research is a vital component in producing drawings, get it wrong and it doesn’t matter how accurately you draw, it maybe still wrong.

  1. The advent of CAD – With the arrival of CAD a lot of what I’ve described is no longer true, CAD bought forth the opportunity to draw accurately and quickly to the drawing office. (I must confess though it also took away the art in drawing which personally I miss). In the CAD world everything is drawn full size i.e. 1:1, you don’t run out of space to plot curves on drawings, everything can be done accurately. But as always, if you start with a misconception or the wrong information it will still be wrong regardless if it was drawn ‘Accurately’ in a computer. 2D Cad which is a straight substitute for paper drawing, bought with it many advantages but most design offices I’ve been involved with tend to use it in a similar fashion to paper, replicating the same tiered drawing structure etc.

  1. 3D CAD – Things get interesting, the ability to create 3D objects in a computer to mimic those in the real world. For manufacturing a wonderful tool, If you create parts say for a model kit in 3D form then the same drawing can then form the basis for the instructions which saves costs (you may have noticed in recent years how instructions have improved ), But like 2D CAD get it wrong early on and the mistakes ripple through the whole process. The Americans have a lovely phrase ‘Garbage in, Garbage Out’! The point being just because it’s 3D doesn’t instantly make it right! But use it in-conjunction with LIDAR it can get damn close !

  1. LIDAR and Scanning – For the modelling perspective, possibly the biggest change in recent years (although the technology has been around a little while now), that ultimately allows you to produce working drawing from laser scanning a real world object. Highly accurate, and produces faithful representation of real world objects. The thing is it’s not that simple though, scan an aircraft today in a museum and most likely it won’t be in a configuration as seen in WW2 (back to the Tamiya Meteor 1). Modification to the 3D drawings created from the 3D process will be required and yet again research will be the factor that determines the final accuracy of the finished product. But as a method of producing kits this is the way to go. But for items that no physical examples exist you’re back to 3D CAD and doing the homework on your chosen subject.

  1. Conclusion- What does this all mean? – It’s all a bit of a minefield ! A lot of trusted ‘drawings’ used for reference were as far as I can see produced years ago to best of the draughtsman’s ability using the tools and references he had available at the time. When looking at these you must take heed of the factors I’ve explained above for any given drawing be it paper, 2D, 3D CAD (and believe me I could go on far more on this subject). Without having access to a complete set of working drawings for an Aircraft any drawing produced for modelling purposes would be to a degree an approximation, but it’s accuracy would increase with the availability of more information, an example would be say if you only had access to an aircraft manufacturers General arrangement drawing then that drawing most likely wold not have incorporated the huge number of modifications incurred during that particular marks lifetime, that info would be further down the drawing tier (Bentley did it right though by the sounds of it ). When it comes to comparing drawings/illustrations to be truthful it’s really a matter of you pay your money you take your choice (Unless the error really is glaring!), if it looks right to you then….it is right!

But why rely on other people work, because nothing beats doing the research yourself, it’s all part of the fun.

There is though an obvious way around and that is use the TARDIS to LIDAR a real world example just off the production line; alas at the moment I’m still waiting for the Doctor to knock on my door !

Cheerio

Clive

Quick addition ! The points were correctly numbered before I pasted this in, why it changed I don't know ! Honest !

Edited by Nearlymen
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Interesting topic. I am currently building this kit and I also noticed that the fuselage is over 2mm too long when compairing it to the Bentley drawing or to the Italeri fuselage.

But I don't think the extra length is where Troy is showing it. Yes, the panels are too large, but not by 2mm. And many other panel lines are not to scale if you start looking closly. Also the length of the canopy rail is correct and the wing depth on the wing root is correct too.

Airfix-Hurri-2.jpg

To me it looks like the extra length is a scaling error along the rear fuselage (area hashed with a pencil) and very difficult to correct due to the fabric effect.I came to the conclusion that the best way to remove the extra lenght is diagonaly just before the tail as marked in red. This wont affecy the fabric effect and the horizontal slope is minimal to correct.

Airfix-Hurri-3.jpg

When done it look someting like this and it certainly corrects the length.

Airfix-Hurri-4.jpg

Anyway, that's how I made the correction.

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Interesting topic. I am currently building this kit and I also noticed that the fuselage is over 2mm too long when compairing it to the Bentley drawing or to the Italeri fuselage.

But I don't think the extra length is where Troy is showing it. Yes, the panels are too large, but not by 2mm. And many other panel lines are not to scale if you start looking closly. Also the length of the canopy rail is correct and the wing depth on the wing root is correct too.

Airfix-Hurri-2.jpg

To me it looks like the extra length is a scaling error along the rear fuselage (area hashed with a pencil) and very difficult to correct due to the fabric effect.I came to the conclusion that the best way to remove the extra lenght is diagonaly just before the tail as marked in red. This wont affecy the fabric effect and the horizontal slope is minimal to correct.

Airfix-Hurri-3.jpg

When done it look someting like this and it certainly corrects the length.

Airfix-Hurri-4.jpg

Anyway, that's how I made the correction.

The question is though, without this correction does the finished model look wrong and with this correction does the overall length become correct, or does it become too long because there is some other point that is too long?

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Nearlymen

Outstanding post summarizing all the issues..... chasing accuracy does rabbit hole after a while....and ive leaned most of points myself beating my head bloody chasing creating or finding and acurate Curtiss H75/81 set of drawings

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Given Nearlymen's pertinent comment about the reliability of drawings (especially all general arrangement drawings) can we say with certainty that Mr Bentley's drawings are accurate. I've used his drawings myself for details etc. but I would never use them as a direct template because I always bear in mind the pitfalls of that process. I have some passing familiarity myself with the drawing process in engineering starting off with the days of drawing boards and going through to the CAD processes now used (I'm not a draughtsman BTW) and I understand the limits of a drawing to depict any 3D object beyond that of showing the dimensions. This discussion is interesting, however before there is a rush to judgement has anyone actually measured the rear fuselage of a Hurricane along the centreline and compared it with the kit - might be the best starting point rather than just accepting GA drawings no matter how detailed.

Edited by MilneBay
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before there is a rush to judgement has anyone actually measured the rear fuselage of a Hurricane along the centreline

Airfix?

Naaah. Manufacturers are the last people to do something like that. All drawings (and photographs) are invariably superior.

Shane

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Airfix?

Naaah. Manufacturers are the last people to do something like that. All drawings (and photographs) are invariably superior.

Shane

I think I read somewhere of Trevor Snowden, erstwhile of Airfix, climbing on a/c measuring them. But then again, he was old school.

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Relying on paper printed plans is a mugs game. The printing process has so many variables consistent

copies accurate to the original is not a viable concern. This is not withstanding errors in the original drawing.

If you wish to have accurate data then the only way is to measure the actual airframe, preferably several if they are

available.

I'm interested in the remarks about manufacturers stated dimensions being wrong. Every dimension quoted in all the maintenance manuals

I've worked with have been bang on, that's why they are published in the manual. I would suggest the "quoted" dimensions came from the PR office

not from the Techo's

Edited by NAVY870
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One thing that nobody has seemed to mention yet- there's a prominent "notch" in the kit's trailing edge of the fin (or back end of fuselage part), and it seems like the lower area ends at the end of the fuselage in Troy's pic of it on the plan. So in that sense, it appears to be the right length, but is the fin itself then set back farther aft than it should be? (A quick look for a good photo shows no such notch on the real thing, unless there's something going on with the kit parts I haven't caught on to yet that makes the notch go away.)

bob

p.s. Troy, you've posted the same two photos (kit over plan and erk on wing helping pilot) three times now, twice on the same page. The mods get grumpy with repeated quoting of the same images, and it would be easy enough to refer people back to post 1 (where you could rearrange to put the two photos closer to each other, if you wished).

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