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


Troy Smith

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this could help you?

30 years ago, I have bought Hawker hurricane Bentley's drawing at 1/24th,( 4 sheets, 23" x 35")
I checked these drawings, they are exactly at 1/24 scale (scale bar 10' = 5")

the fuselage length from front plate cowling to trailing edge* of rudder, measured on cl reference( thrust line) is
370mm
the rudder width is 29mm

* at the point where the trailing edge cut the cl reference, not the vertical projection(+1mm)

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Bob,

Regarding that 'notch', there is a piece that fits into the lower rear fuselage to bring it into line with the rear edge of the fin.

I also tend to agree with NAVY870 that relying on paper printed plans from magazines et al is a mugs game. Probably the best way to resolve the issue would be for someone to visit their friendly neighbourhood Hurricane owner and have the aircraft jacked up so that the fuselage datum is horizontal. Then they could use a plumb bob at each relevant point along the fuselage making marks on the floor at each point. Then they could use their trusty steel tape measure to measure the distance(s) between them and bingo, there's the length of that particular airframe.

Cheers

Dave

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Bob, part D56 fills this nodge.

Airfix-Hurri-5.jpg

It is widely published that the lenght of the Mk.I with the production Rotol spinner is 9.58m which is 199.5mm in 1/48. The Bentley drawing I have measures 199.2mm. I can see now a discussion developing how accurate this measurment is ...

It is interesting that the kit's lenght is 199.5mm, but with the shorter Spitfire type Rotol spinner. Could that be where the discrepancy happened?

Compared to the Italery kit (and Hasegawa too), the Airfix fuselage is 2.4mm longer.

Airfix-Hurri-6.jpg

Airfix-Hurri-7.jpg

I am aware that the Italeri kit is far from perfect, but the fuselage lenght does match the published lenght.

At the end, each of us has to decide if to bother in shortening the fuselage or not - eather way, you get a great looking model of a Hurricane Mk.I

Cheers, Peter

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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 !!)

......

  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...
  2. 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.....
  3. 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...
  4. 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...
  5. Real World Items – I had an interesting conversation once with a chap about conserving old aircraft regarding Spitfires.....
  6. 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...
  7. 3D CAD – Things get interesting, the ability to create 3D objects in a computer to mimic those in the real world....
  8. LIDAR and Scanning – For the modelling perspective, possibly the biggest change in recent years....
  9. Conclusion- What does this all mean? – It’s all a bit of a minefield !....

Cheerio Clive

Nice post Clive, I agree with all your points.

With the Hurricane, the general arrangement drawings show some reference dimensions, but a lot of the "curves" of the Hurricane were produced by reference to "shop templates", that is, full size patterns.

If I was producing a set of drawings like Arthur Bentley has, I would use the reference dimensions to lay out the "bones" of the aircraft and then for the "curves" I would either:

  1. Scale the profile of the curve from the general arrangement drawings (The easiest route...).
  2. Measure an actual aircraft (tough to do since the aircraft isn't 2 dimensional).

Since a model is just that "a model", if it looks right it's probably right enough for my purposes. I'm happy to have so many good Hurricane models available, if they are off a bit here or there then thats O.K. with me- especially since it's unlikely I will invest the time necessary to work out what is incorrect: The Plastic or, The Drawing or, Both....

Here's what you're up against:

HH-fuselage%20frame_zpscobuqqpj.jpg

I have an AutoCAD wireframe of the above that I painfully drew up to confirm the dimensions are correct.....my project was terminated due to lack of computer horsepower..

Fuselage faring:

HH-fuselage%20faring_zpsla2ot0lm.jpg

Fin:

HH-fin_zpsgldpyp20.jpg

Good Luck!

Edited by StevSmar
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  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 !

To add to dimensional complexity would be something called Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing or GDT

(I know you engineers know agout this) which wasn't used until the 1950s but the concept of which is valid

regardless of chronology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_dimensioning_and_tolerancing

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Personally I'm one of those that if the it doesn't throw of the look of the finished model, then I can't be bothered. Lots of models have parts that are a little off in size, you would drive yourself mad trying to fix them all.

Edited by Mike
Removing large photo quote that apparently makes us Mods grumpy.
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Personally I'm one of those that if the it doesn't throw of the look of the finished model, then I can't be bothered. Lots of models have parts that are a little of in size, you would drive yourself mad trying to fix them all.

This!

Kind regards,

Joachim

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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.

As an ex- draughtsman as well I could not agree more with your points.
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I would also like to point out we have quite a few Hurricane pics on this site as well, in our walkaround section:

.....

Julien

Thanks Julien, interesting.

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Nice post Clive, I agree with all your points.

With the Hurricane, the general arrangement drawings show some reference dimensions, but a lot of the "curves" of the Hurricane were produced by reference to "shop templates", that is, full size patterns.

If I was producing a set of drawings like Arthur Bentley has, I would use the reference dimensions to lay out the "bones" of the aircraft and then for the "curves" I would either:

  1. Scale the profile of the curve from the general arrangement drawings (The easiest route...).
  2. Measure an actual aircraft (tough to do since the aircraft isn't 2 dimensional).

Since a model is just that "a model", if it looks right it's probably right enough for my purposes. I'm happy to have so many good Hurricane models available, if they are off a bit here or there then thats O.K. with me- especially since it's unlikely I will invest the time necessary to work out what is incorrect: The Plastic or, The Drawing or, Both....

Here's what you're up against:

HH-fuselage%20frame_zpscobuqqpj.jpg

I have an AutoCAD wireframe of the above that I painfully drew up to confirm the dimensions are correct.....my project was terminated due to lack of computer horsepower..

Great stuff Steve, except I can't read the details :(

Could you add some dimensions, the one that would greatly help in this context would be the length from main spar to rudder post, as see above I think, as this would answer the question of the length of the Airfix fuselage I think.

There have been some very interesting posts in this thread about accuracy of drawings and draughtsmanship .

Very informative, thanks to all posters on these aspects.

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Great stuff Steve, except I can't read the details :(

......

Unfortunately you're not alone in not being able to read the details... neither can I... That's why I tried to draw it in 3D....

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There's an awful lot of very good generic advice here about having doubts over drawings. However, following from this there seems to be an assumption that all drawings are automatically wrong, just because they are drawings. This isn't valid. It is possible to be a drawing and still be correct. This is, after all, how the aircraft was built.

AL Bentley's Hurricane drawings have been available for some decades now. They have been discussed thoroughly in that time, including judgements made using measurements from the real aircraft. All these generic criticisms have been trotted out before, but never justified. Can I suggest if you actually have EVIDENCE for any shortcomings, then bring it up!

The shape of one model or another is not evidence.

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All this righteous indignation, regarding Arthur's work, is all very well, but we have yet to see one of his latest drawings, reworked by him after he got them back from Nexus. If there is a suspicion that a magazine reprint might not be all it's supposed to be, then anyone should have the right to say so.

When Peter Cooke produced his "Hurricane Veracity" article, he included 1/48 drawings of the fuselage, something that has been missed (or ignored.) I dug out my copy of the article, and laid the Airfix fuselage halves on top; the panel line, under the windshield, the swoop of the spine, and the shape of the fin all match perfectly, in fact the only "error" I could find was at the rear of the fin, where the fairings, surrounding the rudder hinges, were fitted, and that appears to be about 1mm.

We now have two men, both at the pinnacle of their chosen professions, who appear to have produced material which is at variance; I suggest that someone revert back to the methods we employed when this hobby was in its infancy, and get to some real airframes (preferably Hawker Restorations and Peter Vacher, whom Hornby used,) with a tape measure, then report back. My days of crawling under and over airframes are long gone.

PICT0008_zpso5dmll3b.jpg

I do hope this will be accepted as the requisite evidence.

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All this righteous indignation, regarding Arthur's work, is all very well, but we have yet to see one of his latest drawings

.....

I do hope this will be accepted as the requisite evidence.

Good points Edgar, my days of crawling under airframes are not over- I just need a sponsor to help with the cost of airfare and marriage counselling. ("You're not ignoring me for some Aircraft (Insert expletive) again are you....").

Without being a slight on our good friends at HRL, perhaps the only real recourse is to Lidar the Hurricane airframes that have never been restored. Hawker does a wonderful job but if there's an error in the Hawker drawings which they used to restore a Hurricane from, then.....

If it looks right, then that's good enough for me, being out by a few scale inches here or there is not really a concern now that my OCD is dormant, and if it bothers me I am now lucky enough to solve the issue by taking my glasses off and then it all looks better (if somewhat blurry..).

If it bothers others then I say have at it. We each get to decide if we will release our perfectionist hounds and risk a good mauling, or keep them chained up in their "F!@#ing Good enough kennel"

(In jest with malice to no-one)

Edited by StevSmar
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I have a mutual friend who knows some of the guys who worked on this kit. As I understand it, Airfix used the most recent Bentley drawings ( reworked and redrawn), Hawker drawings and measured and examined at least 4 airframes as well as other information.

This is probably as accurate as any Hurricane is going to get, and you can put your razor saws away.

As for previous staff measuring kits, they obviously had a wonky measure based on the number of inaccurate kits released (Nimrod, Sea Harrier, Hurricane II to name 3)

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All this righteous indignation, regarding Arthur's work, is all very well, but we have yet to see one of his latest drawings, reworked by him after he got them back from Nexus.

Not really righteous or otherwise indignation Edgar, nor a criticism of Mr Bentley's work, but simply a plea for caution in using drawings as direct templates when the distortions created by the reproduction process remain unknown. That is why I use them as a guide but not as a template.

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I have a mutual friend who knows some of the guys who worked on this kit. As I understand it, Airfix used the most recent Bentley drawings ( reworked and redrawn), Hawker drawings and measured and examined at least 4 airframes as well as other information.....

Now you're just teasing us.

I for one would LOVE to hear more about how Airfix makes their models, especially if they are awesome Hurricanes

(and I'm not talking about fancy elliptical wing Hurricanes here either.. ;)

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When Peter Cooke produced his "Hurricane Veracity" article, he included 1/48 drawings of the fuselage, something that has been missed (or ignored.) I dug out my copy of the article, and laid the Airfix fuselage halves on top; the panel line, under the windshield, the swoop of the spine, and the shape of the fin all match perfectly, in fact the only "error" I could find was at the rear of the fin, where the fairings, surrounding the rudder hinges, were fitted, and that appears to be about 1mm.

I do hope this will be accepted as the requisite evidence.

Oh it will, it will, thank you Edgar.

I also have a copy and will try to overlay it over Bentley's drawings from 2005.

Now if Steve would get us the dimensions from that frame drawing he posted, we could perhaps settle this :-D

Vedran

The milimeter brigade

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Gents, I'm so glad to read the replies to this post, it's so easy to make a comment and promptly get shot down !

One thing I will make clear though, that is I would not criticise the Bentley drawings I merely pointed out how you get to a point that a drawing is produced. I would restate that the method of producing his work according to the article was correct as far as I can see and that if I was considering to make a drawing like that I would take a similar approach, so more power to Arthur's elbow because as far as I can see his draughting skills looked pretty good !

You would also have notice my conclusion was that there is no conclusion in effect ! i.e. 'if it looks right to you, then it is right' ! Bearing that in mind I will also say that if chopping the tail of a hurri and repositioning it makes it look better to you...then do it ! My personal reason for that though wouldn't be the accuracy issue, more that you prepared to have a go at old school modelling rather than just assembling a kit. Either way, if you go for accuracy, looks, build it as it is or just like chopping stuff around to put your own mark on your model, if your hobby relaxs you and makes you feel you've achieved something then well....your doing it right !

Thank you SteveSmar for putting up those Hurri Assy drawings they neatly show the points I was trying to make. They show dimensions on the drawing that are only relevant to the job in hand and then references back to individual assy and detail drawings, I could not have found a better example for this post, well done on that score !

This has been a great topic to read and I'm happy I could contribute to it in a worthwhile manner.

Cheerio

Clive

Edited by Nearlymen
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...

more checking and looks like there is a problem with the DH spinner...right shape but too long, but looks fixable...
...

...

The DH Hurricane type spinner is too long, and as result too wide at the base, but flat sanding this back about 1mm and deepening the blades slots and some scraping back of the back plate will cure this.

I over cut mine back, so a photo won't help much.

More on Hurricane props and spinners here

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234980181-hawker-hurricane-propellers-and-spinners-a-modellers-guide/

So, the concencus is that the DH Hurricane spinner as provided by Airfix is too long and therefor too wide at the base.

Apart from trying to correct the kit plastic I assume substituting a Hasegawa spinner (on their sprue W) would work, is that right?

Good discussion and thanks for all the info provided regarding the new Airfix Hurricane.

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An Interesting read and to be honest nice to have it after I placed my comments above ! Mind you..........the line about Engineering graduates and drawings......errrr.... not always ha ha ! But hey that's a story for another day !

Cheerio

Clive

A Quick addition ! I'm sat in the DO with an Engineer behind me telling me I really should expand on this and write a little article about producing drawings and manufacturing since you might find it interesting ? After this topic has cooled and died off, would anyone be interested if I wrote up some of my experiences of Injection Mouldings, castings and jig making etc, in a new topic ? It maybe relevant to understanding how things go together in the real world a little more ? Think of it as modelling just at a scale of 1:1 ! If not no worries, I'll just stick to the modelling stuff, thing is I get the feeling quite a few people here come from an Engineering background and I don't want to teach grandma how to suck eggs !

Edited by Nearlymen
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