What's the best kit for an F86A Sabre (1/72)?

[Troy Smith]

6 hours ago, Sabrejet said:

 

Troy,

 

It's Duncan, not Steve, though you can call me Mary if it floats your boat 

 

I admire your efforts if you do go the Lindberg way because it would mean a lot of effort and I think there wouldn't be much 'Lindberg' in the finished model (I recall the cockpit was pretty bare and the intake completely the wrong shape, plus a thick canopy etc). However I haven't done much modelling in a few years so I don't really know what after-market stuff is out there: Tony mentioned some nice F-86A stuff in 1/72 (wings, canopy etc), so maybe it's easier in 1/48 than it used to be.

 

Please keep us posted. In the meantime you have me really thinking about doing an F-86A myself, but now in 1/48 maybe.  

Duncan

 

my apologies, posting late at night  when  part watching TV   and part wondering about the just 18 step daughter who really really  should not drink and who was  having a chat with the good  lord on the great  white telephone... and also the bath.(guess who got to clean up)

 

I digress.

A trip  into loft (which makes me very glad SWMGI  does not ever go there.....) eventually turned up  the Lindberg kit.

I'll try to some pics, but is the jet pipe on a  A basically the same as an F?  If so, then the Lindberg is undersize,  which may well make using the fuselage a non starter,  which is the only bit really useful because of  the tail.

 

Cutting Edge used to make an A conversion

http://imodeler.com/2014/08/hasegawa-f-86a-sabre/

 

Kiwi resin did   one,now sold out

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but it  wasn't a cheap option....

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Just worked out its £38 delivered not including any charges you might get from the post office + HMRC robbing gits VAT. That could come to £53 !!

 

I'll do some pics later if  I can, but I fear your assessment of the Lindberg kit may have been more accurate than mine..

 

Be a good one for Airfix  though, given there are A models to Lidar, and easy enough to do the E/early F with some alternate parts, or vice versa.

 

cheers

T

 

 

[Sabrejet]

I'll have to check to be 100% sure but I can't recall there being see any difference in tailpipe diameter F-86A to F-86F. Yes different variants of engine but also no change from J47 to Orenda.

[Sabrejet]

On 2017-5-20 at 14:42, Troy Smith said:

I'll try to some pics, but is the jet pipe on a  A basically the same as an F?  If so, then the Lindberg is undersize,  which may well make using the fuselage a non starter,  which is the only bit really useful because of  the tail.

 

I'll do some pics later if  I can, but I fear your assessment of the Lindberg kit may have been more accurate than mine..

 

Be a good one for Airfix  though, given there are A models to Lidar, and easy enough to do the E/early F with some alternate parts, or vice versa.

 

cheers

T

 

 

 

Same diameter: PN of the jet pipe for F-86A is 151-42102; some of these were reworked for use on F-86F (minor changes) and re-numbered 191-42100. 

 

I did have a look at some photos of an F-86A conversion kit (name escapes me), which had incorrect 'F-86F'-type speed brake wells (i.e. too busy) and so would need the conversion set to be chopped about to reach an accurate A model. That seems a bit daft so I think there is a nice gap for a series of 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32 conversion sets.

[Sabrejet]

This maybe rounds out the F-86A wing-related discussion. Late in 1950, NAA began investigating more efficient ways of mounting the external fuel tanks on its new F-86F model. One idea (which had been discussed back when the XP-86 was being designed) was to mount the fuel tanks on the wingtips - an idea which had previously been discounted because of centre-of-gravity concerns.

 

However, by 1950, with experience of externally-mounted drop tanks on its F-86A aircraft, NAA again looked at the idea and modified a pre-delivery aircraft, s/n 49-1301 to conduct a series of tests. Aside from the tip-mounted tanks, the only other major modification was to add a 10-foot airspeed probe to the nose of '301 and this is how it looked:

 

 

In total, five configurations were tested (numbered by NAA as external store configurations 21 thru 25), all based on the standard 120-gal drop tank as follows:

 

21. Production tank with inboard fin removed, 0° canted out: (tank at butt plane 225.5): buffet found at 0.92M, limiting at 0.928M

22. Production tank with inboard fin removed, 10° canted out & 1 inch slot: (tank at BP 230.75): buffet at 0.92M, limiting at 0.948M

23. Beaver tail tank canted out 7.25° & 1 inch slot (tank at BP 231.75): buffet at 0.94M, limiting at 0.96M

24. Beaver tail tank canted out 7.25° & 2 inch slot (tank at BP 231.75): buffet at 0.92M, limiting at 0.984M

25. Beaver tail tank canted out 7.25° & fillet (no slot) (tank at BP 231.75): buffet at 0.89M, limiting at 0.92M.

 

Photo above shows configuration 25. This graphic from the NAA report shows the basic shape/cant of each:

 

 

Following these tests, 49-1301 was delivered to the USAF in May 1951 and served as a test machine with ARDC at Wright Patterson. It was donated to the town of Syracuse North in New York State on 24 September 1960 and later moved to display at Maxwell AFB in Alabama, where it still resides. Sadly it doesn't retain any of its interesting test equipment.

[John R]

I have been doing some comparisons between Sabrejets drawings, Sabre photos and my Matchbox/Heller Sabre.

I took the Sabre side view with the station lines and scaled it to 1/72. The first comparison was with the model and they matched pretty well making me wonder how Matchbox got the canopy so wrong if the rest of it was a good match.

I then took the dimensioned drawing of the fin, scaled it to 1/72 and compared it to the drawing and could not make it match. Closer examination of the fin drawing showed that the dimensions given were not always consistent with the drawing and with each other when trying to produce a 1/72 version. (i.e. it's a picture with dimensions rather than a true outline - hope that makes sense)

I took the photo of 599, scaled it to 1/72 and produced an outline in red. This was superimposed on the drawing with station lines and then the fin outline, in blue, was added.

 

 

This seems to indicate that there is a problem with the drawing of the fin. I compared the dimensions from the that drawing with the fin stations given on the fuselage drawing and from what I could work out it makes the fin too tall. Since they are so comprehensive could they relate to a different model of the F-86?

 

After doing something like this for the F-86 and my earlier experience with the XF-104 I am not at all surprised that model manufacturers 'get it wrong'!

John

[Sabrejet]

20 hours ago, John R said:

I have been doing some comparisons between Sabrejets drawings, Sabre photos and my Matchbox/Heller Sabre.

I took the Sabre side view with the station lines and scaled it to 1/72. The first comparison was with the model and they matched pretty well making me wonder how Matchbox got the canopy so wrong if the rest of it was a good match.

I then took the dimensioned drawing of the fin, scaled it to 1/72 and compared it to the drawing and could not make it match. Closer examination of the fin drawing showed that the dimensions given were not always consistent with the drawing and with each other when trying to produce a 1/72 version. (i.e. it's a picture with dimensions rather than a true outline - hope that makes sense)

I took the photo of 599, scaled it to 1/72 and produced an outline in red. This was superimposed on the drawing with station lines and then the fin outline, in blue, was added.

 

 

This seems to indicate that there is a problem with the drawing of the fin. I compared the dimensions from the that drawing with the fin stations given on the fuselage drawing and from what I could work out it makes the fin too tall. Since they are so comprehensive could they relate to a different model of the F-86?

 

After doing something like this for the F-86 and my earlier experience with the XF-104 I am not at all surprised that model manufacturers 'get it wrong'!

John

 

I can easily believe that the Station diagram is not a scale representation: it's a bit like a fuel system schematic or a London Tube map. However, as I did with a wing plan a few years ago, I started with angles and dimensions and ended up with the correct plan-view rather than trying to make an existing drawing/diagram fit.

 

Therefor I'd suggest that if anyone has a good CAD programme, that the stations be placed in the correct spacing and then take it from there.

 

And these are definitely XP-86 stations because at the time they were drawn there were no other F-86 (P-86) models!

[Sabrejet]

I cross-checked with the rudder dimensions (earlier post on this thread), and give or take a few mm, the key dimensions on the Stations diagram agree. So it would seem to indicate that XP-86 and F-86A tail dimensions can be verified (and agreed to be the same) from these two different primary sources.

[Sabrejet]

On 2017-6-6 at 21:01, John R said:

This seems to indicate that there is a problem with the drawing of the fin. I compared the dimensions from the that drawing with the fin stations given on the fuselage drawing and from what I could work out it makes the fin too tall. Since they are so comprehensive could they relate to a different model of the F-86?

 

After doing something like this for the F-86 and my earlier experience with the XF-104 I am not at all surprised that model manufacturers 'get it wrong'!

John

 

John,

 

I haven't forgotten what you mentioned and have done some more investigation. The upshot is that I have looked at XP-86, F-86A and F-86E tail station diagrams and there is no profile difference between the three types. However, a couple of things I hadn't noticed:

 

1. The XP-86 stations diagram has a mistake: "49.94" should be 45.94 (corrected on F-86A and F-86E diagrams) - the error is obvious since this station is lower down than Stn 48.25 so cannot be a higher value (see green highlight below):

 

2. The base of the XP-86 tail has the ribs positioned slightly differently to F-86A/E, so that at the front, XP-86 goes 16.2 (F-86A/E is 16.2 also),  but then 19.375 (18.937), 22.625 (19.195) and then through 23.32 (23.32) to 33.625 (33.625 etc), whereas the F-86A/E has an intermediate rib at 25.489. So the shape is the same but internal structure/rib spacing etc slightly different. Similar, but to a lesser extent at the aft end of the fin.

 

 

Secondly, I looked at the NAA tail drawing and something doesn't make sense: see annotated drawing below. 

 

If we take the "50 deg 20 min" angle as correct and then convert the 7 ft 9 in fin leading edge dimension to mm (2362.2mm), we can treat these dimensions as a right-angled triangle to validate the other measurements: this makes the other angles 90 degrees and 39 deg 40 min; with the vertical vector of fin height (minus the fin radius) as 1817.48mm. Except that the latter isn't 1817.48mm (5 ft 11 9/16 in): it's 1854mm (6 ft 1 in). Or if we trust the 6 ft 1 in dimension then the fin leading edge dimension is incorrect and should be 2409.93mm (7 ft 10 7/8 in) rather than 7 ft 9 in.

 

All very strange. OK we're only talking about an inch or so, but it's still puzzling.

 

[Gene K]

What a crying shame that Photobucket destroyed this outstanding thread ... like they have countless others around the world. Hopefully the posters to this thread will find new photo hosts and restore their links!

 

Gene K

[Sabrejet]

3 hours ago, Gene K said:

What a crying shame that Photobucket destroyed this outstanding thread ... like they have countless others around the world. Hopefully the posters to this thread will find new photo hosts and restore their links!

 

Gene K

 

Gene,

 

It's on my list: I've restored a few other threads and need to get round to this one too!

 

And no, PB are not on my Christmas card list anymore.