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1/48 - Supermarine Scimitar by DB Model Kits (DBMK) - 3D renders+3D printed test parts+schemes - release in 2024 ?


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On 11/27/2021 at 11:33 PM, Piotr Mikolajski said:

 

Since 2017, Dragon has only released 14 new tool kits and there hasn't been a single aircraft. In the case of Cyber Hobby, the last new tool model was released in 2013. I wouldn't count too much on either fulfilling the numerous announcements or releasing something new.

True I'm sure, but they have 'managed' to get Revell (Germany) to release their Sea Vixen!  So for me that is the source, and so in 1/72

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33 minutes ago, Denford said:

True I'm sure, but they have 'managed' to get Revell (Germany) to release their Sea Vixen!  So for me that is the source, and so in 1/72

 

When it comes to reboxes there is no way to "manage" someone. Revell releases a lot of kits from different manufacturers. In this case they chose Sea Vixen, which had not been on the market for a long time. They inquired about the price, it was favorable, and Dragon was happy to sell several thousand sprues.

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1 hour ago, Dave Fleming said:

Curious as to why the title has 1/48(?)in it - even with the ?, there is no information to base anything on!

 

 

 

Yes me too.

 

I'd be seriously surprised if Airfix would do the Supermarine Fatter Knacker in any scale let alone 1/48th, after all, it has been widely reported that the Supermarine Fat Knacker (a Swift is a lithe and graceful bird, the Supermarine product is nothing like that and looks like a Hunter that's eaten all the pies), was a poor seller, Airfix financial position whilst better than a few years ago, is still I would suggest, not on a footing where some Britmodellers and their pet dog Simon would buy the kit but it would be widely ignored by the rest of the public.  Let's face it, the Scimitar's best work was as a flying bowser for the early Buccaneers :whistle:

 

I'd suggest that if the scanning is for a kit, it will be from one of the smaller manufacturers.

 

That said, I'd also suggest it would be in 1/72nd rather than 1.48th, I'd buy one in 1/72nd, not the slightest bit interested in 1/48th.

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It’s amazing how much chatter, some of it positive, some not so much, has been written on such a niche aircraft, and a possible model in an unknown scale.  I love the Scimitar, even though it wasn’t actually much good in anything other than the looks department.  Can’t wait to see what occurs (if anything), and hope everyone gets their wish.

 

However, there have been a few less than cheerful comments, doing the "I don’t want it because xxx, so you shouldn’t be able to have it" thing, so please knock that off forthwith, aka now :) 

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22 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Agreed … Im an American and would love a new tooled I.M. kit. Though I tend to agree this could also be for flight simulator gaming. I believe that @Richard123 got the comparison correct. I have often compared the Demon and Scimitar as being similar in their poor thought out design and failure. Its a hole in R.N. Lineups that needs to be filled, to that end could Sword be an option for the manufacturer ? They have a decided interest in the 1950’s Naval types from the USN already, could they be expanding into mor RN subjects ? They did the R.N. Skyraiders not to long ago if memory serves. 
 

Dennis

 

Didn't Sword make the kit for Xtrakit ? I know they did some, can't remember if the Scimitar was one of them.

Sword have made a pretty nice F3H and a Gannet AEW, a Scimitar would sure be a subject in line with their catalogue.

 

On 11/29/2021 at 8:32 PM, Scimitar F1 said:

Heresy!

 

To be honest that is pretty accurate - similar to the Lightning. That said the point about underdevelopment of British aircraft like the Buccaneer is accurate but linked to the lack of foreign sales. 

 

The lack of foreign sales however was the direct result of being aircraft developed to specifications that were strictly tailored to the requirements of the users (RAF and FAA). Neither service seemed to care much about any export potential when drawing their specifications, that of course makes sense since they wanted exactly a certain type of aircraft. Export success comes when an aircraft is versatile enough to fill the needs of many users, very few British types excelled in this.

This approach is very different from that taken in France, where from a certain point on every new fighter design had to have export potential. Both approaches have pros and cons in the end, there's no best.

 

On 11/29/2021 at 7:23 PM, VMA131Marine said:

But that would have required the specification to have been for afterburning engines and supersonic performance. As people have noted, the Scimitar was basically obsolete as soon as it entered service because it was narrowly tailored to a short-sighted spec that guaranteed no other country would want it. Whereas the F-4 had the flexibility and development potential to win sales in many countries, reducing the unit cost, and is even now in limited service with Greece, Iran, South Korea, and Turkey; Japan retired its last F-4s this year.

 

Of course, neither the Scimitar not the Sea Vixen were designed to meet the performance of the Phantom. Both types also had a longer than ideal development, that in an era of fast progress like the '50s didn't help. There were then a number of issues with the British industry but this will bring us very off topic...

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3 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

 

Didn't Sword make the kit for Xtrakit ? I know they did some, can't remember if the Scimitar was one of them.

Sword have made a pretty nice F3H and a Gannet AEW, a Scimitar would sure be a subject in line with their catalogue.

 

Yeah, Xtrakit was a Sword tooling (as were the Canberra and Swift, and possibly the Hunter T7) 

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7 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

The lack of foreign sales however was the direct result of being aircraft developed to specifications that were strictly tailored to the requirements of the users (RAF and FAA).

This is exactly what I said. British aircraft specs of that era were so tightly tailored to the needs of its own services there was little hope of export sales. And when there was (TSR.2 to Australia instead of F-111) British officials (Mountbatten) actively sabotaged them.

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4 hours ago, bentwaters81tfw said:

Oh well. If it comes to nothing, I still have a Skybirds 86 untouched, and a Scratchaeronautics issue to fall back on.

I've still got my dearly-beloved Dynavector kit from back in the days when I used to be able to actually finish kits, but a sexy new tool would be appreciated regardless ^_^

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Whats not to like,it was multi roll,it could carry out reconnaissance, it carried sidewinders,guns,bombs and also instant sunshine and could be refuled inflight as well as refuel other aircraft all from a carrier.Plus it looks fantastic.For me that makes it an extremely interesting aircraft and warrants purchasing at least 5 or six for my 1/72 collection 🙂

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On 11/29/2021 at 6:35 PM, Ad-4N said:

Man, this Scimitar bashing is striking. 

 

 

 

currently reading Grub Streets' 'Fleet Air Arm Boys'

 

"..the Scimitar was a real 'hot rod' for its day ..but was quite heavy and had only small wings. It was big; the biggest single-seat aircraft operating from a carrier at that time and the last FAA machine with guns, four 30 mm cannon. It could carry four 1000 Ib bombs and had a nuclear capability. Its two engines produced 23 000 Ibs of thrust which made for a very spritely acceleration....of the two types I was flying at the time, the Scimitar had the power whereas the Hunter had the manoeuvrability. But if the Scimitar was getting into trouble he could just open the throttles and disappear... we intercepted an American task force about 400 miles east of Iceland. An F-4 attempted to interfere with us, but it was no contest. Then an F-8 tried his luck but the US military was not trained in air combat manoeuvring while we were very aggressive..."

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10 minutes ago, FalkeEins said:

 

currently reading Grub Streets' 'Fleet Air Arm Boys'

 

"..the Scimitar was a real 'hot rod' for its day ..but was quite heavy and had only small wings. It was big; the biggest single-seat aircraft operating from a carrier at that time and the last FAA machine with guns, four 30 mm cannon. It could carry four 1000 Ib bombs and had a nuclear capability. Its two engines produced 23 000 Ibs of thrust which made for a very spritely acceleration....of the two types I was flying at the time, the Scimitar had the power whereas the Hunter had the manoeuvrability. But if the Scimitar was getting into trouble he could just open the throttles and disappear... we intercepted an American task force about 400 miles east of Iceland. An F-4 attempted to interfere with us, but it was no contest. Then an F-8 tried his luck but the US military was not trained in air combat manoeuvring while we were very aggressive..."

 

 

Thats an interesting quote with very interesting observations if you think about it.  We tend to compare performance and therefor desirability of the "poor relation" Sea Vixen and Scimitar as against the F-4 and F-8 unfavourably to the FAA birds.  I get why as I do that myself.  However in certain scenarios the lack of supersonic performance might not be such a drawback.

 

Its got me thinking about Migs v F-4's in Vietnam, SHARS v Mirages in that South Atlantic unpleasantness and no doubt others.  However thats risking going way off topic so best draw a line there and no further.  Interesting though

 

  

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That's the great thing about pilot recollections, there's always some aspect for which a type was the best that could never be matched in the past present or future, always an example where even what everyone else perceived as drawbacks suddenly became an asset (like the much boasted manouverability of biplanes in 1939...). 

The truth however is that if the Scimitar was such a great aircraft, the FAA would have kept them in service instead of replacing them after only a few years.

If the Scimitar and Sea Vixen were such impressive and advanced aircraft, they would have easily soldiered on into the '70s like other types did but instead they were both replaced and the FAA last CTOL types were the Buccaneer and... the Phantom ! That same Phantom that according to pilot recollectons couldn't match the Scimitar in manouvering.

Pilot recollections are great and valuable but for an aircraft to be a success it is not enough to have some good flying qualities in certain situations and the Scimitar, for all the good intentions put in by the designers, was not a success for a number of reasons.

Of course the lacklustre career of the Scimitar does not mean that the type does not deserve a modern kit, afterall we have kits of things like the Bachem Natter, an "aircraft" that was probably better at killing its own pilots rather than the enemy, or of absurd ideas like the piloted V-1 variant. We have decent kits of types that only made it as prototype, if someone made a kit of the Helwan HA-300, why not a Scimitar ? The Ha-300 is a fascinating aircraft for me but at least the scimitar was built in some numbers...

In any case, whatever the merits of the real Scimitar in the history of aviation, it is a type that any collection of FAA types needs. Sure the FAA has been fairly neglected by model companies compared to the RAF, even by a British company like Airfix but with more and more types becoming available it would be the time to have at least a good short run kit.

I do not consider myself a "Scimitar basher", I simply see the Scimitar as one of those many carrierborne '50s aircraft that for one reason or the other failed to really achieve much. At the same time I do own the Xtrakit kit and I remember trying to find a 1/72 scale kit of the type since I was 16. I even considered buying the Dynavector kit when this was issued, but it was something too expensive for my pockets in those days. And I also own kits of other similarly unlucky aircraft, like the Swift or the Cutlass, the F3H... and I have models or kits of all front-line FAA aircraft from the Fulmar to the FA.2, no matter how good or bad they may have been.. do you really think I would have anything against a new Scimitar kit ???

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1 hour ago, Giorgio N said:

 

The truth however is that if the Scimitar was such a great aircraft, the FAA would have kept them in service instead of replacing them after only a few years.

If the Scimitar and Sea Vixen were such impressive and advanced aircraft, they would have easily soldiered on into the '70s like other types did but instead they were both replaced and the FAA last CTOL types were the Buccaneer and... the Phantom ! That same Phantom that according to pilot recollectons couldn't match the Scimitar in manouvering.

 

 

yes, get that.  'Impressive and advanced', no, perhaps not. The Scimitar was a single seater ..and had no radar. Being comparatively small fuel load was inadequate so it was short on range and invariably flew with drop tanks with all that entails performance-wise. It could still exceed 600 kts at sea-level. It entered service in September 1957 and was withdrawn from squadron use in October 1966, but flew with the FRU at Hurn until Feb 1971.

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I think that the shortcomings of a Scimitar was summed up (possibly apocryphally) by a US carrier crewman "only the limeys could build anything with that much power just to go subsonic".  In truth it was a 1940s design (Type 508) developed beyond the stage where a new design should have been called for. 

 

Running away from a dogfight is a "guns only" solution: the Scimitar would be an easy target for a Sidewinder shot or (for an F-4) a short delay then a Sparrow.  Alternatively he could just chase until the Scimitar ran out of fuel - but if the Scimitar was running away it was no threat so why bother chasing at all?  It might just be a lure with something more threatening coming in..

 

None of which prevents it being a gap looking to be filled in any collection of FAA aircraft.

 

I recall an Eng.Soc. visit to Yeolvilton just before they received Phantoms.  We had a briefing from one officer sounding off (whinging) about the Phantom performance claims, being able to do all sort of things - but not all at once.  To which I had the obvious thought "whereas the Sea Vixen couldn't do any of them..."  I was cheeky enough then to ask the youngish pilot sitting next to me at the dinner just how the Vixen could cope with a Mig.21.  I didn't get an answer.  A few years late I was working with the now classic comparative performance plots of F-4 and MiG.21, but the Vixens were gone so I never got an answer.

 

Again, models are another thing.  I rather regret I never made a Vixen.  I did have a Frogspawn one, but it moved on.

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7 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Running away from a dogfight is a "guns only" solution: the Scimitar would be an easy target for a Sidewinder shot or (for an F-4) a short delay then a Sparrow.  Alternatively he could just chase until the Scimitar ran out of fuel - but if the Scimitar was running away it was no threat so why bother chasing at all?  It might just be a lure with something more threatening coming in..

It seems to me the defining characteristic of aircraft like the Scimitar and Sea Vixen is that they were conceived primarily to counter subsonic, poorly defended, and slow Soviet bombers. Even the Lightning was designed with this primary threat in my. But the Scimitar would have had difficulty against even the MiG-17, which got the better of a number of USN and USAF Phantoms in Vietnam.

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8 hours ago, Dave Fleming said:

There was a proposal for a two seat, radar equipped Scimitar with more powerful engines, one was ordered (serial XH451) but cancelled. IIRC it had tandem seats, but the javelin/Sea Vixen were adopted instead

Perhaps an interesting what-if model?

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To me the LiDAR scanning will be for the museum’s own use. 
 

As already mentioned a non disclosure agreement would be in place between the parties. 
 

As for other manufacturers using LiDAR, Airfix are the only ones I have heard who publicly state that they use it, so if others do I would have thought they would use it as a marketing tool.

 

just looked at the Central Scanning website and it states that they scan for 3 D printing and reverse engineering as well as design. So would guess that the museum might want to replace some parts of the aircraft? Through reverse engineering? 
 

As a modeller I hope I am wrong and it is for a newly tooled kit by Smer or Tamiya to fill a hole in our stash.

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On 12/1/2021 at 6:05 PM, JohnT said:

 

 

Thats an interesting quote with very interesting observations if you think about it.  We tend to compare performance and therefor desirability of the "poor relation" Sea Vixen and Scimitar as against the F-4 and F-8 unfavourably to the FAA birds.  I get why as I do that myself.  However in certain scenarios the lack of supersonic performance might not be such a drawback.

 

Its got me thinking about Migs v F-4's in Vietnam, SHARS v Mirages in that South Atlantic unpleasantness and no doubt others.  However thats risking going way off topic so best draw a line there and no further.  Interesting though

 

  

Add Gnat vs F-104 to that list too.

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14 hours ago, trickydicky210 said:


 

As for other manufacturers using LiDAR, Airfix are the only ones I have heard who publicly state that they use it,

 

..and if they get a chance to scan a machine that is not ordinarily accessible, they will do. But not necessarily produce a kit from the results. 

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