Accuracy

[Pompey]

Just a random thought, but after reading many posts where kits are slated for being 1 mm short here or a panel line in the wrong place there, why do modellers accept totally inaccurately depicted types sighting artistic liscence for the errors! As an example to get things going, Panel lines on Mustang wings and deployed dive brakes on the Dauntless! If the wing chord of a plane is a mill out but looks correct in plan form its no big deal, errors in shape however should if possible be corrected.

[chadders]

Just build the kit you want to your own taste it's your model. If your happy to have innacuracies then that's fine. If you want to go the nth degree then that's fine too. Different strokes for differnt folks. I've got some really nicely built kits but they're not accurate. I like them though. Then I've got kits that have taken years to build and are as accurate as possible. If people want to count rivits then let them, it's all good

[daz greenwood]

Just build the kit for you.

After all it's just a hobby!

[TonyT]

For what its worth accuracy is rubbish..... I do this as a living on real aircraft and I constantly do major repairs on aircraft.......... Grrr don't go there..... I buy new skins from the factory that are often predrilled and to be honest I have had predrilled holes up to 1 inch out and skins that do not and never will fit.. it is just the way things are...

Cessnas should never have been bought in the winter... reason being the good old locals of witchta worked on the farms growing crops in the summer....... in the winter they apparently worked at Cessna building aircraft!!!

The Nimrod MR4 or whatever it is was handbuilt, they computer generated the wings using the first fuselage as the master........ fine went on great, the second one though the wing attachments were out by inches, again hand built fuselage and now trying to fit computer generated accuracy onto it, it was one of the main probs causing the delays in them being rolled out...

And then you have issues of flight, take concorde, it grows in supersonic flight by up to a foot in length, so much so the floor has slipper joins in it to allow it to stretch, the SR71 leaks fuel like a sieve on the ground, at mach numbers when stretched it is bone dry as all the seals are in place then.......

even the VC10, refuel it over 80,000 lbs with the freight door open and you will not get it shut as the thing sags in the middle with the weight, you have to defuel it shout the door to give it some strength then refuel over it....... I know ermmmmm

Edited May 28, 2010 by TonyT

[denstore]

To stick my chin out:

Yes, it matters. Why? Because when a model looks weird, usually it's because something is out of proportion. Is it always important? No, but it's never a bad thing if it is accurate.

Do I care if something is a millimeter short or long? No, but if it's spot on I don't need to think about it.

[andy wood]

even the VC10, refuel it over 80,000 lbs with the freight door open and you will not get it shut as the thing sags in the middle with the weight, you have to defuel it shout the door to give it some strength then refuel over it....... I know ermmmmm

I love snippets like this. Any more? (Knew about the Nimrod problem). Thanks

[Edgar]

If you delve deep enough, you'll often find that it doesn't pay, in aviation, to say "never," or "always." Take the P-51 wings, for example; during his researches for the "Aces & Wingmen" series, Danny Morris spoke to former USAAF groundcrew, who told him how they got so fed-up with trying to repair the finish that they stripped it all off, on one, found it made no difference to the performance, so did it to all of them. That's akin to heresy, in some quarters.

A former Westland employee told me how they could pile the panels, from Westland or Vickers-built Spitfires, in a heap, and just grab a set, and go, after rebuild, but Castle Bromwich airframes had to keep their panels with them, since they wouldn't fit any other.

I've often had people, with regard to the Spitfire, say that the kit must be wrong, since the panel lines don't match to the position of the bulkheads on plans. I have to point out that, since the panels overlapped, it's the line of rivets which marks the position of the bulkhead, not the edge of the metal.

Edgar

[Pilgrim_UK]

I am sure you will find somebody to make comment on how accurate a sci-fi kit is. Comparing it to the original studio scale kit is not an argument in my book.

[silverkite211]

For what its worth accuracy is rubbish..... I do this as a living on real aircraft and I constantly do major repairs on aircraft.......... Grrr don't go there..... I buy new skins from the factory that are often predrilled and to be honest I have had predrilled holes up to 1 inch out and skins that do not and never will fit.. it is just the way things are...

Cessnas should never have been bought in the winter... reason being the good old locals of witchta worked on the farms growing crops in the summer....... in the winter they apparently worked at Cessna building aircraft!!!

I happen to be from Wichita and, as it happens I worked at Cessna at one time, I find your comment specious and insulting. To some people there it may have been merely a job, however most of the people that I knew as co-workers took pride in their work. And, by the way, aircraft sheetmetal workers in the US have to be trained and certified for the job, it isn't just some farmer "growing crops in the summer".

[TonyT]

I happen to be from Wichita and, as it happens I worked at Cessna at one time, I find your comment specious and insulting. To some people there it may have been merely a job, however most of the people that I knew as co-workers took pride in their work. And, by the way, aircraft sheetmetal workers in the US have to be trained and certified for the job, it isn't just some farmer "growing crops in the summer".

Then I apologise to you, agreed as in all of life not all were bad, but some of the 152's being shipped in the 70's were dreadful, the 172R we recieved new, even the Cessna delivery company commented on the squawk sheet as to poor build quality of the thing...

One another note I know of a new wing shipped from Cessna in a custom made box that arrived in the UK, when the parts agents opened the box they found the packing dept had actually nailed the lid down through the wing! the eventual solution Cessna came up with was to put some rivets in the resulting holes.

I needed a drawing and someone at Cessna ran one off for me to show a parts dimensions so I could check it, didn't make any sense, queried it and the view shown on the drawing and the dimensions were not right........ ohh came the answer, the drawing is looking at it as you see, the dimensions also looking at it as you see actually refer to the blind side so are reversed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go figure a new way of producing an engineering drawing.

Edited May 29, 2010 by TonyT

[silverkite211]

I should say that I can't completely disagree with you, I certainly encountered people during my time at Pawnee Division that I felt should be kept away from sharp objects and power tools. And the stepmother of a girl I was dating at that time was a sheetmetal inspector there at the same factory, she did tell me about some skins that had not been placed in the jig correctly, leading to the rivet holes being misaligned, badly enough that they simply couldn't be used. The Expiditor didn't seem to think so and kept trying to get her to sign off on them and send them up the line to be used. She finally bent the corners of them over so that they couldn't be used and said that apparently the sheetmetal had been knocked off the cart while being moved, damaging the parts.

That being said, I think you'll find that sort of thing occurred and occurring everywhere, Lockheed, Northrup, Boeing, BAE, the list could on.

By the way, I've never worked on a farm a day of my life. :: Not that there's anything wrong with farming, we all have to eat.

[NickParker]

I brought one of trumpeter's big tomcats just after christmas this year, opened the box went oooh and aaaarh then stuck it in the loft. Then i made the mistake of looking on ARC to see what the general opinion was, there was the standard it's trumpeter so it's inaccurate crap type comments, but general consensus was it was pretty good. Then someone suggested the nose looked slightly off, queue photos, line drawings, plans, it is it is'nt it might be, this went on for pages with no definitive conclusion. In the end it was suggested that it might in fact be more accurate than the bench mark Tamiya. The point i'm trying to make is perceived inaccuracies can be based on personal prejudice, personal opinion, even a certain amount of emperor's new clothes syndrome. I think as long as your happy with it and it looks like a "whatever" to you then thats what really matters, and don't get to hung up about it. This is however only my opinion.

Nick

Edited May 29, 2010 by Fisk

[kstater94]

Then I apologise to you, agreed as in all of life not all were bad, but some of the 152's being shipped in the 70's were dreadful, the 172R we recieved new, even the Cessna delivery company commented on the squawk sheet as to poor build quality of the thing...

One another note I know of a new wing shipped from Cessna in a custom made box that arrived in the UK, when the parts agents opened the box they found the packing dept had actually nailed the lid down through the wing! the eventual solution Cessna came up with was to put some rivets in the resulting holes.

I needed a drawing and someone at Cessna ran one off for me to show a parts dimensions so I could check it, didn't make any sense, queried it and the view shown on the drawing and the dimensions were not right........ ohh came the answer, the drawing is looking at it as you see, the dimensions also looking at it as you see actually refer to the blind side so are reversed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go figure a new way of producing an engineering drawing.

OK, I've kept my mouth shut long enough.

As a Manufacturing Engineer AT CESSNA in the SPARES department IN WICHITA (notice the CORRECT spelling of WICHITA if you're going to slam us) I have to say that I find your comments unprofessional (at best).

I'm assuming (and I'm REALLY going out on a limb here) that you are a certified A&P mechanic.

Although I can't speak for the shipping and receiving area of the spares department from which you got the spare wing, I can speak of the drawings which you complain about. I look at them daily. And, although I agree with you that the drawings are certainly not the best for the older models, we have to remember that engineering has come a long way since it's early days and the engineering drawings that I have looked at for CJ1, CJ2, CJ3, and CJ4 (that's Citation Jet model 525, 525A, 525B, and 525C for those not used to the term "CJ") look far different than the Cessna 188 drawing that I looked at yesterday. I wouldn't go off on a crusade to bad mouth Cessna because of it. It needs to be put into context and one simply drives on knowing that practices have changed during the 75+ years that we have been building airplanes.

This drawing you got that didn't make any sense. Did you get the whole drawing or just an isolated view for the area you were checking in question? How did your contact at Cessna know "oh.... the drawing is looking at it as you see, the dimensions also looking at it as you see actually refer to the blind side so are reversed". Seems to me that they found a flagnote indicating such. After all, I can guarantee that there no design engineers at Cessna currently (not in the single engine design department at least) that were around when these things were originally designed and built to know the answer. They looked at the same drawing that you are looking at. The original designers retired a long time ago.

As a standing rule (when planning a part for spares) we intentionally leave holes out of skins and add excess which is to be trimmed on installation. In fact, many of our production skins are that way. we include a couple of pilot holes which the line use to cleco the skin to the aircraft, they then backdrill from the frames and trim what ever excess away that they don't need. Very rarely do we produce a skin to net profile. I invite you to come to Wichita, and I'd gladly show you what I'm talking about. From start of line flow all the way up to delivery.

Why do we do the above? It's because it's what makes sense. It's what the production line have asked for and it's what makes life easiest for the A&P mechanic out in the field.

If our products are that difficult for you to figure out, might I suggest that you seek a different line of work? As working on aircraft seems a slight bit too challenging for you.