Profound discussion..

[Harold]

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=17987

[faaguy]

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=17987

This wouldn't have any revelance to the Hobby Boss FJ4, would it?

[Alpagueur]

I don't know for other aircrafts but F-14's PKL and DACO scale drawings fit together. I've altough noticed that DACO panel lines are more precise than other ones, anyway the external profile is identical.

If the scale drawings are not convincing we can see at photos of the specific bird from various angles rather than observing the real machine if we can, in this way we can realize if the plans are right or less. In the specific case, PKL and DACO scale drawings seems to be correct, I am sure (if you do the appropriate proportions between panels lengths in photos and panel lines on the drawing you can see they are correct).

cheers,

Luca

[kenlilly106]

To add to what Dave said, sometimes the drawing that is considered "the final source" can be wrong.

IIRC Classic Airframes used a set of highly regarded drawings for their Vampire series, and the intake was wrong on the drawings, this was carried over to the kit.

Ken

[jmel]

I've yet to see 100% accurate scale drawings of ANY aircraft type. there are always some panels omitted, in the wrong location, etc.

Precisely why I don't include them in my books.

Jake

[peebeep]

I have always maintained that there are lies, damned lies and scale drawings - with all due respect to those who produce them. Unless a draughtsman has unlimited access to the subject and is able to spend hours, if not days doing a complete measured survey then he will be relying on intepretation from photos or use somebody else's data. That is not to say that all scale drawings are rubbish, but I always have to smile when reviewers (in particular) rip a kit to shreds on the basis of 'scale drawings'.

peebeep

[Alpagueur]

I've yet to see 100% accurate scale drawings of ANY aircraft type. there are always some panels omitted, in the wrong location, etc.

Precisely why I don't include them in my books.

Jake

Jake, many scale drawings can omit some panels or place them in the wrong position, the most important thing is the external shape IMHO, if we don't trust scale drawings we can get the righ position of each panel simply looking at the photos and comparing them. If the drawings are wrong, our eyes will tell us.

regards

[Harold]

This wouldn't have any revelance to the Hobby Boss FJ4, would it?

You got it!!

[Zactoman]

For the most part I consider scale drawings to be guides, not gospel.

Having worked at a design firm for several years, I experienced that drawings can be deceiving, even with computer design.

A designer can do his very best at drawing something the way he and the client wants it to look and once it is actually modeled and can be seen in 3D, it often undergoes big changes in size, shape and detail.

The opposite is also true when a draftsman/designer creates a drawing from an existing 3D object. Mistakes can be made and drawings need to have major changes to make them accurate.

Surprisingly computer models can also be very deceiving and need major changes to achieve the designers intent in 3D. It's surprising because most 3D software allows the user the texture and light objects as well as rotate, re-size and view the objects from any angle.

When it comes to making model aircraft, I use drawings as a guide and rely heavily upon photos of the actual aircraft...

:)

[Josh1971]

hmmmmmm

[faaguy]

You got it!!

Shoot! We've been quoted scripture on this subject on that other site.

Edited January 8, 2008 by faaguy

[kitnut617]

Being a designer & draftsman I would go by the 'drawings'. I use a computer to do my drawings and therefore all are drawn full size in the computer. But I have to scale them down to print/plot them onto paper. I 'ALWAYS' have a note at the top of my drawings which says 'DO NOT SCALE DRAWINGS'

Robert

[a4s4eva]

I've worked in aviation my whole life, both fixed wing and rotary wing. Every aircraft I've worked on has a drawing which lays out the specified length of the aircraft, bewteen 2 reference points.

I'll use the S-70B2 Seahawk as an example as I have the S-70B2 drawing here, The S-70B-2 is 778 inchs long from the tip of the main rotor blade (running straight out the front of the aircraft) to the tip of the tail rotor blade extending parallel to ground).

A similar drawing is in the front of most of the maintenance manuals, this shows the Water lines, butt lines and stations at various places along the fuselage. These water lines station lines etc are used in maintencne amnauls to preciseily identify locations of equipment, bits of structure etc. When I write mod's I use these drawing to tell people were to drill out rivets, insert new equipment etc.

To suggest as some has appeared to, that there isn't an accurate drawing of aircraft which shows it's specified dimensions is silly. Otherwise how do people plan for operating, maintaining or modifying the the aircraft if they don't know the actual size of the aircraft.

I've seen the drawing of of the FJ-4 that supposed to have kicked this (and the LSP thread off). It's similar to the S-70B2 drawing (Although the S70B2 is more detailed).

Whether model makers have access to these OEM drawings is another story however, I expect thats where things go wrong.

Edited January 8, 2008 by a4s4eva

[a4s4eva]

True enough Dave, my point was that there drawings out there that could be used, if available.

And I also agree that it's doubtful any kit would exactly match them

[jpk]

This wouldn't have any revelance to the Hobby Boss FJ4, would it?

This is precisely the reason I posted my comments on the subject on the HB-4. The only measurement that I would go by was NAA's own data sheet, a copy of which is in the back page of the Ginter book. Obviously a factory data sheet copy. Can it be wrong....of course because it didn't say which version aircraft the measurement was taken from. If it was taken from a pre production aircraft then the horizontal stabs figure into the overall length because they were longer than the production -4 and extended back futher than the tail tip. So, when I measured my HB-4 and did the math to convert the 1:1 to 1:48th the kit came out pretty darned close when I measured from the tip of the nose to the furthest most point of the fin. The horizontal stabs which are the shorter production stabs, when placed on the kit during measurement, did not extend any further back past the fin so that's what I based my comments on. Could I be wrong, certainly. Just tried to make as close a judgement as I could with the information at hand.

Addendum:

The drawings in Ginter's book are the same ones in the Detail and scale book, which I believe to be NAA factory GA drawings. There is a difference though. The Ginter drawings were altered to reflect a production aircraft with the shorter horizontal stabs. It is pretty obvious as the redraw is not the best and sort of crude. The info on the overall length given in the Ginter book from the NAA data may be from a long stab airframe and not of a production one. How great would that difference be.....would it be large enough to account for the differences in kits? Who can answer that?

Edited January 8, 2008 by jpk

[Mark S.]

Gents:

Yesterday I took line drawings of GBU-31's and GBU-38's and imported them into AutoCAD a drafting program. I found them to be far less than engineering drawings. Not only where the dimensions off but the drawings were not symetrical about the centerline as those weapons are.

I'm developing solids models of these GBU's for tests of using engineered drawings as a basis for creating casting masters using stereo-lithography.

More later,

Mark

[Harold]

It is very difficult to pin this one down as far as length. I think the kit is "close enough" in that respect.

However, the shape problems it has is just frustrating. I know it isn't all that hard to fix, but, we shouldn't have to fix it in the first place. I don't mind replacing, or scratchbuilding details that are very hard to do in an injected kit. BUT, the overall shape should be a little bit better. After all, how hard is it to "google" FJ-4, and have every angle to study?

Drawings are good. Photos are better. The real thing is best.

On another note; Interpreting the drawings.

After getting the Kinetic F-84F, finding that they used a certain set of drawings (all wrong), the mold maker miss-interpreted the drawings!! Double trouble.

Just another couple of cents...

Cheers,

Harold

[Fuji]

I have yet to find any of an F-8C or D

[faaguy]

It is very difficult to pin this one down as far as length. I think the kit is "close enough" in that respect.

However, the shape problems it has is just frustrating. I know it isn't all that hard to fix, but, we shouldn't have to fix it in the first place. I don't mind replacing, or scratchbuilding details that are very hard to do in an injected kit. BUT, the overall shape should be a little bit better. After all, how hard is it to "google" FJ-4, and have every angle to study?

Drawings are good. Photos are better. The real thing is best.

On another note; Interpreting the drawings.

After getting the Kinetic F-84F, finding that they used a certain set of drawings (all wrong), the mold maker miss-interpreted the drawings!! Double trouble.

Just another couple of cents...

Cheers,

Harold

I agree completely, it's hard to pin this one down exactly. For uniformity I'm basing my otb kit on the comparitive length of the Hasagawa and Acadamy kits. I'm not going to scream or yell too much about the shape problem in the aft fuselage since I'm finding it not that hard to improve but, as I've said before why don't manufactures do it right in the first place. It takes just as much money to get it wrong as it does to get it right so make the customer happy and do it correctly. I don't have any cents or sense to spare so that's all you get.

Regards,

Jim

Thanks for the canopy actuator diagram. The Fury progresses.

[jpk]

Overall, I think the general shape and size of the HB-4 is pretty good......not perfect but good. There are a couple of small things that stick out like the previously mentioned area on the fuselage above where the horizontal stabs attach. It has too much of a hump. That can be easily sanded to something closer to what it needs to be. Another area that I think is a little off is the spine hump and the angle of where it meets the tail fillet. It also seems a little off, again, nothing that some good photos and some sanding can't correct. I think if all kits were subject to some intense scrutiny something would stand out. Look at the Hasegawa Spit IX, Tamiya 109, and the biggest screwup, the 1/24 Trumpy Mustang. That one, with all the material available and good drawings out there, there was no excuse for that one. One that really bugged me was the Trumpy RA-5C. Total botch on the nose. I stupidly spent the money on the CE replacement nose and it wasn't much of an improvement. For 25 bucks though the HB Fury is not too bad of a little kit. I like mine alot.

[faaguy]

Overall, I think the general shape and size of the HB-4 is pretty good......not perfect but good. There are a couple of small things that stick out like the previously mentioned area on the fuselage above where the horizontal stabs attach. It has too much of a hump. That can be easily sanded to something closer to what it needs to be. Another area that I think is a little off is the spine hump and the angle of where it meets the tail fillet. It also seems a little off, again, nothing that some good photos and some sanding can't correct. I think if all kits were subject to some intense scrutiny something would stand out. Look at the Hasegawa Spit IX, Tamiya 109, and the biggest screwup, the 1/24 Trumpy Mustang. That one, with all the material available and good drawings out there, there was no excuse for that one. One that really bugged me was the Trumpy RA-5C. Total botch on the nose. I stupidly spent the money on the CE replacement nose and it wasn't much of an improvement. For 25 bucks though the HB Fury is not too bad of a little kit. I like mine alot.

I don't know if you have been following the postings here but if you search under FJ4 there are two posts to links on HS that address what I feel are the major issues with the Hobby Boss kit and some rebuttal.

[jpk]

I don't know if you have been following the postings here but if you search under FJ4 there are two posts to links on HS that address what I feel are the major issues with the Hobby Boss kit and some rebuttal.

Yes, I've read those posts and have contributed my thoughts regarding the kit there at HS as well as now here. If you read my post above along with the addendum I hope it clarifies a little what I was trying to say about drawings and photos in general and using them as an absolute. The lengthy thread over at LSP's about using these resources must suggest they be used knowing they could be very incorrect and so....very carefully. For example the hump over the horizontal stabs. I would use a photo or several to gauge the shape of the contour to possibly correct it. I would not use a side photo to establish a definitive length or dimension irregardless of how it had been manipulated. Same for the spine. There are just too many variables possibly working against you to get it correct. The comments made over at LSP suggest that shape and proportion are the major concerns with the dimensions being of secondary importance as long as it is reasonably close and that is always a subjective matter. That is what I would tend to agree with also.

[Harold]

I agree completely, it's hard to pin this one down exactly. For uniformity I'm basing my otb kit on the comparitive length of the Hasagawa and Acadamy kits. I'm not going to scream or yell too much about the shape problem in the aft fuselage since I'm finding it not that hard to improve but, as I've said before why don't manufactures do it right in the first place. It takes just as much money to get it wrong as it does to get it right so make the customer happy and do it correctly. I don't have any cents or sense to spare so that's all you get.

Regards,

Jim

Thanks for the canopy actuator diagram. The Fury progresses.

Post some pics of your build!!! Wanna see how it goes.

[faaguy]

Post some pics of your build!!! Wanna see how it goes.

Will do. Right now working on opening vents and backing them, rescribing panel lines, and adding extra detail here and there. All this is something I had no intention of doing but can't seem to let go.