Miniart P-47D Wing Dihedral?

[Curt B]

Hi All,

 

I’m sure this point must have come up well before now, but has anyone noticed a quite exaggerated dihedral to the subject wings?  I’ve look at planform diagrams of P-47s, and compared this kit’s wings to my partially built Tamiya P-47D, and find the wings to have a quite noticeable dihedral tilt.  I was particularly careful to prevent gaps at the wing/fuselage joints, so I know the wing ‘tilt’ is what Miniart designed into the kit.  Am I the only one who has noted this??!

Edited July 12 by Curt B
Wong term used originally, corrected title and text to say ‘dihedral’ instead of ‘anhedral’.

[Cat Barf]

Here are links to three build reviews of the kit in question. None of them mention any issues with wing anhedral.

 

https://imodeler.com/2024/02/miniart-1-48-p-47d-25re-no-guts-no-glory/

 

https://modelingmadness.com/review/allies/cleaver/us/usaaf/47/30.htm

 

https://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/19877-miniart-p-47d-thunderbolt-completed-21324/page/4/

[Curt B]

Thanks for the info. I hadn’t recalled seeing any discussion about the wing dihedral either, which I find truly amazing with all the rivet counters on the ‘net.  I am absolutely NOT one of those, hence my surprise at finding what appears to me to be a significant divergence from accuracy for this airplane. Other than that, the build and detail has been pretty much fine, though I must say that construction of the engine cowl was far more fiddly than I think a new mold plane should have. 

Edited July 12 by Curt B
Changed use of incorrect term ‘anhedral’ to the proper term ‘dihedral’.

[seawinder]

Are you talking actual anhedral (wings angled downwards) or lack of sufficient dihedral (wings angled upwards)? I've never seen the kit or a build in the flesh, and it's really hard to tell from photos, but I think perhaps the photos at the end of Cat Barf's links might show less dihedral than needed; certainly not angled downward however.

[Robertson]

The correct term is dihedral.

 

  Anhedral is more the jet age. The only thing really wrong on the Mini Art kit is the prop, 8 inches too large in diameter with a too small hub. The gear sit looks a little tall, even on the compressed option. The wheels are a tad skinny.

 

  The real Mg were not perfectly parallel to the ground, but they were closer than the kit. They missed being dead flat by about 5 inches per side, or 2.5 mm. The kit is more like 4-5 mm. Mini Art having far more accurate clear parts than the Tamiya bears repeating.

[Curt B]

Thanks for the tutorial…I meant to write dihedral.  I am not sure how I used the wrong term.  I have changed the topic title to the correct one, and also updated the text of all my posts, and identified what I did and why in the ‘reason for edit’ boxes so I don’t make those who replied sound incorrect.  I appreciate the help!!!! I meant to say that this kit seems to have its wings at a MORE exaggerated upward angle than the real plane, or at least compared to line drawings of the aircraft or compared to the Tamiya kit.  I know comparing kit to kit is not a good way to verify anything, but it was one data point.  

Edited July 12 by Curt B

[Robertson]

  Have you compared to frontal photographs?

 

   Mine is decaled and I do not remember a big issue when comparing to photos. It does depend on how you trim the stubs, as the wing root shape is not the simplest, and the angle is sensitive to over-trimming for a better and cleaner fit. It is something to watch out for.

 

  This below is the photo I usually use (enlarging it). I would never use drawings, even factory drawings, as only the printed numbers matter, and all drawings are not to scale.  That is where all the errors come from.

 

  

 

 

[Curt B]

9 hours ago, Robertson said:

  Have you compared to frontal photographs?

 

   Mine is decaled and I do not remember a big issue when comparing to photos. It does depend on how you trim the stubs, as the wing root shape is not the simplest, and the angle is sensitive to over-trimming for a better and cleaner fit. It is something to watch out for.

 

  This below is the photo I usually use (enlarging it). I would never use drawings, even factory drawings, as only the printed numbers matter, and all drawings are not to scale.  That is where all the errors come from.

 

  

 

 

Wow, great points, and thanks for the photo.  Compared to the photograph you provided, I would say my wings have just the tiniest bit more dihedral, but not dramatically so.  I actually tried a new method (to me) when attaching the wings.  I did no trimming at all of the attachment areas on the wings or the fuselage, but when dry fitting the wings, I noted that there appeared to be pretty large seams remaining.  So, to try to resolve that was to glue the bottom of the wings first.  I used manual pressure to push and hold the wings such that there were no gaps at all at the glued joints.  I used a combo of, initially, the orange capped, thicker Tamiya cement, and then as things started to set, I 'painted' Tamiya extra thin over the joints (which is my typical method for gluing these days), and then continued to hold the pressure to keep the seam absolutely perfect.  I let those lower seams dry/cure for several hours, and noted that the yet unglued upper seam had a pretty good gap on both wings, not huge, but pretty sizable.  Once the lower joints were cured, I used Tamiya extra thin on the upper joints, and found, again, that with significant manual force/pressure, and with the very, very fine channel of melted plastic from the cement, I was able to get the top wing/fuselage joints to be absolutely perfect, no gaps anywhere.  I was ecstatic.   I'd been checking on the dihedral of the wings as the upper joints were setting, and it appeared more exaggerated than I'd expected, but again, with no trimming having been done, and both wings looking exactly the same, I figured that had to be how the kit was designed and molded.   For the future, I plan to glue wings to fuselages using this same method, if there is even a hint of gap during dry fitting.  I'm guessing most of you guys have always done it this way, but I never had.  So, it appeared that the dihedral was a bit more present than I expected, but now comparing to your photo, it doesn't look as bad as I thought.  I roughly estimate, based solely on my eyeballs, that my model has about 3 degrees more dihedral than the photo.

 

Now, the masking and painting to create one of Gabby Gabreski's P-47 mounts.  It will be interesting! 

 

Thank you so much for that image, as it relieves some concern I obviously had (hence the thread topic).  I guess I'm pretty much an idiot.  I appreciate very much everyone's input!!!

Edited July 13 by Curt B

[jonwinn]

You aren't an idiot, the only stupid  question is the one not asked. Thanks as now I see what it should really look like. I never built one right in 50 plus years!

[Curt B]

1 hour ago, jonwinn said:

You aren't an idiot, the only stupid  question is the one not asked. Thanks as now I see what it should really look like. I never built one right in 50 plus years!

Thank you sir…glad to see that this thread has been of some value to someone other than me 😌

 

I can say that it is great to know, at least, that this Miniart P-47D, CAN be built with no wing gaps AND using no filler, and STILL get the airplane’s basic shape correct!  Happy P-47 building, everyone!!

[Robertson]

On 7/14/2024 at 4:32 PM, Curt B said:

Thank you sir…glad to see that this thread has been of some value to someone other than me 😌

 

I can say that it is great to know, at least, that this Miniart P-47D, CAN be built with no wing gaps AND using no filler, and STILL get the airplane’s basic shape correct!  Happy P-47 building, everyone!!

 

  Glad you found the photo useful. 🙂 Most people dismiss photographs because of presumed distortions or poor grain quality, but at the end of the day, what else represents what the final product looks like? Distortions can be kept in mind and can be detected, even in the proportions of rough grain, or, especially, in the angle of the picture and the proportions of smaller items, like the wheels being round or the star and bar being correctly shaped. Here at least the wings look straight and the cowl looks correctly proportioned, so it is in the ballpark...

 

  Another aspect most don't know is if you changed the height/width ratio even 2% it would immediately jump out, even in the grain of the photo itself it would take on a weird "frozen" look, so the fear of centered long distance photos being very misleading is exaggerated.

[Tailspin Turtle]

For what it's worth, the dihedral measured on the top surface of the P-47 wing is 4° and the wing incidence is 1° according to this website: http://rwebs.net/avhistory/history/p-47.htm

 

Note that photos and drawings can both be misleading with respect to accurately depicting dihedral/anhedral: see https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/03/anhedraldihedral-and-wing-sweep.html