by Tommy H. Thomason

Monday, December 26, 2016

Kitty Hawk 1/48 F2H-2 Outboard Flap

I've seen some very nice built-up Kitty Hawk 1/48 F2H-2 kits. Unfortunately, in some the modeler attached the outboard flaps according to the kit instructions. In fact, the part identified as the lower half of the flap (A15 and 16) should really be glued on as the upper surface of the wing and the part identified as the upper half (A14 and 18) attached under it, either extended or up. This is the Kitty Hawk build, which shows the outboard flap attached correctly per the instructions but incorrectly with respect to the actual airplane:

This is what the extended outboard flap should look like:
The aft portion of the upper surface of the outboard flap is also part of the upper surface of the wing when the flaps are up.

For more on the Kitty Hawk kit, see http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/09/kitty-hawk-148-f2h-22p-banshee.html and http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/12/kitty-hawk-148-f2h-banshee-kit-redux.html

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Kitty Hawk 1/48 F2H Banshee Kit Redux

20 December 2016: Added a picture by Michael Rieth comparing the kit main landing gear doors to the kit landing gear wells.

Click HERE for my first post on the Kitty Hawk 1/48 Banshee kit.

Michael Rieth subsequently provided me with illustrations of his more detailed assessment of more notable shape errors in the kit in addition to the upper inner wing interface with the fuselage, which is excessively bulged upward, and the shape of the inlet.

Both the upper and lower wing engine fairings are misshaped, the shortened upper likely forced by the high inner wing contour.
A true bottom view of the lower fairing is not available, either as a McDonnell drawing or a photo, but there are good enough photos to establish that the Kitty Hawk interpretation is incorrect.
To check my observation that the inboard pylons were not staggered, Michael overlaid a photo of an F2H-3/4 inner wing (identical in this regard) to confirm that the Kitty Hawk pylons (red outlined squares) are incorrectly staggered and the inner one is slightly too far outboard, although it appears to be correctly positioned longitudinally.

However, what becomes obvious from this overlay is that the inner main landing gear doors are oversized, extending too far forward.
The kit doors also don't match the incorrect kit wells, so building the model gear up and rescribing the outline of the wells involves some additional work.

The Hawk kit, deemed by some to be superior in shape to the Kitty Hawk offering, has its pylons even more out of position and the main landing gear well may be, although that could be due to the kit part being at an angle to the camera in the following comparison.
Bob Norgren

The significant lateral indentation of the bottom of the fuselage of the Hawk kit toward the front of the wing inner section is also incorrect. The Kitty Hawk kit is more accurate in this regard.

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Blackburn Buccaneer

For a little background on the Royal Navy's Blackburn Buccaneer versus its U.S. Navy contemporary, see http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2016/12/horses-for-courses-intruder-vs-buccaneer.html.

CMR (short for Czech Master Resin) Models has released an excellent kit of the Buccaneer S.Mk.1, the original underpowered "Banana" (from its initial proposition as the Blackburn Advanced Naval Aircraft).

For a detailed build article by master modeler, Bill Gilman, see: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235007140-172-scale-resin-blackburn-buccaneer-smk1/

Finished model photos and comments are HERE

The kit is the result of research provided by Buccaneer subject-matter expert Andy White in the form of drawings, illustrations, and as importantly, involvement in the review of test castings (definitely state of the art) and creation of the assembly instructions. See his website: http://www.blackburn-buccaneer.co.uk/