Just stumbled upon this link:
http://www.vought.com/heritage/html/down.html
It has line drawings for Vought aircraft.
wow, nice drawings, and you can’t beat the price!
Click on the F4U-4 link.
It is really nice of the Vought volunteers to keep up this web site, however, a note of caution: I have studied the F4U-5N and the F7U-1 drawings quite seriously and have found that there are detail and dimensional inaccuracies. This does not surprise me; rather I am usually surprised when I do find “accurate” drawings. The F-8U drawings do look very good and the detail is amazing, I’m going to spend some time with that one! So, if you try to measure the kit you are working on against these drawings, don’t just assume that your kit is wrong if something does not match up. The drawing of the F4U-5N, for example, is inconsistent between the drawing of the horizontal tail and the dimensions given on the drawing. I determined this by importing the drawing into Autocad and after scaling the drawing to full size I measured the drawing and saw to my disappointment that there was an inconsistency. I really wanted the drawings to be spot on! Also, I looked at one of the F4U-1 drawings, and while it has really nice perspective drawings of the correct engine and canopies of the -1 variants, the 3-view is of an F4U-5, with the dual chin scoops, widened front fuselage and realigned thrust line. Bummer.
Whatever, the best thing is to just be happy and realize that the art of model building need not be a slave to mathematical reduction of the original. Capture the essence and call it good.
I set the color picture on the bottom as my background [:D]
thanks man
Just curious, what +/- tolerance were the drawings off by?
the dimensional inaccuracies could be caused by whatever method they used to scan them. Paper prints can grow/shrink and blueprint drawings are notoriously inaccurate if you scale directly from them. You need to use the printed dimensions.
Yes, anything that has been photocopied will have inaccuracies on the X or Y axis, but I do have an original print from Vought on the F4U-5N and I scanned it on my HP scanner, which is very good so far as aspect ratio errors are concerned (as are most “flatbed” scanners). Paper will indeed change size with moisture changes, but usually along both axis. The span and the chord of the tailplane on the Vought F4U-5N tailplane are both smaller than the dimensions on the drawing, even if you extend the chord to the aircraft centerline, which is the norm. I used the span of the wing on the drawing to scale the drawing to full size in Autocad, and with the correct span for the wing, the tail measured out less than the dimensions shown for the tail, as I recall. What my conclusion was is that the chord measured to 4’4" vs 4’ 9" as the stated dimension, while the error in span was only 2 inches short at full size. The comparison is with the stated dimensions versus the ends of the dimension lines.
I also compared the Detail and Scale drawings of the F4U-5N and found them to be closer to the Vought drawing dimensions for the tail, though that was by measuring the drawing.
The shape of the rear fuselage upper line is also a bit off, which you can see by observing how the canopy is detailed, and comparing that to photographs.
Please don’t think I am trying to “bash” the drawings or the Vought website, I’m not.
You’re doing it the right way – when I see people layin gparts over a reproduction from a drawing, which is already a reproduction, and then declaring the scale part is off, that is the wrong way. . .