Underside wing ribs

[david_fleming]

The new WW1 subjects look great, but a plea ( for these if not too late, or for future kits if the moulds for these are finalised!)!

Ribs on fabric are often shown too prominently on WW1 kits, they really should be quite subtle, but on the underside of most WW1 aeroplanes, you would not see the 'sticking out in the middle of the chord' ribs as portrayed. The reason for this is physics - the ribs were concave. If unattached to the ribs, the fabric would stretch between them an not touch the ribs. Because it was stiched to the ribs, the actuall effect would be for the fabric to go IN to wards the ribs rather than the ribs sticking out.. At best it would be relatively flat.

 

You mught see prominent ribs if the wing was in flight, but that's about it.

 

[DavidJC]

Can I add, admin, that in agreeing with you, I remember seeing an argument against scale and its effect some years ago. It concerned model railways and the 'lining' that locomotives, tenders and rolling stock had. Though this focused on steam locomotives, it is valid for diesels and also any other type of model really.

 

Simply, in scale, some lining on the loco or its tender would be virtually invisible if not impossible to replicate. Model manufacturers thus applied out of scale lining to add to the realism of the model.

 

We can say the same thing for model planes. For example, would scale panel lines be anything like visible on our models, especially at 1/72 or even 1/48? Probably not. But how unrealistic would they look without them, particularly those who like to apply washes? I've only just recently discovered the joy of applying washes to panel lines. Personally speaking, as I've said on here before, that I'd rather see panel lines which will hold a wash after painting rather than what would be considered a 'true' scale effect.

[Braille Dave]

Part of the much hallowed 'Fitters and Riggers' course, was how to fill panel joins to ensure aerodynamic efficiency. Indeed you will find that on modern aeroplanes, certainly on civvie ones (my extensive experience), and I don't doubt military ones, that welded and smoothed seams are the norm, and any removable panel edges are angled to achieve a close fit. The only place you will see any semblance of a black line is around the cargo doors, which will actually be a rubberised seal...and given the chance airlines paint over those too. Aircraft are sprayed when they're fully closed up- A good repaint team can knock out a B767 sized aeroplane in about 24hrs- that's from old finish to 'Prepared for Service'. Most companies use decals and paint masks as much as possible, and yes I've seen a vinyl paint mask for a RR211-235 engine intake- about 12 feet in diameter, and complete with sticky edges.

 

I suspect that on military aircraft the only evidence of panel lines would be chipping- if they were frequently removed, i.e. engine cowlings and ammunition panels. 

 

The thing I dispair of is the lack of battle damage repair- On modern aircraft that would be stuff called 'speed tape' which is exactly what it sounds like- heavy-gauge, self-adhesive aluminium tape. I know personally of at least three occasions where BAC111s have flown for another thirty hours or so with speed tape being used to restore the wing leading edge profile after impacts from ground handling vehicles, something the BAC111 was susceptable to, the mainplanes being so low to the ground.

 

Even in the Battle of Britain, any minor holes in panels that couldn't be removed easily, and weren't structurally important (about 60% of the whole airframe) would have been filed flat and canvas laid-on and doped over. If there was time, the damage would have been cut-out square and a new panel pop-riveted over the top. Only with the luxury of night and sufficient reserve aircraft, would an aeroplane be withdrawn, and have a proper replacement panel made. On fighter stations this would mean the aeroplane being taken to an MU.

 

In fact, this would often mean the pilot flying the aeroplane direct to the MU from the battle. On the T'internet there is a History of RAF Henlow- where they describe this process, at the height of the Battle of Britain. To cut a long story short, the aircrew would land-on in their damaged Hurricanes, and either wait while the aircraft was repaired, or be given a recently repaired machine to take back to their unit. Some of the turnrounds make impressive reading- one main wing replacement took 1.5 hours! (The main wing was repaired and put into store for later use).

 

....Imagine the paperwork involved (I've seen a 'daily state signal' from RAF Henlow, from circa August 1940 It was 3ft of closely printed telex roll)....

...And Imagine the opportunity for mismatched camo schemes... And odd Sqn codes. (As I understand it the sqns were responsible for  putting the codes on).

 

[Marto]

I agree with the whole weathering/recessed line thing.  As an engineer supporting varous airlines at Heathrow, I've never seen a comercial aircraft as filthy as most weathered aircraft models and just imagine the drag penalties the recessed lines would cause!

As a keen fan of WWI fan I'm stoked to see these two new models, I just hope others are brought out like the Sopwith Baby/Schneider etc

[Jonathan Mock]

The thing about surface detail is that if you were to remove all panel lines from a kit, you'd probably be closer to scale, but it would end up looking featureless and unattractive. To some extent you have to exaggerate some details, kits have to walk a fine line between being both accurate replicas and accurate impressions of the real thing - you can't mould some stuff 100% as per the real thing so that's were impression comes in.

Recessed detail first appeared in the 50s and 60s, including the habit of engraving markings into the surface on some kits (I have an old FROG Spitfire Mk.I with such). It started to become a more preferential way of doing panel lines in the late 60s and 1970s, Revell dabbled with it on some of their 1/32 kits, Airfix with the 1/24 kits, Otaki and Fuji in 1/48 and Hasegawa with some 1/72 aircraft, but there as never any consistency - Hasegawa were still doing raised line kits right up to the mid 1980s (Mirage F1), Tamiya never really established a clear pattern and kits like Tamiya's 1/48 A-10 and 1/32 Tomcat apparently started out with recessed detail but had to be finished off with raised for budget reasons, and it was only with their range of 1/48 kits in the early 90s that Tamiya started to do recessed detail with any consistency.

My rule of thumb is that if the detail is a little heavy, I won't enchance it any more.

[david_fleming]

There is a difference between exaggerating detail to show it's there (panel lines, lining, dare I say rivets) and putting in detail that is physically incapable of being there (Convex ribs on the underside of a biplane with a concave rib section) unless the fabric is under load (Maybe they are meant to depict aircraft in flight?) .

 

[Shane Weier]

I did pass your post through to the Development team and while they agree some models can have slightly exaggerated ribs on the fabric, this has been done purposely to make it clear fabric has been modelled. If they weren't modelled like this we could expect a number of complaints saying that the fabric wasn't clear enough.

Of course, light raised lines approximating rib tapes are out of the question, because the development team started with the notion of raised ribs and group thought themselves into adding them in.

For those suggesting exageration is okay on the same basis as overscale panel lines, I suggest that the difference is that the panel lines represented actually exist and are emphasised for effect, while the raised ribs do not and are emphasised to match the way airfix (and everyone else) imagined things thirty or more years ago.

I still admire the new kits. The BE-2C is unique, so sanpaper is  my friend. The E.III, not so

Shane

 

 

[Braille Dave]

I'm about to put my tuppence worth into the debate on this whole starving cow rib thing on fabric covered aeroplanes... My own experience relates to a Tiger Moth flight I had a few years ago, I remember watching the undersurface of the upper wing, in flight the ribs were noticeable, but not so much on the ground-

 

Figuring this out I reckoned that it's all down to the principles of flight. In flight, an aerofoil section creates a low pressure area above the wing, that effectively 'sucks' the wing up, while below a high pressure area 'pushes' the wing up. As fabric is highly flexible, I suspect that the undersurface of the wing would be pressed against the structure, whereas on top, the fabric would 'balloon' away from the structure. On the ground, of course, these forces do not exist, the weight of the aeroplane being supported on the undercarriage.

 

So unless Airfix can afford to supply two sets of wings, one for in flight and one for on the ground- There's going to have to be a compromise...

 

[ironsides]

Theoretically the upper wing farbic should billow(described by Cecil Lewis in Sagitarius Rising) from lower pressure air over the wing top, the underwing fabric bulges inwards for a concave effect as its taking the loading, the heavier the load the more concave but would think there would be a limit that the fabric would stretch, I would guess how much would depend on a number of factors difficult to determine exactly...(I say thoeretically because I've never seen it)..... On the whole I feel its best to model such aircraft standing with unloaded wing fabric, stationary on the ground, as this is probably the way most models will be displayed...

A few pics of the real thing:

to me this one just looks flat underneath... 

 

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/4/0/5/1643504.jpg

 

Some slight effect visible?... 

 

 

http://thevintageaviator.co.nz/files/images/preview/be-2c_airborne-watermarked.preview.jpg

 

stationary on the ground some slight effect... 

 

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2457/5785833896_30bd8f4ae0_z.jpg

 

So the new kits look over emphasised to me..... too much?..... perhaps slightly, but better then many other kits I have, I think I will reserve judgement till I see one though, as I think the images may be 3D renders.... no? .-)