Please do so: Side shots of the Meng kit fuselage would be very useful. As would comparative side shots of the Monogram kit fuselage as well... Too bad on the real aircraft the engines perpetually hide the nose, and they would do the same on a non-cutaway drawing as well... This is the thing that makes the model hard to judge: But please do show us what is going on kit vs kit or vs accepted drawings... Gaston

Here are the images... ...the nose coincides perfectly with the drawing, the WWP drawing is for me corrct (cross control of total lenght and max height taken from an original Messerschmitt scheme published on the Classic-Midland volume Me410 Hornet). Te meng The Revell/Monogram I think that also the rudder could have some shape problem...

After seeing the above evidence I think I will stick to the old Monogram Me 410...the Meng kit looks like its a nice kit but not nice enough to replace the Monogram kits in my stash. Matrixone

Hi all This could be a case in point of the perils of relying on scale drawings. The fuselage on the WWP 1:48 plans measures at 243mm - which scales up to 11.664m full-size. Trouble is - the text in the same book quotes the fuselage length as 12.48m (also 12.56)... And, just to add an extra bit of spice to the mix, even the most cursory check through other sources is pulling up lengths of 12.4m, 12.47m, and 12.48m... So, before we all get ready to trash the new kit, what length is the Meng fuselage, and do we have a definitive length for the real thing? All the best Rowan

No one wants to afford to trash the new kit. I only bothered to check the overall size of the kit MENG referring to the drawings in my possession. To check the WWP drawings I used an original design Messerschmitt published on page 150 of the book Classic-Midland "Me410 Hornet". This drawing shows the general dimensions of the aircraft and in particular: total length of 12560 mm (from spinners to tail end), total height 5207 mm and wingspan of 16358 mm. These dimensions reduced in 1/48 scale coincide perfectly with the design WWP. In conclusion, I have carefully checking the genral dimension of the WWP drawing referring to an official drawing of the airplane manufacturer. This does not mean that the Meng kit is the state of 'art and that I certainly have not found a drawings that showed the fuselage lenght only!!

Hi Roberto Sorry - I fear I must have mis-read one of the refs I checked (too) quickly at the end of a long day at Oxfam! I could have sworn it said fuselage length - but of course, in the cold clear light of the following day that all-important word has disappeared... All the best Rowan

The Monogram kit's tail looks too short, a problem nobody even knew about before Meng came up with their kit... I had no clue... This does not exclude the Meng kit being slightly too long (which I think is likely), but its tail does look more slender and a bit more like the real thing's photo, while the smaller uncovered drawing (which I assume is identical to the bigger reference drawing) looks wrong in the tail section, although by how much remains to be seen. The following is by no means definitive, but just a rough indication of scale proportionality measured from the above photos: I took the longuest easily definable elements (canopy length and canopy distance to fin), to minimize measurement errors, and compared them in ratios: Remember that if the online reproduction of the photo is distorted, this does not change the ratios. The completed Monogram kit photo: 42.5 mm/53.5 mm: Canopy/tail ratio: 1.25 Monogram fuselage half photo: 58 mm/72.5 mm: Canopy tail ratio: 1.25 Actual aircraft photo: 49 mm/66 mm: Canopy/tail ratio: 1.34 I would add 1 mm to the tail (67 mm) to account for the lens position's perspective effect: The canopy/tail Ratio would then be 1.36... Meng kit fuselage half photo: 54.5 mm/76.5 mm: Canopy/tail ratio: 1.40 So it would appear, assuming the canopies are equal and correct, that the Monogram's tail is proportionately too short, while the Meng's tail is proportionately too long. However, 1.40 is much closer to 1.34 or 1.36 than Monogram at 1.25. This is just to give a rough idea. If confirmed, it is worthy of noting that it is easier to shorten a kit than to lenghten it... Another thing to note is that a kit is always a far more serious investment than a drawing, and the usual assumption that a drawing carries more authority (especially factory GA drawings) is almost always a wrong assumption: I have hardly ever seen drawings that were correct in general outlines, and far more kits that were excellent... Since, in the peculiar case of the Me-410, we don't even know what the actual fuselage length is, without those pesky engines in the way, it hard to tell what is wrong with the drawings, but they certainly don't look right in the tail. While the Meng kit appears to have minor problems (notably the extremity of its nose), it still looks by far like the better kit of the two. Gaston

Not this old crap again! Buy it or don't. It's a plastic REPRESENTATION of a real thing. If you want the real thing go dig one up, literally. These discussions are pointless and meaningless. You accuracy freaks are killing my hobby (and my buzz). Shut up and build.

I am in the process of building a series of parts to build the SINGLE SEAT field conversion Me-410 "Gelb sieben," or for you non-Krauts, "Yellow Seven," detailed on page 124 of Peter Petrick & Werner Stocker's book Me210/Me410 Hornisse HORNET. I have only the Pro Modeler version so far, I'm hoping the Meng price goes lower on eBay before I buy one. I am currently trying to find out if a fuel tank or GM1 replaced the bordfunker, radio operator/rear gunner. Does anyone out there know where I can find a Squadron canopy for the 1:48 Me-410? I am using the ProModeler canopy and I am not happy with it javascript:PasteSmiley('|:(') (and going by the photos of the Meng I don't know that it would be much better) but I am making due so far. Will anyone be interested in parts when I'm finished? MAXwell57