Hello everyone.

Because of my concerns with the Hasegawa 1/48th F/G kit serie's lack of overall fuselage depth (about 1mm, or equivalent to 7mm on the lenght...) I have stumbled accross what may be the cause of nearly all 109 kits being quite a bit too shallow.

At the first frame behind the cockpit, I measured the Ottawa Museum's 109F at a vertical 51 inches, later confirmed by staff at the "Flying Heritage" museum on their 109E. (The actual last frame before the fin matches the 1/48th Hasegawa kit very exactly at 660 mm, causing a lack of "upsweep" in the kit's lower tail belly profile)

This is the difference found; from old canopy front edge of mobile portion down to the wing top surface at 90° from the bottom canopy edge; "F": 26 inches. "E": 27.6 inches(!!!). Rear edge of old mobile canopy; "F" 31.9 inches. "E" : 33.07 inches. It is an easy, straight measurement to take, despite the curved Karman at the bottom, so large measuring errors of more than 1/4" are unlikely.

At the wing's thickest, or close to thickest, point, the difference is thus a whopping actual 41.1 mm vertically, or 1.6 inches; close to the two inches of missing depth I am complaining about on most 109 kits...

The Hasegawa F/G's above-wing to canopy measurements do indicate the wing is significantly too thin at the root, being a 109F/G wing with very close to "E" maximum thickness... (Not quite as thin by 0.3 mm)

Was this E/F difference known previously, or could this be the reason so many 109 kits are shallow in overall fuselage depth?

This could explain why almost all 1/48th 109F/G/K kits are not deep enough by about 1 mm: The wing thickness measurement is assumed to be constant from the "E". But the Hasegawa kit's wing excessive thinness is not as thin as an actual "E" wing; only minus 0.5 mm, not the full "E" minus 0.8 mm...

If, however, a 109E kit is too shallow overall (such as the 1/32 Eduard), which I think some if not most are (since most 109 kits lack the full "upswing" rear belly tail profile, but almost all have the correct last vertical fuselage frame depth before the fin at 660 mm; including the 1/48th Hasegawa)... It could be that for "E" kits the reverse is occuring from the "F/G"; the depth ABOVE the wing is assumed to be constant, and so is matched to the shallower F/G/K above-wing depth, but also without the thicker G wing.

On many 109F/G/K kits, the above wing depth is often 1 scale inch short, as on the Hasegawa 1/48th and probably 1/32 kits, which worsens the problem of the wing being already too thin for an F/G. This adds about another 0.5 mm of missing vertical depth in 1/48th. Total; 2 X 0.5 mm= 1 mm, or two scale inches in 1/48th...

What manufacturers should be doing is measuring the critical full OVERALL depth of 51 inches at the first vertical frame behind the cockpit. The Hasegawa 1/48th F/G totals 49 inches versus 51 actual, which, whatever naysayers will predictably say, is quite noticeable in overall appearance... In addition, the Hasegawa nose points up, is too thin and is "flat-topped" in profile. I have tried several times to improve it, to no avail...

The best kit to match that full depth in 1/48th, combined with a correct-looking tail belly upswing, is the Revell G-10. This kit must have wings even thinner than the correct 109E wing thickness, as the height above the wing is too deep dimensionally by quite a bit more than 1mm. The kit is not great in other ways, being too narrow at the canopy top by a noticeable 0.5mm; 7mm instead of 7.5mm.

For the Hasegawa, 1 mm over the whole fuselage depth may seem to many to be insignificant, but it is equivalent to 7mm over the lenght, or well over a foot in 1/48th... The two different errors would look the same...

A few modeling musings;

In 1/48th by far the best clear parts are Hasegawa, but they are 14 mm wide at the bottom instead of the correct 13, and 8 mm wide at the top instead of the correct 7.5 mm, which seems little, but is visible on small parts. (All this from actual airframes; I wonder how hard can it be to get a simple rectangle within 1 inch or 0.5 mm?)

The only plausible 1/48th G nose is from the Otaki kit, but it needs work... This kit has a good prop also. I plan to narrow and deepen a Hasegawa fuselage by 1mm (only 0.5 mm above a thickened wing), the full extra 1mm rear depth being achieved by cutting diagonally to avoid the rear third of the tail. Then this will then be mated to the reworked Otaki nose. For the spinner, a slightly bulged-out Hobbycraft spinner looks ok...

All this to say that despite its fame, the Me-109 is not in my opinion served by the quality of kits the subject deserves. Many thirty year old kits, such as the Nichimo Ki-43-I or the Monogram B-26B, are probably far more accurate in outline than anything that has ever been done for the 109...

I would be curious to know: How well does the new UM kit fares against the above measurements?

Gaston

I'd rather build a model and have fun doing it than nit-pick a lousy millimeter.

Hi Gaston

Well, where to start. i better keep my comment short to not extend this too much. You have my sympathies for doing all that measuring and stuff. If it would result in better 109s I would be happy. But you are making you life harder than you have to.

First: by using the wrong designations in the subject line already you are compromizing your reputation: it is Bf 109 (from the RLM point of view) and maybe Me 109 from Willi's but there is no dash.

I am sure the original was never measured in inches or feet and by mixing units of measures you surely give your post a less scientific tone then you intend to ...

One Japanese modeler did that cutting already to beef up his Bf 109F .. I am sure he did it all wrong, but here you can have a look http://www.geocities.jp/yoyuso/bf109f/bf109fe.html

all the best

Steffen
P.S. model manufacturers often measure museum examples which very often have problems and being partly rebuilt .... e.g. I am pretty sure Eduard measured the FW 190 (FlugWerk) and it seems the Bf109E in Munich

P.P.S. you forgot the ICM kit ... seems it is higher than the Hasegawa .. but it has other strange features

Steffen,

The Me-109F at the Ottawa museum is a practically unrestored Russian Front aircraft that was never re-built, only very partially re-skinned, re-painted and the bent prop blade straightened...

It is as close to a pristine original wartime 109 as you could get.

The "Flying Heritage" Me-109E was discovered in 1988 under sand on low tide in Calais, so at least most of the components are from an original single aircraft, not a foreign-built "interpretation" like a re-engined Spanish Buchon, or a multiple airframes "Frankenstein"... This "E" restauration is also flying regularly and is of as high a quality as you could get.

I really doubt there is any legitimate reason to question by a large amount the 41.1 mm (1.6 inches) difference in wing depth from the "E" to the "F", since the measurement below the cockpit is so easy to make precisely, and the measured difference is so large comparatively to the potential margin of error (6 mm ±, or 1/4") ... Contact directly the "Flying Heritage Collection" museum staff if you don't believe me;

http://www.flyingheritage.com/

The "F" was measured by me with the direct help of a senior member of the Ottawa Air Museum's staff also.

There is also no reason to doubt by a large amount two separate, agreeing airframes on the overall fuselage depth of 51 inches. (Metric conversion; 25.4 mm = 1 inch)

Plus there is the Revell G-10 kit, the only 1/48th kit I know for a fact to be measured off an actual airframe: The NASM's Me-109G-10. Curiously enough, it also agrees at 51 inches for the OA fuselage depth. (I don't know about the 1/32 Eduard "E", but it matches drawings of Messerschmitt origin: NOT a good thing...)

I know very well of Yoyuso's 1/48th Me-109F, and of the model's altered fuselage depth. He certainly had the right idea when he made it 0.5 mm deeper. He did make the mistake of including the last few tail frames in the 0.5 mm cut. The Hasegawa's last tail frame depth matches correctly the Ottawa's "F" at 660 mm, and Yoyuso's failure is due to the lack of the correct tail belly "upsweep", missing in ALL Me-109 drawings I have ever seen, including Messerschmitt factory drawings...

I have made a correct Me-109G-6 pdf profile, but it is only 1/144 scale. If you want, I will enlarge it. E-Mail me at ;

[email protected]

Again, the ONLY 1/48th kit to have the correct tail belly upsweep is the non-drawing based Revell G-10, which is not very good otherwise...

I did forget about the ICM kit, but it was not impressive, cross-section wise...

I agree Yoyuso failed to correct properly the nose of his 109F, but that is because he made the mistake of not using the Otaki nose for its basic shapes. The Hasegawa nose is an absolute lost cause no matter the amount of work or talent devoted to it...

If you have seen his other models, and the incredible talent he has for correcting them, you can measure by his failure how unfixable the Hasegawa nose is... All his other models are the best, or among the best, I have ever seen... His recent work on a 1/48th Ki-44 defies belief... The link;

http://www.geocities.jp/yoyuso/top2.htm

I always mix metric and Imperial to help clarify the modeling corrections on both sides of the pond... I did not know putting on a "scientific" appearance mattered a great deal...

I never use the "BF" designation because I find it less clear for no meaningful purpose.

I didn't know this affected my reputation, or my measurements; if it is does, what can we say about the reputation of 109 "experts" who failed to tell us for 64 years that the Me-109E wing was 41.1mm (1.6 inches) thinner at the root than the following models?

Me, I'll stick to being glad I learned something new...

Gaston

P.S. At least now there is a hope of getting a Me-109F/G that is comparable in accuracy to what Nichimo did on the Oscar 30 years ago...

G.

Bf = Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, the company that submitted the plane design.
I've gotten the impression that it's mostly matter of preference whether to use Me or Bf. Even though Bf was the official designation, both were used in German wartime documents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_109