I don't want to start a vitriolic argument yet again, so I'll mostly post the pictures I made with the actual Great Wall kit in hand, and how it compares to the Monogram kit's rear clear parts, plus the outline of the entire nose vs the actual aircraft. When comparisons are not made it is mostly because the two kits share the same outline, or that the issues have been covered before.

The one issue I forgot to take pictures of is the lack of concave radius at the base of the GW fins: The Monogram kit has a similar problem but is more concave and thus better in this regard. This is, however, probably not better to the extent that it would be easier to graft the Monogram parts unto the GW kit rather than just carving the GW fins...

Below GW rear nacelle clear part is on the right, Monogram on the left.



GW profile of rear clear part (note strange small fictional rectangle on the center bottom), below is the Monogram part, which is quite accurate, and finally a photo of the real item.




Monogram part on the GW kit is closer to actual in appearance:



Monogram part is on the left:


Fit of Monogram clear part on the GW fuselage (no modification):






Fit of GW kit cockpit canopy at the front, then at its rear:




Profile of forward fuselage, GW kit:



Closest layover of the GW fuselage is represented here by lines. Blue lines are the positioning of the elements that were used as the position reference points (except for the curve of the upper nose). Red lines are the outlines of the GW kit:



Here the vertical blue line at the rear of the cockpit canopy, and the red line at the belly, are the reference lines for the longitudinal position and the crew nacelle depth. The lack of protrusion of the upper rear of the crew nacelle over the boom is another indication of the exact attitude of the crew nacelle.



Note that this overlay does NOT clarify if the lack of nose length is due to a lack of length or an excess of the kit's crew nacelle overall depth. It could be a combination of both.

The red lines of the kit radar nose cone depiction is on the outside of the shape of the kit part, but fairly close, and it is the long gray nose cone that was in my kit, so it should match the type of the aircraft in the photo. This was the best match possible while still remaining within the depth of the crew nacelle's belly.

Gaston

Gaston this is a quote from another of your rants about this kit.

"Unless I come down with a bout of serious masochism, I'll give this one a pass..."

What has changed your mind with this kit? Surely it takes too much of your time to build into a "decent" P-61.

I was just curious to see just how bad it was... And I did have the older kit to compare and mix parts with, not to mention the Vector cowl, engine and prop set.

You never know, a bout of masochism could happen...

An additional note: I mention a problem with the crew nacelle depth as a possible source of the lack of relative length of the nose: This is not likely the case here if the main wheel diameter of the Monogram and GW kits are correct: I overlaid the diameter of the wheel under the canopy on the real thing and the kit, and it does appear the depth of the forward fuselage is not too far from accurate if the main wheel itself is close to correct in size...

So contrary to my initial expectations, the forward fuselage DOES need to be lengthened. This should be easier than sawing the whole lenght of the crew nacelle to reduce depth...

Gaston