Ōtaki F6F-3 Hellcat - Sullivan GB - finished!

Started by Eric Berg · 92 · 9 months ago
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    Tom Bebout said 10 months, 4 weeks ago:

    Nice work Eric.

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    Andrew H said 10 months, 4 weeks ago:

    Looking great! The "anhedral" you note is definitely supposed to be there, and looks well positioned to my eyes. See Eduard wings below, which have the break at a panel line. Pardon the dark vertical stripes on the pic, that is just due to the LED lights and camera not playing well together.

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

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    Eric Berg said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Andrew @pb_legend: Thanks for the confirming the anhedral is supposed to be there. I looked at the Eduard F6F-5 wings in the kit I have, and yes, it’s definitely there and well moulded. The Hasegawa wings, not very noticeable.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Excellent job so far, my friend @eb801!

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    John vd Biggelaar said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Very nice progress, Eric @eb801
    The drilling of the gear does make it look much more realistic, nice work done.
    I just wonder why the anhedral would be there in the first place. What could be the benefit of it in reality.

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    gary sausmikat said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Coming along nicely, Eric.

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    Andrew H said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    @Johnb, technically it should be what is know as cranked dihedral, where the inboard section of the wing is horizontal more or less, and the outboard sections of wing have a dihedral, upward angle. It becomes very apparent if you look at a front profile of the aircraft. When looking at the wing by itself it may be hard to discern what the angles are intended to be. Looking at Otakis rendition as shown here, it looks fairly correct to me.

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    Louis Gardner said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Hey Eric. Eric Berg (@eb801)
    It’s been a little while since I’ve logged into Imodeler. I’m very impressed with the progress you have made with your Hellcat. It’s definitely looking the part.

    As far as the anhedral part of the wing goes it’s hard to tell. I have taken a few pictures of the real thing and it looks like it is there in some of the pictures but not all of them.

    To be honest I don’t know.

    Here’s a few pictures I personally took of the Hellcat that my friends have restored at American Aero Services. These guys are fantastic at what they do and they go the extra step to get it done right.

    They have painstakingly executed the colors and they documented what they found during their disassembly of this project. They also have an original WW2 color chip book that I have personally seen. I can vouch for the quality of their work.

    Meanwhile here’s a few pictures of the Hellcat that show the area you are talking about. It might have some anhedral there, but if it doesn’t then the upper surface of the inboard wing section is most likely straight.




    Take a look at these pictures and decide for yourself.

    Hope this helps to answer your question.

    Take care.

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    Brian Mennenoh said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    @eb801 - I downloaded one of the photos posted by Louis (@lgardner), hope that's ok... and after slightly correcting the rotation of the overall photo so that the wingtips lined up (top red line), the inner part of the wing is perfectly level... Wouldn't that make these wings dihedral? If I understand anhedral means that there is a downward angle and dihedral means upward...

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    @lgardner, those are amazing pictures, Louis. And what a superb restored aircraft this is. I assume she is airworthy. Must have been great to be this close to a Hellcat.
    @brithebuilder, nice approach to check the anhedral/dihedral. To me the inner part does look leveled indeed.

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    Brian Mennenoh said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    @johnb - Thanks John, the 2 red lines are perfectly level, so I think the inner part of the wing has to be.

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    George R Blair Jr said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Hellcat looks great, Eric (@eb801). You are proving these old Otaki kits still have a lot of life to them. Aerodynamically speaking, dihedral (up angle) tends to increase aircraft stability, especially in turns. As others have already pointed out, I think it is supposed to be there. I suspect the inner wings are straight to allow the landing gear to have a few more inches of clearance for the prop.

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    Eric Berg said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    George @gblair and Andrew H and everyone else: I totally agree with you all. Now I can move forward except a bunch of dust particles and other stuff showed up inside the kit canopy. So I yanked it off and am in the process of replacing it in with an open vacuum canopy from an old Falcon US Navy box collection I have stashed away.More surgery required. Fingers crossed.

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    George R Blair Jr said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Vacuform canopies are scary, Eric (@eb801). A long time ago I bought several boxes of both 1/72 and 1/48 Falcon canopies, but never had the guts to use them. So, please, lots of explanation and pictures of how you prep the canopy for installation and then how you install it
    .

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 10 months, 3 weeks ago:

    These are awesome pics, my friend @lgardner! Looking forward to see the vac canopy, my friend @eb801!