Martin B-26 Marauder Project

[Ivan]

Re-Starting the Marauder

A lot of the stated dimensions from various sources didn't quite agree with each other. The differences generally were not much: Perhaps 3 inches in one place, a half inch in others or perhaps 8 inches in another. Although there were quite a few different variants, the differences were quite high for such a well known aircraft.

My working dimensions scaled from a drawing also did not agree with hardly any of the stated dimensions from the aircraft manuals.

What I found a little while back was that the commonly stated overall length of the aircraft which I used for scaling the drawing was probably incorrect. The most common length specification is 58 feet 3 inches which is what I was using. Recently I found a reference that stated the overall length as 56 feet 6 inches and another which stated it as 56 feet 3 inches.

My first attempt at re-scaling the drawing to an overall length of 56 feet 6 inches was interesting: The dimensions which were a few inches off here and there when comparing the drawing to aircraft schematics were now generally in agreement to fractions of an inch. There were still some notable differences such as the location of the tail fin, but that dimension is inconsistent even between different versions of the schematics.

The first attached screenshot is of the old version of the Cowling before modifications described in the last post. it is here to show how far the project had gotten before I re-started it.

The second attachment is a comparison between the original profile in white and the new profile in blue. These are simple AF99 structures to give a general idea of the layout of the aircraft.

- Ivan.

 

[Ivan]

This is where the project stands after yesterday's work.

Many of the templates from the prior version were moved around to get here even though it is not easily visible in the screen shot. Most of the pieces in this assortment of templates is within 1/4 inch of the known dimensions.

- Ivan.

 

[Ivan]

Nose Shapes

Here is my first try at pieces for the Nose / Cockpit area of the Marauder.

The pieces all line up pretty well with good contours, but the basic shape is wrong though i do not know exactly where.
Note that the front window should be much wider than it is high and this one is not. It is actually quite faithful to the drawing I was using though which was only a profile view. I suspect that drawing wasn't quite as good as I had originally thought and the top of the cockpit area is quite a bit lower than my drawing shows.

As stated earlier, very few of the drawings really agree with each other.

Next step is comparing against photographs to see where the error is.

Note also (and I did not know this before), the Canopy frames are not quite symmetrical left to right. There appears to be a bit more framing on the Pilot's side than the CoPilot's side.

The pieces behind the new Nose Component are still structures which match for height and width but obviously not for cross section.

- Ivan.

 

[smilo]

what can i say that hasn't been said before?
so i will stick with the old cliche....
(sorry, i don't know how to make the little ' thingie above the e)

very cool.
she's coming along nicely.

there once was a time
when i would get all excited
and grovel for a release date.
now, i will just sit back
and enjoy watching the progress.

and hope for completion

have fun

 

[hubbabubba]

what can i say that hasn't been said before? so i will stick with the old cliche.... (sorry, i don't know how to make the little ' thingie above the e) (...)

According to the characters' table, Alt+0233 should do it. An even simpler way would be to get a French-Canadian keyboard... This all look like déjà-vu (or d(Alt+0233)j(Alt+0224)-vu).

 

[smilo]

ha, ha!
that didn't take long.
thanks, hubba

actually, i googled keyboard e'
found this page;
http://www.nouilles.info/keyboard_shortcuts.html
kinda cool.

sorry for the distraction, Ivan
back the the marauder

 

[Ivan]

Nose Job

This new shape is a bit closer to what I was going for.

I cheated a bit to get here though:
I had a seriously difficult time trying to figure out what the shapes should be from photographs because I could not find good photographs that were from the exact directions I wanted. There is "Flak Bait" at the NASM in Washington DC, but I didn't think it was worth the trip. Besides, I could not think of a way to bring the nose section home so I could flip it around a bit as I was working on my computer.

I remembered that I had a couple Revell / Monogram 1:48 scale B-26 models in the basement and opened one of them up.
The kit canopy frames are a bit simplified in detail, but the outline looks close to correct. The detail on this model and mould quality isn't quite as good as you can get today from Tami-gawa, but good enough for my modelling skills.
(I actually built one of these kits for Col. Boblitt many years ago.)
Looking at the model's canopy made things a bit easier though I am still not completely satisfied.

Note that the canopy framing isn't completely symmetrical on this aircraft. There is a brace on the starboard side that should not be there. The AF99 screenshot shows where this brace is in my model. This is easy to take out later, so I am leaving it symmetrical for now because it is easier to rebuild that way.

The Canopy Glass was incredibly easy once the framing was finished. It is basically "Connect the Dots" to vertices on the frame.

- Ivan.