Tony-
WOW! I just looked at your web site for the first time. Man, you
know your Mustangs! I was especially impressed with this page
http://pacific-scaled-aircraft.com/P...w_projects.htm
You are right on about the shape of the Mustang nose. Few kits have ever gotten it right. Some are so far out as to be gross and cartoon-like. Whenever a new Mustang comes out, my eyes go first to the top of the nose to see how they handled that.
I have an extra cowling here that I can send you Tony if you want it to develope your aftermarket product for our kit (it came in painted the wrong color). FYI - the kit cowling is fiberglass and already has exhaust stacks molded right into the sides. Will yours go right over the top of the kit stacks? Let me know if you want this cowl.
I'd like to be able to tell you that the new SIG P-51B nose is 100% right on, but it's not perfect (as a 5-time competitor in the scale world championships, I think I have a good eye for scale). But it's closer than many .. I might even go so far as to say closer than
most P-51s on the market. It does have the proper valve cover bulges at 11:00 and 1:00 o'clock that most efforts ignore. But it also has a tiny bit more curve to the top line of the cowl than I would have liked (you can send the Chinese ARF manufacturer the drawings, but they do the actual carving). Also, whenever you put a molded cowl over the top of the forward fuselage, instead of inset and flush, you are going to have a little non-scale ledge in the contour. But all in all, I think the cowling is pretty good, and I am very happy with this airplane as a
sport scale Mustang. Like I said it's better than most.
We did work hard to get all the general outlines of the airplane correct. The top line of the turtledeck for instance ... it should have a slight curve, flowing right into the back of the canopy, without too much of a hump there. The #1 prototype we received (the one in most the pictures you are seeing) was a straight line. That's been corrected in the final version and looks really good IMO. Also the tail surface outlines of our airplane are excellent, except for the lack of the small elevator counterbalance portions.
FYI - most of the pictures of the SIG P-51B that you all are seeing in various magazines are of the #1 prototype with the early outlines. The #2 prototype shown in the Chicago show pictures has many improvements to the scale outlines. The differences are subtle, but noticable to anyone with an eye for P-51s.
Here is a picture of the final airplane.
Mike G