Airfix Mosquito 1:72 New Tool Question

[dr_g 849]

All, I’ve been looking at pictures of Airfix’s new-tool 1:72 Mosquito.

It appears to have two prominent spanwise ridges along each wing - one near the front, one at the back. 

I did a fair amount of research into Mosquitos when I built my ‘bare wood’ version, and never saw these features in any photograph - indeed the wings always look extremely smooth.

Is this an error by Airfix, or a feature specific to a certain type of Mosquito? Or is it just a trick of the light/paint finish that makes these features look raised? I can’t think why the aircraft would have these ridges which would surely be detrimental to the performance of the wing?

Thanks.

 

[Tolvcat 2,357]

I've just dug mine out and had a look and there are two ridges, the forward one starts just outboard of the nacelle, the rear one is almost full span. There has been a massive amount of commentry on the kit and its various shortcomings but this is the first time I've seen them mentioned so I can only assume they're meant to be there for that version. 

Had a quick google and found a couple of images that show them, although the don't leap out. Here for example.

I wonder if they're the stringers mentioned here (wiki Mosquito page. Wing section):  The upper skin construction was in two layers of 0.25-in five-ply birch, separated by Douglas fir stringers running in the span-wise direction. The wings were covered with madapollam fabric and doped in a similar manner to the fuselage. 

Not a lot of help, except we can be certain it's not your eyes and they should be there

Andy

[dr_g 849]

Interesting. Other photographs don’t show them at all. The image here suggests the wing is extremely smooth. I think the Airfix version is exaggerated; looks wrong to me:

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/collections/de-havilland-mosquito-b35/

[Paul Brown 6,276]

The ridges are spar caps, a feature of late production airframes to strengthen the structure, probably in light of failures in hot and humid climates. They're not visible on ML963, one of the kit options, I'm not sure about the other because I've not seen any reference pics. To be honest I'm a bit sceptical that they were ever a feature of Mk XVI airframes, but no doubt somebody will come up with a phot to prove me wrong! As is often the case you need to find good reference pics if you have a specific airframe in mind.

[Jessie_C 8,852]

I wonder whether they're the plywood strips added after the wing failures in India?

To solve the problem of seepage into the interior, a strip of plywood was set along the span of the wing to seal the entire length of the skin joint.

Edit: Paul just said that while I was typing my reply.

If you think they're too large, then it'll be a simple matter to sand them down, or even right off to make your model look better to you. It's how you think it should look which counts for you

Edited March 11 by Jessie_C

[Paul Brown 6,276]

3 hours ago, dr_g said:

 I think the Airfix version is exaggerated; looks wrong to me

They appear to be a little on the heavy side, but that maybe the discrepancy you sometimes get when scaling things down. It's possible they could be correct when scaled dimensionally, but this can give the appearance of being incorrect. I can remember one of the Tamiya R & D guys putting up a blog post about how some features on the real thing might need to be either attenuated or accentuated when reproduced at a smaller scale to fool the eye into thinking it's correct. From some angles the caps look very distinctive.

[dr_g 849]

Thanks all. BTW I’ve already built the Tamiya 1:72 Mosquito; I don’t think the Tamiya version has been bettered. I realise the Airfix new tool is a different variant, but there’s no way I’d choose it over Tamiya.

[Paul Brown 6,276]

No question the Tamiya Mossies are excellent, but they never did the twin blower nacelles. 

[Jessie_C 8,852]

1 hour ago, Paul Brown said:

but they never did the twin blower nacelles. 

Yet.

We can still live in hope