Hi all,
Been a lurker here for a while, created a new account as couldn't remember my old one!
Always loved the Firefox plane after seeing the movie at age 14 in '82, thinking someone has got to do a kit of it, but it never happened. I picked up a Studio 2 kit many years later, but it was miles off right. I contacted Kurt at the thinkinrussian website about it and he kindly supplied me with 2D plans he had. Spent some considerable time working those into accurate vector (Coreldraw) drawings to make slices to build new sections for the Studio 2 model. In doing so realised how bad the Studio 2 kit was and after a week or two of work building a new nose and new engine section, realised how much more was wrong and gave up on it.
Was further disappointed that the other Firefox model here
M-31 Firefox, scale plane replica never made it to sale
So decided to take matters in my own hands and build an accurate model myself. In trying to create isometric drawings from the 2D plans I realised they were probably only a quickly drawn starting point for the model builders since areas from the side to top and bottom views didn't actually line up, not much out but certainly not a finished plan. I think they were the plans drawn that appear on the table when Baranovich is talking to Gant about the plane, "Remember to think in russian Mr Gant, you cannot think in English and transpose, do you think you can do that", yes I have watched the film a few times...
So have spent many, many hours with screen grabs from the bluray release, a very useful early copy of Cinefex magazine, and some excellent photo quality movie pics picked up from good 'ole ebay. I was able to get enough references so I could see where it needed tweaking. There are not many places in the film where you get a true flat top, side and bottom views and you hardly see the back at all, but luckily there are some good reference pics from Cinefex, not sure I can post these here?
It is possible to "fix" some images by perspective correcting in Photoshop so you can get at least get an accurate front to back or side to side relative dimensions.
Once I was happy that it was about as close as I was going to get without an original filming miniature to hand, I started a 3D model.
Had been using Google Sketchup for other work so was fairly competent with it, and there are so many incredibly useful plugins you can do just about anything you can do in the more expensive packages easier and possibly faster, certainly cheaper.
I still have a way to go, most it it past where the wings meet the fuselage is just roughed out at the moment so I can get the same view as reference pics and clear screen grabs and overlay them. In doing so realised I probably didn't need to spend so much time on the 2D plans as there were still parts that were not right when viewed in 3D, live and learn.
I'm hoping to be able to 3D print most of it as I invested in a 3D printer for other prototyping work, and had wanted one for ages anyway, so was a good excuse
As it's a 3D print it can be any scale really, but want a big sucker so going for 1/24 which makes it about 31 inches or 80cm long, still tempted to do a full 1/12 63" studio scale one, but I don't know where I would put it.
I have done a couple of test prints of the nose, which is a bitch to get right, and having it in my hand helped me see where it was still slightly off, so have made adjustment and I am confident it's pretty damn close to perfect, tell me what you think.
Few screengrabs showing the starting 2D plans and where I am currently, last one shows the canards swung back, which you see for all of about 3 seconds in the film, but looks cool.
Thanks
Jon
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