Accurate profile drawing of the P-39D

[Ivan1GFP]

I am looking for a dimensionally accurate Profile Drawing of the P-39.
Preferably an early model such as the P-39D.
The ones I have been finding seem to have the thrust line a bit too low and the nose sloped a bit and I do not have the actual dimensions to make corrections.
Thanks in advance.

- Ivan.

 

[warbooklover]

I am looking for a dimensionally accurate Profile Drawing of the P-39.
Preferably an early model such as the P-39D.
The ones I have been finding seem to have the thrust line a bit too low and the nose sloped a bit and I do not have the actual dimensions to make corrections.
Thanks in advance.

- Ivan.

I don't have a copy of any of the following manual:

*Bell P-39 Series 1944 Erection & Maintenance Instructions T.O. 01-110F-2 but, there are a few excerpts of this manual in Mushroom 6106 - Bell P-39 Airacobra [Mushroom Yellow Series]. There is a drawing of a P-400 with fuselage station measurements on page 61.

Hope this helps, warbooklover

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Thanks Warbopklover,

I actually own that book and have a pretty good scan of that drawing on my computer.
It DOES appear to have a pretty good shape, but the problem that I can see is that the locations of the stations appear to be using a datum point that I cannot determine. I know it is not the front of the Spinner or Fuselage Reference used in other manuals.

- Ivan.

 

[CORSNING]

Ivan, something like this work?

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Hello Corsning,

Those drawings don't look bad but I won't know for sure until I scale a few measurements from them and to do that, I will need to get a much larger resolution copy. Where did they come from?.
The drawings I have been pulling from books tend to look pretty good until one compares them side by side with a photograph and then the nose seems to be too "heavy".
I am working on a 3D model and the result just does not look right even though the measurements line up with the drawings I was working with.

- Ivan.

 

[CORSNING]

GOOGLE: 3-VIEW P-39

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Hello Corsning,
That image is from Wikipedia?
If so, there are a lot of details that are simply incorrect.
The contour of the canopy looks to be a bit too bulged.
The pitot is not shaped at all.
The wing guns are not aligned correctly. The inboard ones are actually higher on the real aircraft.

- Ivan.

 

[MiTasol]

Join WWII Era Military Blueprints & Manuals | AirCorps Library

They have several thousand technical drawings (blueprints) and lots of manuals on the P-39

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Thanks for the suggestion, MiTasol,
I don't see the point of paying for a subscription when I don't need that level of detail.
All I am looking for is an accurate profile drawing. I already have several dimensional drawings but they all seem to fall down in certain areas. Someone out there must have drawn a dimensionally accurate P-39 Profile.

This is also just one of many ongoing projects and this subscription would not progress most of them.

 

[MIflyer]

The best drawing I know of is from the Paul Matt collection, Vol 1. The book is available to purchase on the Internet. Here is a sample.

 

[MIflyer]

And here is the one from the P-39 Design Analysis published in Aviation Magazine during WWII.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Hello MIFlyer,

Thanks for the images. I actually have those already.
I found PDFs of Paul Matt's books online a while back and the mages are not too bad though the pages are a bit out of order.
The set by Paul Matt is what I started with. The problem is that although the drawing LOOKS like an Airacobra, there are things that just do not look right when examined in detail and compared to photographs. Look qt the underside for obvious discrepancies. It did give me a "reasonable" overall length for the 37 mm Airacobra though.
Note that the second diagram in the design analysis shows an overall length that is 1.4 inches shorter than the OAL in Paul Matt's drawings. That drawing is incorrect because the 30 feet 2 inches isn't really the overall length even though it looks that way in the drawing. It is the Reference length as I call it because it is from the Fuselage datum point to the tail. It is the same for all models of Airacobra even though the barrel of cannon extends different lengths past the spinner and sometime is missing entirely on some aircraft.

The set of drawings I found that seemed to match longitudinally with most of the points was from Mongrafie Lotnicze. The problem is that they don't seem to match in cross sections which is why I was thinking the result didn't really look right.

Thanks.
- Ivan.

P.S. Attached is an image of the station diagram from a few posts back superimposed on a wireframe of my 3D model.
Interestingly, there are actually few differences in the nose except by the spinner and most of the issues are in the tail section.
Note that the station diagram happens to be missing the brace above the pilot's head and also the carb intake is shaped a little differently than photographs tend to show.