OK, let’s start with Cockpit:
The area around the cockpit must be deleted bluntly first.
To get a more detailed shape for the canopy we need more polygons.
To get this I work in “Rows” (horizontal) and “Columns” (vertical).
In this case I need more than the double amount of points along the edge of the canopy-frame. With triangulation of a row of polygons you can double the number of points at the front edge of the canopy. Because we need the double amount we have to do this for 2 rows.
In detail it looks like this: You can see that the faces getting rougher if you go to the back, but the edge of the canopy is still very clean.
To match the polygons that we need for the canopy frame with the fuselage I triangulate the rectangular faces by hand.
At first I replace them by triangular faces. The same will be done later at the front of the cockpit. Most of the times I build the wings out of cylinders, because it is easier.
Somewhere I have also written that in case there is a not symmetric airfoil I do it with “Line”. Therefore at first draw the airfoil and then extrude it with “Pull”.
I have now triangulated the polygons of the cockpit. This time only one row. The second row that should adapt the points between canopy and fuselage is the wind-screen.
Next I have built the distinctive canopy-frame.
Just draw a line of 10 points with “Line” (the same amount that I have behind the cockpit) and then adjust them in the side- and front-view.
Then extrude with “Pull” and implement a polygon from below that matches the fuselage side.
All polygons that we have added must of course be matched with our reference picture in the background.
Our frame is ready (almost).
Please be aware that I have cut the fuselage with “knife” to get the polygons joined.
Then I have drawn the glass with “Line” exactly on the symmetry axis.
Now it looks like this:
Because the canopy should be brilliant like glass. To make the “gloss” detailed enough we need a sufficient amount of polygons. Otherwise the glossy-point can not be rendered accurately.
Let’s wait how it looks in AFP. The “Harrier” does also have a very delicate canopy.
Another reason is the strongly bended canopy frame. With too less polygons you can not get a nice bending.
The strut of the wind shield is easy. You just need to draw the lower edge with “Line”, adjust the points and add a single polygon as the strut.
The area below the glass-edge is filled with polygons.
And now the most difficult part:
The glass of the canopy. There is a blind screen in the glass that looks elegant but is very difficult to build. You need a lot of “3-dimensional imagination” to get a nice line-up. Unfortunately you can only rely partly on our reference background, because there you can only see it in 2 dimensions.
It is important here that you take your time for each point and look at it from all positions to get the right place.
Here I have joined the points of the trailing edge of the glass with the points of the glass-frame by lines that I have bended manually. The insertion of the polygons is easy then.
This is the result:
There are of course some other possibilities to build the canopy, but anyway it will be a lot of work.
This is because of the complex form of the canopy.
I had a canopy for the “Me109” and “Ju EF-126” built in a different way by using volumes that I have cut and then built the polygons to get the transition to the fuselage…..
From pictures like this I get the 3-dimensional information that is missing in the 3-view. You can clearly see that the canopy is not just round like a fish-bowl, but the lower edge is curved to the outside.
This is how the finished canopy looks:
I had to adjust all points to get a nice and even result.
I am thinking about making the cover of the cooling (behind the engine) also movable but this will be a lot of effort to animate each cover.
For the “F4U-4” series there were much less covers (3 on each side), maybe I will make a second version….
How big is “Big”?
I think a 2 meter model of a “F4U” is already quite big for a model plane.
By the way: At the moment we build without scale. We will scale it to the final size when everything is finished.
