…checking one’s recently completed scale aircraft drawings with the result such as this:

Click on the image to enlarge

Visitors may remember that one of my current preoccupations is producing scale drawings of the Spitfire. It’s a time-consuming but extremely interesting project, full of small discoveries along the way. I started in March and have recently completed the first 4-views of the early production Spitfire Mk. IXc which, I believe, has been relatively poorly documented. Next in the line are the short-nose Merlins.

Although I generally base my drawings on measurement data, I often use photographs to compare my drawings with the real thing, check the “feeling” of my results compared to the original three-dimensional shape, or even draw minor detail. In fact, I make daily use of my electronic Spitfire photo archive of several thousand images to verify and once again verify my measurements, assumptions and the various shapes and outlines.

Use of photos as basis for drawings is coupled with a number of inherent problems. Obviously for general arrangement drawings, photographs in straight elevation or plan view are the only ones of real value, but even these have always perspective, lens distortion, camera angle. All these factors must be taken into account in interpretation of which make it all much less than an exact science. The presented photo (kindly provided to me by Andy Hosking via Mark Davies) is unusually “clean” in this respect, and therefore a draughtsman’s delight!