VMA131Marine

One thing about drawings like this to be careful of is that they typically say on them "DO NOT SCALE." Which basically means you can use dimensioned lengths and radii, but you shouldn't take measurements directly from the drawing and scale them up (or down). To know if this drawing accurately represents the P-40F/L cowling profile you would need to use the toleranced dimension data from the manufacturing drawing of the individual parts of the cowl assembly.

Eduard has >10 of the 1/32 P-40N Limited Edition kit still in stock and currently on sale at half price ($82.50 to the US market). That actually seems like a really good deal considering all the included extras. https://www.eduard.com/store/eduard/warhawk-1-32.html?cur=2&listtype=search&searchparam=1%2F32

It's going to take more than a sanding stick to fix the cowl on this kit. The excessive curvature means the centerline of the prop is too low. If you move it up you'll have to add height to the radiator intake. In short, it will take major surgery to correct.

Worldwide demand??? We're talking model kits not iPhones! If the market for 1/32 B-24's was in excess of 10,000 kits, some company would have done one before now. 2000 kits seems like a reasonable production run if Trumpeter can get near $100/kit (feasible with a street price of $200+). Figure $100k-$150k to develop the kit and that would still leave room for a decent profit margin. For reference, IPMS-USA (which you would figure is the biggest market) only has 5,000 members IPMS-UK has 4,000 members. If you could sell this kit to 10% of each of those groups (a pipe dream) that's only 900 sales.

Compare the line of the upper cowl in this image to that of the kit parts and the Trumpeter colour profiles. Notice how the line is essentially straight past the forward-most exhaust and only curves slightly between that point and the spinner backplate. Then look at what Trumpeter did. They could easily have got this right but they just don't care! Short-tail 'F' Long-tail 'L'

You are not wrong! And the nose on this model is also very wrong.

Your conclusion is at odds with that of Squadron Leader Clive Rowley (former CO of the BBMF) https://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/dambusters-true-impact-revealed-70-years-on-1-2932144 Clive Rowley, a former commanding officer of the Royal Air Force’s prestigious Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF) turned aviation historian and author, said the military and strategic significance of destroying three dams in the industrial heartland of Germany in 1943 has only just been realised. Now, extensive research carried out by retired Squadron Leader Mr Rowley suggests that the loss of water caused by the dams’ destruction had a far greater effect than many realised even at the time – from leaving firefighters powerless to put out the flames of British incendiary bombs to cutting vital German steel production due to a lack of water for cooling. The cost of repairing the damage caused by 617 Squadron’s raid ran to the equivalent of £5.9 billion in today’s money and 7,000 workers who would otherwise have been building the Atlantic Wall to prevent the D-Day landings had to be called away to fix the ruined dams. It was an economic disaster for the Third Reich that diverted significant resources away from Germany’s war effort at a critical point during the conflict. Four power stations and 12 war production factories were destroyed, while about 100 other factories were damaged, railway bridges were incapacitated, road bridges knocked down and 3,000 acres of farmland destroyed. Coal production dropped by some 20,000 tonnes and steel production by about 180,000 tonnes in the month that followed. Mr Rowley said: “In that sense it was truly militarily important, strategically important. I think that is more modern research that has uncovered that, and it hasn’t been widely recognised until now.”

I don't ask for perfection. I just don't want to pay Tamiya money for Starfix level accuracy.

You'll need this: http://www.j-aircraft.com/research/gregspringer/trump_corrections/trum_corrections.htm

But the recent Sea Vixen appears inferior in accuracy to the Airfix effort, the Firefly Mk.I has accuracy issues and is not as detailed as the Special Hobby kit, one is better off with a Dynavector or Classic Airframes DH Hornet/Sea Hornet compared to the Trumpeter effort, don't get me started on how bad the Trumpeter B-P Defiant is compared to the Airfix kit, and the Albacore is inferior in most respects to the Special Hobby kit. The Wyverns are excellent, but that was a collaboration with Monochrome; the 1/72 Gannet is good and in some respects better than the later Revell kit, although lacking a weapons bay, and the Wellingtons in both scales are very good though the recent Airfix Ic in 1/72 is better than the equivalent Trumpeter kit. Which long awaited British aircraft will Trumpeter screw up in 1/48 next: Fairey Battle, Blackburn Roc/Skua, HS Buccaneer, HP Hampden ...

They are, at least, priced accordingly (in Japan). The most expensive of the currently available Hasegawa 1/32 kits is the Ju 87D, which you can buy for $42.76 from HLJ. At that price, it's incredibly good value and there should be lots of aftermarket available if you want the extra detail.

Now you've done it! As much as I'd love to be able to justify spending over $100k on a P100D, I still love my absolutely reliable, rock solid 12-year I old Honda Accord, that has over 150.000 miles on it and hasn't had anything other than normal routine maintenance.

Unless you are building for someone else, the whole point of model building, or indeed any hobby, is to waste time and energy doing something you enjoy. Or am I doing it wrong.

Actually, I think it suggests that their logic is entirely driven by financial considerations. Once they decide on a project, they probably allocate a lean budget for it which eliminates the possibility of detailed research. I'm sure they don't tolerate cost overruns. While other companies are scanning the real subjects with LIDAR and getting the complete set of manufacturing drawings, Trumpeter seems to base most of their aircraft kits on three views and section drawings off the Internet. Obviously, there are exceptions: A-6 Intruder series, MiG-31 series, I think the MiG-3s are quite good. As long people keep buying the kits and oohing and aaahing at the surface detail, I suppose they have no incentive to improve. How else to explain why they put out a new series of 1/48 A-4 Skyhawks without making the leading edge slats, which are always extended on the ground unless they've been pinned up (or wired shut in the case of Blue Angels aircraft), separate parts from the wing.

Hasegawa put metal gear legs in many of their Hi-Grade kits going back nearly 30 years ago. In addition, their legacy F-18 Hornets all had metal gear as standard; there was no plastic option in the box. I also have a bunch of Aeroclub metal landing gear sets that must be over 25 years since they were first issued.