I am looking to add some 1:20.3 scale, or similar size, american fighters to my layout. I have looked around, but they all seem to go from Oscale straight up to the rideable trains scale, not sure what their scale is. I am modeling the 1940s, so prop fighters would be great, but any era or informoration would help.
p.s. Are model fighters even made in 1:20.3 scale?
Try 1/18 scale. It’s way more popular, and close enough to fly. he he Here’s a P 51 on Ebay. It ain’t cheap, but it will certainly work.
If you are willing to go off scale, try Toys-R-Us for some vintage WWII planes, tanks, gun crews, and more in 1:24.
How much bigger is 1:18 scale going to look next to a 1:20.3 person/train? I would like it to be as close to 1:20.3 as possible.
1/24 is the common commercial aircraft scale . Bearing in mind that prop fighters from the latter part of WW2 are big ,32 ft long 37 ft wide and 8 ft high ,they will still look fairly large in 1/24.
one option is to scratch build in wood , not as hard as it might sound for a non flying replica. The plastic kits in this scale are highly detailed and fairly fragile , also likely to suffer badly with weather and UV.
Balsa wood if sealed and painted is pretty durable or if you have power sanders ply for wings and maybe a good softwood for fusalage. Thunderbolts , Mustangs and similar are fairly simple ., I have built Triplanes and Biplanes from ply and timber and was suprised at the result when painted . It also means you could look at aircraft that are not available in kit form like DC3, DC4 Boing peashooter ,and even bombers.
First, Thanks for everyones help.
Second, On the idea of scratch building, I found a guy who has made plans for various aircraft from WWII Wildcats to Modern Cessnas. Still not sure what scale his plans are in though.
As a guide the following are the overall wingspans of some typical planes
corsair - 40 ft
P35 - 36 ft
thunderbolt - 40 ft
B26 - 65 ft
B10 - 70 ft
A28 - 65 ft
F3F-2 - 32 ft
B17 fortress - 103 ft
B29 - 141 ft
Some are huge !! Trainers and the late 1930,s planes are easier and smaller to construct
My older brother was a co-pilot on a B26 during WWII. A couple years ago, I built a 1:48 (O scale) model of one for his birthday. It was HUGE, wingspan more than a foot across, (see davenour’s post about wingspans); I hand carried it to Joliet on an airplane, fittingly. And a 1:24 model would have had a wingspan of over 30 inches. A 1:18 model would be 12 percent larger than a 1:20.3 model and 33 percent larger than a 1:24 model (one third larger in EACH dimension).
You’d need an acre for an airport!
Art
My two cents is…presceptive. The P47 had a 40’ wing span-measure what you consider a 40’ box car and see if you can get a cheap model with that span (try KayBee Toys-they carry alot of die cast vehicles or mock one up from cardboard) and see how it looks in presceptive, disregard scale -then go up or down from there.