You are correct, sir - third time's a charm - it is indeed the Hawker Sea Fury! (Did my filename "LongNoses" give it away to you? That's how I will forever think of the SeaFury - like the Corsair - which gave me the idea to start comparing all these airframes, in the first place.) In any case, you, sir, are going to be the free-and-clear recipient of 12 of these castings, when available (that's just about one for every year it will take me to accomplish this)!

Seriously though, I do appreciate the feedback - which is still "stirring the pot", as it were - after inclusion of the Wyvern - and specifically, the solution for its canopy - opened up the possibility to include (at least) yet another aircraft, needing similar accommodation - the F8F BearCat:


Without quite so long a nose as the others, note (this best fit of) the BearCat winds up with its canopy - like the 'Vern's - appearing significantly forward of the others'. Its windshield in fact wound up midway between the two. Trying to slide the BearCat rearward - or enlarging it, to push the canopy backward - both create many more problems than they solve.

Especially enlargement, as it's already quite large (for a BearCat, anyway), scaling out to 1:433! This would be good for 400-scale (only 7.6% undersized) - for example, a Heller Collossus- or Illustrious-class carrier (if not the French (Arromanches), then I'm sure somebody flew BearCats from them, somewhere). But too big for all our other ideas - plus, between 400-scale product lines of WEM and L'Arsenal - and the closeness of extensive 350-scale accessories (14% oversized), new versions of these items might simply not be much needed for 1:400.

A better solution is clearly starting to look like shrinking the BearCat - to bring its windshield closer (or entirely) into alignment with the Wyvern's. Which would again offset its landing gear - this time, forward - but that could be acceptable (even the total loss of the landing gear on the BearCat conversions, if required), as it would solve so many other problems.

Likewise, the Sea Fury currently scales out to 1:455 (already 12% undersized for 400-scale while still 21% oversized for 1:550), and I am now considering possibilites for shrinking it. Even in the event that Wyvern, BearCat and SeaFury are destined to be broken out into their own "3-fer", independent of the other 2 - Corsair and FireBrand - which have the "longest-noses" of all.

But, of course the prospect of engineering an actual, workable "FIVE-fer" - all carrier aircraft of interest to modellers, right now (which I know for a fact) - well, that is just too exciting a challenge to let go of without first taking one helluva good run at it!

Cheers,

-Matty