Thanks very much for the replies, guys!

I agree Mike, it sure was something different, although I have to admit I immediately spotted that the “dirt” was airbrushed. I reckon for the film the weathering has to be exaggerated a bit to survive the post-editing that raw footage undergoes before it’s ready to go into a movie.

I would ask the seller to send a sample drawing to check the scanning quality as some of the P-51 ones I have seen are very poor and you cant read a lot of the dimensions.

I actually have the P-51 set as originally scanned for FlugWerk, Germany. They aren’t perfect, I will admit. The scanning was done in 1-bit as greyscale didn’t prove doable for 17,000 items. A greyscale 10,000 pixel image is VERY big. As a result some drawings didn’t come through that well (in particular the P-51H roll). Also there is some warping, but this was on the microfilm itself. However I’ve heard the set sold by the pirate has been translated to PDF and is much worse. Not sure which one you got. Thanks for the warning in any case!

think the chap is a Kiwi.

No, this one’s Canadian (and then some, as there are a dozen different aliases for this organisation).

Dont have much that can help save for a full set of manuals… does this mean you’re going to do a 3D Harvard/T-6/SNJ model…if so we should have a chat

Thanks for your offer to help. I’m a big fan of North American Aviation aircraft and as you know I’ve already done the Mustang and NAA-57 (and Sk.14). I’ll tackle the B-25 next year. The T-6 series is definitely on the to-do list though, but unless commissioned I don’t expect to get to it anytime too soon.

nice pic of Texan Tomcat in ground attack mode, SNEB pods, 7.7mm gunpacks

Sounds good! I really like the Korean War “Mosquitos” myself.

What makes you call him a pirate?? (Careful now…!)

Well it’s quite a story and not one I wish to type out in full here 🙂
To give a quick example, the P-51 set that’s being sold was originally digitised for Claus Colling of FlugWerk (I bought them directly from Claus), who now sells them through Peter Ewbank in NZ. This other company however threw some manuals in the mix (“borrowed” from various sources) and claimed it their own…
Also this pirate has recently claimed copyrights on tons of items they’re selling, including NAA, Focke-Wulf, Messerschmitt and Rolls-Royce documents. Absolute lunacy but Ebay is buying it apparently, as they’re still in business. I’ll drop you a PM with some links, so you can have a giggle. Apparently James Kindelberger, Kurt Tank, Willy Messerschmitt and Frederick Royce all live in Canada nowadays!!