Design Round 2: Lockheed P-38 Lightning (Part 2)

With the wings hopefully in decent shape, I can now move on to the fuselage.  In a standard plane, the fuselage is one part, and runs down the middle.  Instead of a single fuselage, the P-38 has two engine booms, and a cockpit nacelle.  These three structures combined make up the fuselage, and are essentially the same shape.  With this in mind, I'll be using the same standard shape for all three parts.

Engine Booms

Because the engine booms are identical, I only need to design one!  I also previously decided that I am going to make them 11 inches long.  This means two things: I only need to create measurements for the width and height dimensions, and measurements for the corners making up the tapered edges.

Using the front view from the spotter card, I measure the width and height of one of the engine booms.  Using the same scale I used before, I calculate their measurements in inches (height = 1 3/8 inches, width = 1 1/8 inches).  As explained below, my fuselages are made in a "T" shape, with doubled paper.

I "unfold" the boom "virtually" to determine the size of the paper I will need.  The key is to remember that everything is doubled.  Starting with the folded boom, I split the center fold.  From there, I split the sides.  I then "flatten" the entire part, resulting in a part that is 11 inches by 7 3/4 inches.
The tapered edges will come later, but as you can imagine, it will involve measuring points on the spotter cards, and calculating the inch equivalents.

Cockpit Nacelle

The cockpit is constructed in the same way, and so the methods of measuring and unfolding are also the same.  The cockpit nacelle is thinner than the engine booms, and the measurements back that up with a width of only 1 inch.  The height is also slightly larger than the engine booms at 1 7/16 inches.

There is still an obvious difference in length between the engine booms and the cockpit nacelle.  Measuring from the spotter card, the length is slightly over half the length of the engine booms at 6 inches.  This makes the final part size 6 inches by 7 3/4 inches.

What remains?

The next part of this design will concentrate on the tail.  After that, I'll look at the cockpit canopy, and extra support for the wings.  Finally, I'll explore details, like tapering the engine booms and cockpit nacelles, and rounding corners on the tail(s) and wings.