Michael

Even after breaking my model down into sub components I'm still getting warping, twisting and deformation of my surfaces. To break my model down into even smaller components (to keep nurbs happy) makes it extremely difficult for the user to get all his curves right so that the shape of this aircraft is captured especially once the surfaces are trimmed there is no mechanism to adjust or tweak them. Also the more sub pieces that are created the more shading errors I get when it is converted to a mesh in 3DS Max. By shading errors I mean the joints between the surfaces are visible depending on the light direction.

Thankyou for taking the time to write such a detailed analysis of nurbs v poly and whether this project is right for nurbs. You've confirmed what I suspected, it is not.
I was really hoping that it was so that I could save time and model more accurately with nurbs. As you can see, I am already a skilled polymodeller http://www.websitetoolbox.com/mb/felixdk?forum=107238 and was hoping nurbs would be less time consuming.

At this point I head back to polymodelling unless some ground breaking piece of software eventuates in the future that makes it easier and quicker. Some might say dream on !

I should however still be able to use my investment in MoI to do some of the detailing of the aircraft. For example on the F9F it has a speed break underneath with about 100 holes in it which is almost impossible to do with polys so nurbs will do that easily. MoI will also come in handy for doing cockpit, landing gear details where it is far quicker to boolean stuff.