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In another post, someone asked about what our first models were – mine, via an assist, was an Airfix Do217 (‘red stripe’ box in those days) but it prompted me to dig out an old photograph that I remembered my Dad taking. A bit of a deception of course because the writing on the back says ‘1969, over the River Tay’! The picture was taken at the family home in Dundee with the River Tay just at the bottom of the road. The models were suspended on threads from the window frame. Hats off to Dad because he must have spent a bit of time in getting the angles right – looks like a beam attack from port in progress. (Wasn’t that the year that the film ‘The Battle of Britain’ was released?). I can remember him saying ‘Achtung, Spitfeur’ but he was of that ‘war generation’, after all! However, since I am getting going on modelling again and need a theme to really push me along, I thought I would re-do an Airfix Dornier Do217E-2 and a Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IX both in flight and try to re-create the scene in the black and white photo. I do have both of these kits in the stash so firstly re-lived the ecstasy of opening the red stripe Do217 box – look at that sky blue plastic! In the spirit of these things, I put together as much of the kit as I could, just pausing to paint in the engines in black and the crew areas in what I imagined to be a reasonable ‘cockpit green’. The general fit of everything is not too good and I remembered that some time ago, I saw the previous excellent builds ‘A brace of Airfix old timer Dornier 217's ‘ by Mottlemaster, September 11, 2013 in The Obsolete Kit Group Build (photobucket images now not visible) and this really made the penny drop as to the limitations of this kit – totally ignored in 1969. The ailerons had to be trimmed to be moveable and had sink marks – I’ll leave this as ‘battle damage’. The dorsal turret was a very tight fit in its mountings so much sanding and filing was required before I could rotate it easily without bending the protruding machine gun. So, when it came to putting the flight deck together, I raised it in the fuselage by adding in a couple of layers of corrugated cardboard – this Do217 had the thickest armour plating in the whole Luftwaffe! I positioned the seats slightly differently to bring the control column and instrument panel within reach of the pilot and to allow the seats to come up into the canopy space. Unfortunately, the pilot ended up sitting slightly ‘side-saddle’ as I wasn’t keen on taking a file to the insides of his legs, poor guy. Now that the crew is going to be visible, I gave them brown overalls and black boots (with a shine), varying the brown on helmets and life preservers. The detail of the crew is basic but I had a go at putting some silver on their large round goggles – hoping it will all look OK behind the canopies. Cut out the instrument panel fascia from the Instructions and fixed with PVA glue. Getting the propellers in place was a bit of a nightmare because I was determined that they were going to be able to rotate when subjected to a breeze when finished – they would not press together satisfactorily and the final fit was wobbly. The engine cowlings would not assemble to the nacelles without a great deal of sanding/filing down and all of the exhaust/flame dampers required a large dot of plastic removed from the top surface as well as flash removed. Some filing back of one side of the engine nacelles was also required to get a decent fit. The main undercarriage all went together and remained ‘retractable’ but the port wheel has an off-centre axle hole on one side and will need to be filled and re-drilled later. There are no bracing struts on this undercarriage so leaving them moveable will be dodgy unless I come up with a method of bracing. The undercarriage doors seemed to fit well once a little flash was removed so the idea sprung into my mind that I would try to have them ‘hinged’ in some manner so that the undercarriage could be stowed and the doors shut for ‘flight mode’. Grey duct tape was available and I was able to cut thin strips with my wallpaper scissors. The tailwheel doors will have to go flat against the formed well to be flush with the rear fuselage but I initially found this to be impossible because of the thickness (albeit slight) of the duct tape ‘hinges’. A bit of filing in the hinge positions with a small square file has sorted this out. The tailwheel is not a tight fit in the rear fuselage so when the rear wheel doors are open, I’ll need to keep the tailwheel in place with a blob of blue-tac – just re-created a ‘castoring’ tailwheel. After a couple of attempts at the main undercarriage doors and a little removal of flash, I managed to insert small strips of the duct tape and press in place in the hinge tab positions. It is a bit fiddly to close the doors and set them in place flush with the undersides of the engine nacelles but it can be done – I don’t plan on demonstrating this often! I think a blob of blue tac can be used as something to close against when the doors are shut and something to ‘lock’ the main undercarriage legs in the vertical when they are open. Dry fit of wings on fuselage - looks reasonable but a bit more sanding required. On with the painting…..