Supermarine Spitfire TR.9 (A05143)
Two-Seat Trainer
1:48 Airfix
The Supermarine Spitfire was the mainstay of British Fighter Command for the majority of WWII, in conjunction with the Hurricane during the Battle of Britain, with the Mk.IX being the most popular (with many) throughout the war, seeing extended periods of production with only minor alterations for the role for which it was intended differentiating between the sub-variants. Originally requested to counter the superiority of the then-new Fw.190, a two-stage supercharged Merlin designated type 61 provided performance in spades, and the fitting of twin wing-mounted cannons with accommodating blisters gave it enough punch to take down its diminutive Butcher-Bird prey. The suffix following the mark number relates to the wings fitted to the aircraft, as they could vary. The C wing was also known as the Universal Wing, and saw extensive use because it mounted two 20mm cannon in each wing, the outer barrel usually covered by a rubber plug. The main gear was adjusted in an effort to give it more stable landing characteristics, and bowed gear bays removed the need for blisters on the upper wing surface, helping aerodynamics.
The Mk.IX is considered by many to be the definitive variant of the Merlin-engined Spitfire, and over 5,600 of this type were made during WWII, the majority built at Castle Bromwich. Although there were two known two-seat two-seat Spitfire conversions during the war, one of a Mk.V by a British squadron, and one Mk.IX by the Soviets for training their pilots, it wasn’t until after the war that it became official, starting with one Mk.VIII that was built by Vickers as a demonstrator. Ten T.Mk.IX trainers were exported to India for their training needs, with a further six sold to the Irish Air Force for their training and conversion requirements in 1951, converted from redundant Mk.IXs. The Irish airframes were also able to be used for gunnery training thanks to the retention of two .303 machine guns in the outer wing stations, one in each side, that allowed novice pilots to engage in target practice with the security of knowing that they had a tutor in the back seat in case of issues. Of those six, four survived retirement and went into service in the warbird community, taking paying passengers on pleasure rides that are still ongoing at time of writing, despite a recent forced belly landing by one of the small fleet that was light enough for the pilot and passenger to walk away almost unscathed. Hopefully that airframe will be back in the skies once repaired and its engine has been rebuilt after the shock-load imparted by the prop when it impacted the ground.
The Kit
This is the first boxing of a new tooling from Airfix, one of the first to have the exterior fully riveted, which is bound to split opinion, as usual. Speaking personally, I like them, as they add extra visual interest in areas that might otherwise look bland, and although we all know that rivets aren’t generally holes in the skin, we also know that windscreens aren’t 6” thick, and that modelling is always a compromise in some shape or form. Now that’s out of the way, let’s get on with looking at the model. The kit arrives in a top-opening red-themed box, with a painting of an Irish TR.9 in green with their orange/green yin-yang meatball roundel on the wings and fuselage. Inside the box are four large sprues and a smaller one in dark grey styrene, a separately bagged clear sprue, decal sheet, and the instruction booklet that is printed in spot colour on white paper, with full colour profiles of the decal options on the rearmost pages. Detail is excellent, extending to the usual points of interest that include the cockpit, gear bays, plus other exterior features both raised and engraved. The inclusion of a fully riveted and panel lined exterior skin is a new feature for Airfix, and adds to the appeal for many modellers, as above, which coupled with Airfix’s clever engineering of their kits and excellent marketing and distribution network, makes for a better product for us modeller.
Construction begins with the dual cockpit, and while the component parts will be very familiar to anyone that has built a Spitfire before, the unusual aspect is the provision of another seat and controls in the rear. Because the front cockpit has been moved forward to accommodate the extra seat, the bulkhead with the pilot’s instrument panel has a shallower profile than the norm, attaching the compass mount in the footwell hole, and adding this and the forward spar to the port sidewall insert. The forward floor has a pair of pegs removed from underneath, fitting rudder pedals, then sliding it into the cockpit from the front via the footwell cut-out, and securing the rear through the spar before adding a cross-bar to the seat frame and putting it into the slot that marks the rear of the first cockpit. A short bulkhead is set behind the front cockpit, making up another floor section with rudders, and sliding that carefully into place, taking care not to bend the narrow areas that project into the front cockpit and through the rear bulkhead. A narrow port side console is made from two parts plus a decal, fixing it to the cockpit side straddling both compartment, locating it on the recesses moulded into the wall. The front seat will be very familiar, consisting of the pan plus two sides, and an adjustment lever on the starboard side, attaching the support frame to the rear, then fixing it in the cockpit after the glue has cured. The starboard cockpit wall has three pegs removed from the rear, and a wiring loom fitted before it is joined to the growing assembly, adding another slim console with throttle quadrant and decal to the starboard side after the two walls are in position. The tutor’s control column is a two-part assembly, fitting a ledge to the starboard footwell before it is closed in with a shaped bulkhead, then sills are fixed to the top of the cockpit assembly, and another two-part control column for the trainee is added. The tutor’s seat is made in the same manner as the front seat, attaching it to another seat frame with rail glued across the top, sliding the completed assembly into the rear of the cockpit assembly, then fitting the front and rear instrument panels after painting and decaling them with dials and other details. The trainee’s sidewalls receive a throttle quadrant and landing gear control assembly, the former on the port side, the latter on the starboard. A support is fixed between the top of the tutor’s panel and the roll-over behind the trainee’s head, then you have the choice of whether to populate the cockpit with pilots or not. Two crew members are included on the smallest sprue, and the pilot in control has separate arms to allow for a more realistic pose than the old hands-on-lap chaps of yesteryear. Both pilots are inserted into the cockpit at this stage, adding the arms to the pilot once they are in position, but if you don’t feel the need, you can leave one or both in the box.
Before the fuselage can be closed around the cockpit, you should make the decision whether to pose the canopies open or closed, as the sills need to be removed for the closed option. Fortunately, Airfix have included two jigs for the sides that allow you to cut the forward sills off without issue, providing you don’t forget yourself and glue the jigs in place in a moment of madness. To pose the canopies open, the access doors are cut out along the thinned edges, as shown on the instructions, with replacement parts provided on the sprue, noting that the aft door is much shallower than the pilot’s, and as it is post-WWII, you can paint the diagonal crowbar bright red without risking pillory from the purists. Another piece of equipment is added to the moulded-in ribbing in the top of the fuselage on the starboard side, a filler cap is inserted in front of the windscreen, and a platform is installed in the belly aft of the wings, ready to receive the two relocated oxygen bottles that usually stand upright behind the pilot seat. The completed cockpit can then be trapped between the two fuselage halves, which is where we can see a new engineering decision that will lead to a better joint on the cowling over the Merlin engine. Instead of moulding half the cowling into each fuselage half, it has been created as a separate part that is given the correct shape and form by using sliding moulds, which results in fine seamlines that need little clean-up, and shouldn’t reappear like many Spitfire cowling seams have in the past, which I’m sure many of us can attest.
Each elevator panel is made from upper and lower skins, slotting into the tail on either side, adding a full-span flying surface across the concave trailing edge, and trapping it in position with an insert in the centre. This allows the modeller to deflect it as they wish, adding the rudder behind, which can also be deflected for a more candid look to the finished model. The lower wings are full-span out to the tip-joints, and have a pair of radiator housings inserted after fixing the cores front and rear inside them, and gluing the cooling flap to the rear, which can be set open or closed. Flipping the lower wing over, a pair of circular bay walls are added to the cut-outs, linking them with a pair of parts that perform the dual task of bay sides and also act as spars to keep the dihedral of the wings from sagging. A circular light is embedded in the lower wing toward the trailing edge, then it can be mated to the fuselage, gluing the upper wings over the top, and installing the ailerons in their cut-outs near the tips.
You have the option for wheels-up or down with this kit, the easiest option being in-flight, requiring the installation of the fixed tail-wheel under the rudder, and a custom set of main bay doors that have spacers moulded-in, which prevent the parts from dropping into the bays, and give enough space for the simplified wheels to attach to the integrated axles. To model the TR.9 on the ground, a pair of struts are made with separate scissor-links and captive bay doors, both inserting into the bays and locating securely in position with the help of some sensible engineering. The wheels are moulded as tyres that have block tread (typical of post-war use) moulded-in along with the rear hub, adding the front hub before installing them on the stub axles at the lower end of the leg. While the model is inverted, an L-shaped pitot probe it glued under the port wing, and a pair of small hooks are installed between the radiator housings.
Attention moves back to the fuselage, concentrating on the nose and cockpit to finish off. The six-stack fishtail exhausts are moulded on the same sprue as a set of tubular stacks, so ensure you fit the correct option before proceeding. Each set comprises two parts that hold three stacks each for extra detail, hiding the mating surfaces inside the cowling after they have been inserted into the slots in the sides of the nose. The four-bladed prop is moulded as a single part that is bracketed by the spinner and back-plate, which is placed against another plate that is skewered by a stepped pin that should allow the blades to spin if you are careful with the glue. The assembly is then glued into a cup that slides into an oversized hole in the front of the nose, again being careful with the glue to keep the blades moving. As mentioned earlier, the canopies can be posed open or closed, and by now the decision should have been made. To have the canopies open, the windscreen, aft section of the forward cockpit and the windscreen/spoiler for the aft cockpit are glued in place, fitting the two openers in the retracted position as shown on the diagrams, fixing the open doors in the down position on the port side of the fuselage that should have been cut out earlier. If closing the cockpit, a small section of the front cockpit sill should have been removed using the jigs supplied, allowing the combined opener and fixed aft section to be glued in place over the cut-out. The same aft opener is used for both options in this kit.
Markings
There are two decal options in this kit, one in service with the Irish Air Corps, the other in civil service as a warbird. From the box you can build one of the following:
Spitfire TR.9, B Flight, Irish Air Corps/An tAerchór, Baldonnel Aerodrome, Dublin, Republic of Ireland/Poblacht na hÉireann, 1951
Spitfire TR.9, Iver, Buckinghamshire, England, 1969
Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas.
For the Irish option, the widths of the orange/white/green stripes under the wings are shown for those that prefer to paint larger markings to avoid carrier-film steps, and separate Trestle-Here markings are thoughtfully included on the decal sheet.
Conclusion
While the TR.9 Spitfire played no part in the Battle of Britain or the rest of the war, it was an interesting bit-part player post war, and is a familiar sight in the skies around Britain and at airshows. It’s also about the only way any of us will ever get to fly in a Spitfire without using a time machine. Airfix have done a great job of tooling this kit using modern techniques, and the upgrade of detail levels really shows.
Very highly recommended.
Review sample courtesy of