Doug Fritz

Hi Doug, It's always a can of worms (well not always, sometimes often though) I'm waiting on a hi-res picture (will get it within a week) of a very early Mk. VIII in Italy during November of 1943 that might reveal the area in question. As to fündekals I have only seen their illustration from the fündekals website which looked black, anyway regardless I'm sure your efforts will be rewarding. What kit are you working on that will use those decals? Cheers, Daniel. Hi Daniel, I agree that the fundekals codes do look black on their website, but they are dark blue (at least to my eyes!). I am starting to build the 1/32 Tamiya Mk VIII. I like the fact that JR472 is in the desert scheme and has the extended wingtips. I noticed fundekals made a mistake in claiming that it did not have the later horn balances on the elevators while the photos clearly show that it did. I always like to see photos of the aircraft I model in order to make them as accurate as possible. Regards, Doug

I didn't realize I was opening a can of worms. From the drawing Edgar posted, and since JF472 was a very early Mk VIII, I am going to take the easy way out and assume no torque links, front or back. Daniel, I am using the fundekals, but the codes do appear to me to be very dark blue, not black. I may overpaint them a lighter blue anyway. Thanks to everyone for this very interesting chain of posts. Doug

Thanks to both of you, but photos of early Spitfires (Mk I-V at least) show the oleo struts with no torque links. From what I can tell, the torque links were added during production of the Mk IX and Mk VIII, but I haven't been able to find out when. I am just questioning whether they were on the aircraft that I am building, JF(not JK)472, which was an early production Mk VIII. Doug

Hi, I am new to this site and have a question about Spitfires. I am building a model of a Mk VIII serialed JK472 and am wondering whether it had the torque links fitted to the main gear legs. Thanks, Doug