Dennis_C

Yeah. That is the model! I was fascinated by this aircraft when first read about it in Soviet magazine "Tekhnika Molodezhi" (Technics to the Youth). But 'luckily' this is not my area of interest and not aparment's capacity still would enjoy watch this WIP!

Hi Chris, Thanks for appreciation! The project stays very engaging for me. It allows for interesting comparisons of both different kits and Spitfire types. Also gives very good understanding of Spitfire evolution. Really happy I started this Dennis

Some general thoughts on the construction: Tamiya is the simplest one. Jumps together okay. You need to make sure fuselage is not too wide after closing - internal bits fit is very tight. You may end up with wrong dihedral in case fuselage too wide for the assembled wing. Canopy is bad. Think about vac formed one. Shape is okay to me. In particular I really do not see how the wing is different to Airfix. Eduard's is a little narrower-chorded though. Eduard goes together very well too. But requires excellent dry fitting and careful glue application. Detail is so abundant and delicate that a beginner might easily destroy the beauty. Also there is much more pieces than in Tamiya kit so build is not as quick. Some parts in Eduard set required sanding seams remaining from moulds. Moulding quality is a bit inferior to Tamiya. Cockpit is super great and can be made with almost resin quality with only plastic parts. So a great choice for resin and PE haters. Airfix is typical Airfix of 10 years ago. Much less surface details. Acceptable fit. Transparencies are bad. Curved instead of flat ventral camera windows. Very thick canopy. Undercarriage is primitive so I'm going to use donation from Eduard. Cockpit is minimalistic so mine is 90% Eduard's PE. With all the perks added - PE, vacformed canopy, resin surfaces and exhausts - and I do not count undercarriage and wheels from Eduard - will be the most expensive of the three Spits, although the initial kit is indeed the cheapest. Hope this is helpful for any future Spit builders. Dennis

Hi All, After some distraction recently for other projects and time out of city I finally finished my Tamiya Spit. After deeper reading and watching BoB photos I understood that the right canopy for BoB Mk.I is actually raised but non-blown one. Which is not as distorted in Tamiya moulds as is blown canopy. Otherwise construction was fairly smooth and was quickly complete. Larger parts all had a very good fit. But small intake on the fuselage consisted of two parts that were barely matching each other and the wing surface - fairly annoying fitting and then sanding exercise. All the three Spits are now ready for paint workshop. All three are more or less enjoyable builds so far and should look great next to each other on the shelf some day! Stay safe! Dennis

¡Hala Madrid y nada mas! Turned out very well, I really like this traditional cheatline livery. Congrats with a great work done! Dennis

The third one reaches the assembly workshop. Progressed with the cockpit over the weekend. Ready for closing fuselage now: The other side: Yeah - the pilot put couple bricks under the seat to keep it on the proper level: The guy hopes no one ever notices Looks like earlier mk.Is had metal seat painted green. So did I. While the kit itself is very good and builds up nicely - the canopy is a real disaster here. It is nicely molded with no seams, very transparent. But it distorts light so heavily that you literally see no interior. Just compare the Tamiya's piece And vacformed canopy Disaster... Airfix crude piece of plastic from mk.XIX that is twice as thicker as this produces less distortion! Stupid me ordered a Rob Taurus replacement for Airfix mk.xix but not for this. Luckily Rob Taurus gives you both open and closed options for mk.XIX. I utilised closed canopy for mk.XIX so I can reuse the movable part from opened canopy set for mk.I. front screen is not as horrible as it is flat. Same about rear piece. Okay. 20 minutes later: Thanks for watching! Stay safe Dennis

Great model and interesting subject! It looks strange for the pre war French machine. Rounded engine nacelles and not square fuselage is not something you expect seeing Bloch or other French manufacturers names

Hi there Seems done with assembling of mk.IX. All pieces are attached. Canopy will stay open so door and sliding part to be attached later. Same for more obvious undercarriage, exhaust pipes, airscrew etc. As you can see I'm using transparent wing tips, also bought Master brass guns. Installing super tiny barrels into shorter fairings costed me some nerves!!! Downside view Closer study of references brought me to the thought that Israeli Spitfires LF.IX coming under Velveta operation should have had bomb racks installed. I did not drill holes upfront so now hoping I placed racks in the correct locations. Lastly here two Spits awaiting the third mk.I to move all together to the paint shop. Best wishes, Dennis

That is excellent work here!!! Magnificent! I would just give up and would never want to attach 6×16 fan blades. Well I would give up even earlier - on the stage where I would be to clean up 6×32 propeller blades from flash And size of the model. Even 1/144 Mriya is 4 times larger than my biggest model which is a 1/72 B-17...

Yeah. Very nostalgic. I have this in my collection with same DDR markings. Not in too bad condition, but it suffered some damage as it participated in armed conflicts organised by myself 25-30 years back. Also decals are in poor conditions now so probably should think about some restoration too...

An impressive Spitfire! Clean and nice build of a very elegant Spitfire version!!!

Oh wow!!! This is an incredible job! One does not see something built with aluminium plates and screws here every day! That's resin, that's Galaxy, that's 1/72 Galaxy, that's Anigrand and ultimately that turns out into an excellent model!!! You should be very very proud of yourself!!! My sincerest congratulations!!! Dennis. P.S. and the transport box is a piece of mastership too

As I understand T-6G version is correct for American-built airframes in post-war use by various operators for both combat and training purposes. Still one needs to double check if a specific user had a post-war built machine or a variant from the wwii period.

Hi Jason, My understanding from what I read about Il-2 usage and losses - earlier in the war you are correctly pointing to losses being caused by zero fighter coverage, absent gunner, inadequately trained pilots. So probably a lot of kills were by nazi pilots. At the same time in early years the number of Il-2s delivered to the army was still fairly low so those losses do not constitute the majority of total attrition. Later in the war however I believe the majority of losses were caused by the need to bomb from low altitude after a long low pass and flaks fire was destroying a lot of shturmoviks. As I understand Typhoons or P-47 were able to dive much better than Il-2 so probably were not as prone to flak fire. And after all Il-2 was a very sizeable machine compared to fighters used in ground attack role by the US and Britain. And Il-2 was also much slower. So again that was making Il-2 an easier target. Please correct me if I'm wrong as you should know way more than me on Il-2s usage Dennis

Formally yes "shturmovik" is not a proper noun. But even in Russian language Il-2 is frequently called "Il-2 Shturmovik" so it's not completely odd to use the word as proper noun. Il-10 is a metal and more technologically traditional development of Il-2 so it is a Shturmovik as well. Su-25 has nickname Grach (Rook) and is frequently called that way. Shturmovik name is not frequently used for that. As to translation - I think Attacker is actually the best match. Штурм (shturm) is literally Assault - e.g. Assault rifle is translated as Shturmovaya Vintovka. But "assaulter" would probably be a wrong meaning. I think it's a mix. Il-2 were produced by normal aircraft factories similar to other aircraft so it should not had much different defect rate compared to other Soviet types. At the same type all the Soviet machinery factories are known for insufficient level of quality so that product user should 'upwork' the product before it is really able to function as intended. What I think is that Il-2 had huge losses because of multifactor combo. It was not a dive bomber so had to make long low passes to bomb the target more or less precisely being easier to be spot by anti-aircraft artillery. And nazis had a very good flak cannon. Poor trained pilots too. The construction was made heavily of wood which did not help it sustain longer live. The front fuselage was also unique in that armoured box was itself holding engine, wings, wooden rear fuselage - not a number of ribs and frames as it's typical for most of the aircraft. So probably this was leading to fatigue issues.