Giorgio N

Mike, if going the Eduard/Paragon route, get a Mk.IX, not the VIII. The latter has the correct wing for the Mk.VIII, so shorter ailerons, tanks in the leading edge and other details. Of course the risk that the sections don't match is very high, as the conversion was afterall designed for the Hasegawa fuselage. In any case, there's only one way to find out... someone has to try

Not sure if the Hasegawa canopy would be 100% correct for a Mk.VII but can be a starting point. This is how it looked on one of my models before correcting

Glad to hear these new paints work well, with Humbrol paints being easily available in many places and having some important colours for modellers of British subjects it's good to know that they can offer a good alternative for modellers who like acrylics like myself

While it's true that I've been working mainly on the Spitfire, I have not forgotten the A-20 ! What I'll show now may seem only a small step but it took a lot of time... The way MPM designed the kit, it's very difficult if not impossible to add the landing gear after the nacelles are in place. The main landing gear legs are made of 5 parts each, and are a total nightmare to get right ! Alignment of the various parts is not easy and some of the parts don't fit well at all. It took me several attempts to get both in place and have them aligned properly. In the end I got there... well, almost, I still have to glue one part but it's not critical for the alignment (it's just a retraction strut) In the meantime I've also prepared the nacelles. I made a small modification to the intakes, adding a splitter plate that is quite visible in pictures of the real A-20. Nothing major but improves the look of these parts. I may add one comment... ok, I may sound boring by now... anyway fit was not good on these parts The next step will be painting the interior of the nacelles and wheel wells, all in Interior Green. Before this however I'll have to sand some of the nacelles-wing conctact points: the fit of these parts is absolutely atrocious, I have sanded the top of the nacelles on the rear-outer side, things are improving but I still have to sand a bit more. And then there will be a lot of filler to use. Really, I like the A-20 and I'd like to build another one, but I don't know if I could tackle another of these kits. At least not in the next 3-4 months, I need to recover my energy first !

Really I feel that this is the kind of info that only someone who was there would recall, at least until all official documents are declassified. Seeing how even the USN never mentioned the events, it's unlikely that enthusiast websites will have the info. The guy who was on the carrier may be the best chance to get through the right document... assuming it's something that can be divulged

This is great news ! What to do now... keep trying to bag the 1/48 Grand Phoenix kit at a certain auction site ? Or save the money and buy this one as soon as available ? Guess that in either case the Emhar one will go in the for sale list... I just hope that the Demon will be easier to build than the Cougar I started this and I'm having a lot of fit issues

The badge on the nose is of 432th TRW. It's not the complete badge, that would have the same artwork within a shield, check the complete badge here: http://www.patches-military.com/store/p1047/432nd_Tactical_Reconnaissance_Wing_TRW_4"_Patch.html The badge under the canopy is of 837th Air Division, that controlled the Wing between 1958 and 59. You can see the badge here: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/837th_Air_Division

A spacer at the transport joint will indeed restore the missing length, but keep in mind that the length error is spread all over the fuselage. Said that, I personally built a couple Hasegawa Spit VIII in the past without worrying much about the wrong fuselage, they went together so well that I just built them even knowing of the various faults. Speaking of which, one small error in the Hase kit is the depth of the rear section of the canopy: hasegawa moulded this down to the canopy line instead of keeping the lower edge higher. Practically they made it as deep as on the pressurised types like the Mk.VII and PR.XIX while the rest of the canopy is of the unpressurised type. It's a small error that can simply be sorted with some sanding or just by painting the edge higher, but worth keeping in mind (guess who completed a pretty nice USAAF Mk.VIII and forgot about it ?) With the fantastic Eduard SpitfireIX available today for a price generally well below the Hasegawa kit, using the Japanese offering as basis for a Mk.XII conversion makes no sense, at least in Europe. Maybe a Mk.XII conversion for this kit may have some market, in any case I may consider attempting this myself. I can see a few potential problems with the way the Eduard kit is moulded and filling the space for the extra radiator may not be the easiest thing to do. There's also the matter of matching the impressive surface detail of the Eduard parts, not really easy. In the meantime this thread has led me to check my Ventura Seafire XV to see if I could clone in resin the engine cowling... may not work as this has the intake mouth moulded integrally on the lower cowling. Removing this would leave a big hole...

The Hasegawa fuselage is not only skinny, it's also too short between canopy and tail. This isn't immediately noticeable, maybe because it's also skinny , but try to apply decals of the correct size and they will not fit. As a basis for a conversion ideally a Vc would be the best starting point, however these aren't really that available in 1/72 scale. At that point a Mk.IX is the second best choice, but would require modifying the wing because of the different radiatos. Can it be done ? Sure can, but if I had to do this on the Eduard Mk.IX for example, it may not be easy to reproduce the surface detail on the wing to match the Eduard parts. Guess we can only hope that one of the many Czech companies will make a new XII

I searched all my references and couldn't find anything on the idendity of these two Tomcats. Guess the best second choice would be trying to find the aircraft assigned to the two pilots, although it's not necessarily true that they were flying those same aircraft that day

I don't have any hard evidence on this, but could be RAL 7012, a dark grey used quite a lot on German military aircraft

The ailerons, the fuel tanks and a few smaller details... that for the modeller means that a simple wing swap is not feasible but also means that Eduard has really given us a proper Mk.VIII and not a Mk.IX masquerading as an VIII. Eduard sure made a feew mistakes in the past but with the Spitfire has set the bar very high. Speaking of which, the Aussie Eight 1/72 special box is currently on sale for a good price on the Eduard website... postage is not cheap but I'm tempted myself to get one for Christmas in addition to the set I already have (that I'm currently building for the Pacific GB)

The Eduard explanation is very useful, however I still believe that the easiest way to replace the bulges is how suggested by the Wooksta and Peter earlier in the thread, that is by sanding the narrow ones and replacing them with spares from the AZ or other kits. I can see less risks of damaging the surface detail in this way rather than cutting the whole panel

The 4 cannon fit was used on a small number of Mk.VIII in Australia in 1944 and these would have had to use wide bulges, regardless of how they left the factory. The subject was discussed here previously in this thread, that includes information on the specific aircraft so equipped

I have read references to the fact that the narrow bulges were introduced at some point on the production line. The Late Edgar Brooks mentioned December 1943 as a date for the introduction of this modification. However I'm not sure I've ever seen a picture of a Mk.VIII with the wide bulge. Supermarine designed a specific panel with 2 narrow bulges for the 2 X 20mm armament but this was not adopted in the end. Spitfires armed with 4 cannons used of course the wide bulge