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Mk.Vb Supermarine Spitfire EN821 from No. 243 Squadron, Fighter Command Kit: 1/72 Tamiya (No.56) Extras: Eduard Photo-etch Zoom Set SS213 and EZ LIne Paints: Humbrol, Revell and Citadel acrylics all applied by brush WIP: Here This Spitfire was built as part of the Edgar Brooks Tribute - Single Type Group Build. It was a thoroughly enjoyable build in a great GB. This kit was superb to make and, although the PE was a lot more fiddly in this scale, it does really add to the overall look of the cockpit. The kit doesn't come with an open canopy section so I had to do some careful work with an Exacto Saw! Photographs taken, as usual, on my Spitfire display base: One from below: ......and one from above: A while back I built the 1/48 Tamiya version of this kit so I took a few photos of the two of the together: 23/05/16 - Some black and white versions: Comments and Suggestions welcome. Kind regards, Stix 'For Edgar'

As I'm writing this I'm lucky enough to be sat in our kitchen looking out at the back garden, watching the local squirrels industrially going about their business of acquiring nuts from the feeders and then digging holes in the lawn to bury them. There's the distant sound of the motorway we live near and occasionally the sound, overhead, of aeroplanes off to sunnier climes. It's drizzling with rain here. As has been mentioned by others on BM before, it's difficult for someone my age (55) to imagine what it must have actually been like at this time 75 years ago. When I was growing up in Derby, in the sixties, I remember being fascinated by the stories told by my relatives about the war. I'm pretty sure I was building kits by about the age of five or six and I know some of the earliest kits I built (badly) were British and German World War 2 fighters. I was 9 or 10 when I first saw the Battle of Britain film at the cinema and remember being absolutely obsessed with everything to do with the actual Battle of Britain after seeing it. I spent ages going through the booklet about the film, which was bought for me at the cinema (those were the days!) and any other reading matter on the subject I could get hold of. I know I built more aircraft from both sides in the months/years after. I remember I was was particularly impressed with the sound of the Spitfire's engine in the film. Then, a year or so after, I was lucky enough to go to some kind of event at Crich Tramway Museum, in Derbyshire, where they had aircraft doing displays, including at least one Spitfire. I remember I was so excited, not just to see one, but to hear one too! I took some photos of it/them in flight but when the prints came back from the chemist I seemed to have only taken photographs of the sky with the odd black speck in it. We're now lucky enough to live within a mile of a place which holds a two day air display every year, so I actually get to have Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters, etc. flying over our house! So I now have some photos of the aircraft, not only in flight, but over my house! My younger self would never have believed it possible. If anyone has seen any of my previous builds here on BM they'll probably know that, since getting back into building kits, after a gap of too many years, the bulk of the few kits I have made have been Spitfires. So, when this Group Build was mentioned I knew I wanted to be a part of it and I knew which aircraft I would be building. At the time I signed up for the GB, the kit I chose to build was the slightly flawed 1/48 Tamiya Mk.I and I also picked up the Eduard PE set to go with it. Then Airfix released their new tooled version and, as I've not long finished two Mk.Vb Spitfires, I thought I'd do the same with these two Spitfires and build both alongside each other. Although I haven't, as yet, fully decided which actual aircraft I'm going to build these two kits as, I thought I would post a photo of the bits and pieces I'm going to use: I'm really looking forward to getting started next weekend and I know, while I'm making these, I will think about what it must have been like 75 years ago for The Few and, as a result of their efforts and sacrifice, how lucky I am to be sat in a peaceful location, building kits of my favourite aircraft and occasionally watching squirrels digging up our lawn. To The Few