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Supermarine Spitfire Mk.I "Early"....


Artie

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Hi all.....while reading a few things about these prewar Spitfires delivered to 19 Squadron, I came across a few doubts...

Were they fitted with aluminium seats, instead of baquelite ones??? Were those seats painted in the so called "Eau de Nil" colour, as the rest of the cockpit interior??? Also, I assume they didn't have any back seat armour plate, but what about the head armour plate??

Did the gun muzzles protude from the wing leading edges..??

I really like the look of those early, flat canopy, Spitfires...both the flat canopies and the two bladed propellesr make them look like some kind of out of date racing planes, dressed to fight.....

Cheers.....

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Yes, the first seats were metal so unpainted metal and I have heard it mentioned possibly black as well. No head armour plate either. Yes they protruded as they had flash suppressors at the beginning.

 

Cheers,

 

Tim

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Also to add about the interiors, there is the very good possibility that the early Spitfires had a different shade of green from the cockpit grey green we are used to. Paul Lucas noticed this on some surviving pieces like those from X4422 which he called an apple green. I was lucky enough to get some photos of these from X4422 in different lighting conditions and they are intriguing, I would say they were a slightly more lurid or greener version of Eau-de-Nil.

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Eau-de-Nil.gif

 

This is a sample of a supposed "Eau de Nil" paint. Looks like Sky Type S, indeed......but who knows....

Regarding the aluminium seat, and if we think about an unpainted one, what about the back cushion...???? Black or brown leatherette...???

Would like to build one of those soon, I'm more interested about prewar examples lately....

Cheers...

 

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It's always tricky Artie with conveying colour digitally and online. Eau-de-Nil could be described as a greener Sky and you probably wouldn't be too far off the mark. Lucas calls it duck egg green which is also probably not a bad description. Incidentally it was a hugely popular interior design colour during the 30s. In terms of cushion colour, if it was me I'd go black with either a metal seat, interior coloured seat or long outside odds a black seat.

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