RAF's finest: Spitfires over Italy

[Giorgio N]

I had little doubt about the aircraft I'd have built for this GB, it had to be a Spitfire ! Of course the RAF had other types in these 100 years and some were at least as important as the Spitfire. However, what is the image that most have in their mind when they hear RAF ? It's The Few, flying their Spitfires to defend Britain in the hours when the danger of Nazi invasion loomed over the Country.

And a classic BoB Spitfire was one of the candidates when I read that the initial idea was to have modellers build an aircraft based in an area close to them (or something similar...). At that point the plan changed. I'm not British, I spent and still spend a lot of time in Britain for work and I can say I know a few things about the Country, but still I', a foreigner. Is it a problem when it comes to RAF Spitfires ? Not at all, as my country of birth was base to many Spit equipped units during WW2, so it was easy to decide for an Italian based Spitfire. I don't know yet which aircraft and which unit as I still have some research to do but I'll be restricting my choice to some particular aircrafts: the ones that were served postwar in the Italian Air Force ! The reason is that I'd like to build the same aircraft in two schemes, the original British one for this GB and the postwar Italian one for the forthcoming "Brits Abroad" GB.

This means that my Spitfire will be a Mk,IXc and the best option to build one of these in my favourite 1/72 scale is the Eduard kit. I still have a few overtrees boxes and my models will come from them.

 

Using overtrees means that the box is not really exciting...

 

 

Inside the box however things change dramatically:

 

 

There's a lot of plastic on 5 grey sprues and a clear one. Really this is a dream for Spit fans as not only they get a very good kit but also a lot of spare parts for other kits

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overtrees include no decal sheet but this is not a problem, I have generic roundels and codes and anything black can be printed on my laser. I may use masks for the unit and individual codes, will depend on the aircraft I'll choose.

This model will be built mainly OOB, I may add seatbelts and little else. Some Italian based Mk,IXs had been modified to carry camera, one of them is actually among the candidates and in this case I'll have to modify the kit.

I will not be able to start properly too soon as I have other models to build for other GBs first, but I may start preparing bits here and there...

[Robert Stuart]

Welcome to the build Giorgio, that is a good introduction to your build, and I'll be interested to see the Spit you choose in both RAF and Italian Air Force colours.

[Giorgio N]

Well, it took me more than a month, but I've managed to start doing something on the Spitfire.

The Eduard kit is a beauty and even without PE parts it's easy to get a nicely detailed cockpit. Just carefully apply some paint

 

 

The only item I felt missing was a set of seatbelts and these were made using lead foil from a wine bottle

 

 

After adding a few more bits to the cockpit, not shown in the picture above, it was time to close the fuselage halves and this is where I am at the moment

 

 

Fit was not bad but I had to sand slightly the bulkheads to get everything to fit decently. Unfortunately I managed to smear some glue on the upper fuselage, my mistake !

One other area I got wrong is the part of the belt behiund the rear cockpit bulkhead, should be level and not going upward as it is... oh well, I'll have to live with it

 

Edited June 15, 2018 by Giorgio N

[Valkyrie]

Love an Eduard Spitfire, looking nice inside.

[Giorgio N]

23 hours ago, Valkyrie said:

Love an Eduard Spitfire, looking nice inside.

 

Thanks !

I have done some more work and taken the relevant pictures, will post them soon

[Giorgio N]

I know, I may not be able to finish in time but at least I managed to find some more time to work on this model.

With the fuselage complete it was relatively quick to add the wings, that I had prepared in the meantime, and other parts. Now I have something that really looks like a Spitfire...

 

 

 

I have not glued the engine panels yet as these are supplied in slightly different variants and I haven't yet chosen the markings.

What I have done however is to add some detail to the radiators. The various Profipack and Royal boxes have the radiator faces reproduced using PE parts, a very realistic solution. As I'm using overtrees there's nothing of the kind in the box and I decided I wanted at least an impression of the radiators. Among the various options I dedided to try decals.. first the radiator faces were painted in silver (after a coat of grey primer on the whole undersurfaces)

 

On top of these I applied decals that I had drawn and printed that reproduce the radiator matrix

 

 

They don't look as good as the PE parts but once the radiator floors are in place they look convincing enough. As I have some more overtrees I'll use this trick a few more times.

VIsible in the pictures are the various areas where I had to apply some filler. For some reason this time I didn't get a perfect fit and some work will still be needed to sort these areas