Airfix Supermarine Spitfire Mk XIV 1/48th scale

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

11 minutes ago, Peter Roberts said:

Beautiful build Jonners - thank you for posting.

 

Of course, you realise you aren't supposed to be able to do this with such a fatally flawed kit. You must have weilded some sort of wizardry to get this result.  

 

I have two to crack on with myself and absolutely looking forward to it. As others here have said, they have risen to the top of the build pile. Must find platform 9 1/2 first,

 

PR

 

 

 

 

Expecto Spitamus!!

[DaveWilko]

One's daughter and her beau bought one this kit for Father's Day(gearing one up for retirement I fear!!!),looking at yours

and David Collins' completed models,one would say that one is going to have a very enjoyable time building it and that

a rather pleasing result will be had from it.

 

One thinks the late model Griffon Spits really were the pinnacle of the breed,they look to be travelling at over 400 miles per hour

even when parked.

 

Excellent work indeed Sirs.

[RMCS]

Very nice 

[224 Peter]

The other evening I went to a talk by Sally-Anne Greville-Heygate: she gave us a magnificent and fascinating overview of her Dad's RAF career through WW2. 

 

The talk was built out of her book, "From Sapper to Spitfire Spy", well worth a read. Available from Amazon and other book sellers. 

 

He spent the latter part of the War flying a Spitfire FT XIV with No 2 Squadron. His aircraft wore the letter J, No 2 Squadron didn't carry Squadron Codes. It also had a narrow sky fuselage band, just ahead of the tail planes: I'd estimate the width as possibly 8": very unusual. 

 

At some point his A/C was hit by ground fire, and slightly damaged. A part of the skin was punched into the fuselage and given to him by the ground crew after repair as a souvenir as the damage was caused by a 20mm shell that failed to explode. David was a lucky pilot, flying low level from 1943 to 1946 without major incident and including a stint on Typhoons with 168 Squadron.  

Her Dad kept the part in a box, Sally inherited it and brought it along for us to inspect.

 

Two things caught my attention. 

The interior green is far brighter than I expected, almost like the US colour. 

The outer surfaces were painted in a very smooth semi gloss paint. 

 

Here are two photos, taken using an I phone 8. the wood looks different as the upper photo used flash, the lower didn't. 

 

First, the inner surface:

 

 

Next, the outer skin...

 

 

The paint is very thin, and very well pigmented. Given the A/C was made during the war and expected a short life, the quality of the paint work is excellent. 

 

I had been under the belief that matte paint was used until after the war. This fragment suggests it was not. I'm trying to get the serial number of the A/C to find out when and where it was made. 

 

Edited June 19, 2019 by 224 Peter
Typos...

[DaveWilko]

Dearest Peter224,

 

When one was a pretty prolific modeler many years ago,much research was done by one's self into the interior colours of

Supermarine and other "shadow" factory built a/c.

 

It did appear then(and the above picture verifies this again)that they used and specified a shade very much close to "Sky"

but with more of an "apple green" tinge to it for cockpit interiors and fittings.

 

IIRC,the trick we used was a 50/50 mix of Airfix or Humbrol "Duck Egg Green"(as it was known way back in the day)and

"Interior Grey Green" colours.

That produced a pretty good approximation of Supermarine's "own" cockpit colour.

Research also threw up that forr'ard and aft of the cockpit was quite often done in a silver dope,this also carried through onto the

engine cowlings.

[224 Peter]

Hi Dave, 

 

thanks for your feedback. I think your description of the interior colour is spot on. 

 

I don't know quite where on the Spitfire this part came from, based on the camouflaged part it has been suggested that the lighter grey could have been a code letter, rather than the under surface. Given the A/C only carried a single letter I'm not convinced. 

The sheet is quite thick, 2.5 to 4mm, which is thicker than the basic monocoque. I'm temped to think it could have been somewhere near the tail wheel. 

 

It is interesting that most, if not all of the Griffin engined Spitfires were built in the Wiltshire shadow factories, including in Salisbury, where I live. 

Recent research has confirmed that more than 10,000 aircraft were built in Wiltshire between 1920 and 1980. The uncertainty is that no records appear to exist of the number of Short Stirlings built at the Swindon factory, before it switched to Spitfires. 

 

Peter 

[russ c]

Superb Spitfire there, really nice work

[MattSimps74]

Super Jonners that’s a cracker. I’m going to give the Galeria Matt a go when it comes to it on my one (still priming atm🙄!) luvvly!

[ArmouredSprue]

It looks really good despite all negative comments over the net.

Cheers

[Baldy]

Nice Spitfire Jonners - Looks very neat - I will buy a couple myself despite the negatives expressed elsewhere. I hope that Airfix will do a high back version too but I was told by the Airfixers at Telford that it is not planned at present.

 

Cheers

 

Malcolm

[F-32]

Quality build as always, first rate work