Pre-war spitfire roundels

[MarkusOZ]

Hi Guys 

 

I'm looking to build the Tamiya spitfire as K9906 

 

I was looking at this picture, and a few things have got to me. So i have some questions. 

 

 

1. Were the original roundels on the wing and fuselage over painted? I can clearly see repainting on all the aircraft around the fuselage roundel, does this mean the ones on the wings would show similar darkening/ lightening of the paint in these areas?

 

2. The second aircraft in the formation appears to have under-wing roundels or is this an optical illusion of some type. Would K9906 be likely to have these? 

 

3. Near the gun ports you can see some light areas. Would these be tape coverings, chipping or chipping caused by pulling off tape coverings?

 

Other things in this picture, The 3 aircraft in the back ground all have darker paint under the cowling, are these painted with the black/white under surfaces? Change of camouflage pattern type too. And the second aircraft seems to have a replacement panel on the front wing fairing. 

 

Looking forward to your responses. I'm looking forward to building this plane, it appears to have a fair bit of weathering going on for a pre-war spitfire. 

 

Mark

Edited September 15, 2019 by MarkusOZ
mistake

[Work In Progress]

When you say you want to model K9906 the first thing is to be aware that, like most pre-war delivery Spitfires, its appearance changed substantially over a short period. So the question is on what date you wish to represent it? For now I shall assume you want to model it on this particular date in 1939 as seen in this specific photograph.

 

1. Were the original roundels on the wing and fuselage over painted?

Yes

I can clearly see repainting on all the aircraft around the fuselage roundel, does this mean the ones on the wings would show similar darkening/ lightening of the paint in these areas?

Yes. new camouflage paint applied over the areas previously occupied by the larger A1 type roundels

 

2. The second aircraft in the formation appears to have under-wing roundels or is this an optical illusion of some type. Would K9906 be likely to have these? 

The second aircraft does have under-wing roundels. K9906 (the first aeroplane) did at some points of its life, and not at other points. It's quite likely that it did on this date in 1939.

 

3. Near the gun ports you can see some light areas. Would these be tape coverings, chipping or chipping caused by pulling off tape coverings?

Early aircraft have metal flash hiders at the end of the barrels which  protrude on the outer four guns. They were supplied with some kind of muzzle covers. There is no tape covering over the painted part of the wing at this stage, so nothing to pull the paint off, but there might be factory covers over the gun muzzles or some locally devised equivalent. See this thread:

 

The 3 aircraft in the back ground all have darker paint under the cowling, are these painted with the black/white under surfaces?

Yes.

 

Change of camouflage pattern type too.

Yes.  Some are A-pattern, some are B-pattern, which is a mirror image of A-pattern. More here:

 

And the second aircraft seems to have a replacement panel on the front wing fairing. 

Yes.  They started damaging and repairing Spitfires very quickly once they got them into service. 

 

it appears to have a fair bit of weathering going on for a pre-war spitfire. 

I wouldnt describe it as heavily weathered - it's just filthy dirty - the normal grime of daily ops with oil and fuel freely sprinkled here and there and moved around by people's hands and feet and the airflow. With a few hours' proper post-flight care it would probably scrub up just fine, just like a newish car after a 1000 mile road trip.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Work In Progress

[MarkusOZ]

Thanks for the info guys.

 

I'd done some reading but was getting very confused!! There's a lot going on on those early spitfires

[RJP]

It's worth knowing that K9906 was a very early example, only the 119th produced.  Note the early pitot and clear vision panel.  It also means the colour scheme was the initial delivery scheme - aluminium undersurfaces and roundels - and variations were applied in service not at the factory.  Here is a link to an excellent basic account of how the scheme and roundels evolved:

 

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Modeling-References/Camoflage-Markings/01-Supermarine-Spitfire