Supermarine Spitfire Mk.I R6623 from 64 Squadron flown by F/Sgnt Jack Mann, RAF Kenley 12 of August 1940

[Basilisk]

When opening my Eduard Spitfire Mk.I kit which I received today, I just have to get it built and there is no better place than doing it in this GB

 

But I will build it as a Mk.IIa as the blunt spinner and Rotol propeller are in the kit and I only have to make the small bulge for the Coffman starter. Now there aren't too many pictures of Mk.IIs during the Battle of Britain. But one scheme I always wanted to do is the mount flown by Flight Lieutenant Charles Green, Commanding Officer 421 Flight out of RAF Hawkinge, Kent during November 1940.

 

I will NOT build this Spitfire as it was pointed out, November 1940 is after the BOB. See post seven for more information on the Aircraft I build instead.

 

421 Flight was formed for the purpose of tracking and reporting on incoming raids approaching the UK. The Flight's aircraft retained the LZ code of 66 Squadron from whom it was formed, but added an additional small dash between the two letters, hence the reference to this aircraft as L-Z-I.

 

Having originally served as part of dive testing at RAE Farnborough and then as L-Z-I as represented here, P7531 was passed to 91 Squadron in January 1941 when 421 Flight was expanded to become a full Squadron.

 

Unfortunately only a rather poor picture exists of P7531.

 

And the cover of the Eduard kit.

I intend to build the kit OOB with resin exhausts and wheels and a fabric harness and maybe a Yahu IP.

 

Cheers, Peter

Edited August 7, 2020 by Basilisk

[franky boy]

Good stuff Peter

 

Mines in the post so I’ll follow along with your build. 
 

Thanks

 

James

[Retired Bob]

22 hours ago, Basilisk said:

But I will build it as a Mk.IIa as the blunt spinner and Rotol propeller are in the kit and I only have to make the small bulge for the Coffman starter. Now there aren't too many pictures of Mk.IIs during the Battle of Britain. But one scheme I always wanted to do is the mount flown by Flight Lieutenant Charles Green, Commanding Officer 421 Flight out of RAF Hawkinge, Kent during November 1940.

Hi Peter, hope you are well.  Having just got my hands on this kit you will need more than a Coffman starter bulge (the Eduard Mk.VIII & IX kits have a similar bulge for the early Mk.IX if you have one of either in the stash)  I'm afraid they only put the early hand pumped hydraulic undercarriage selector in this kit, I have a spare one from the Tamiya Spitfire for my September 1940 BoB Spitfire.  I looked at the plans and thought, ok that's fine for the early Spitfire, but what about later ones?  I think someone at Eduard should have read Britmodellers Spitfire information pages. 

[Basilisk]

21 hours ago, franky boy said:

Good stuff Peter

 

Mines in the post so I’ll follow along with your build. 
 

Thanks

 

James

Indeed, and I guess more of the Eduard kit build will show up in this GB.

 

18 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

Hi Peter, hope you are well.  Having just got my hands on this kit you will need more than a Coffman starter bulge (the Eduard Mk.VIII & IX kits have a similar bulge for the early Mk.IX if you have one of either in the stash)  I'm afraid they only put the early hand pumped hydraulic undercarriage selector in this kit, I have a spare one from the Tamiya Spitfire for my September 1940 BoB Spitfire.  I looked at the plans and thought, ok that's fine for the early Spitfire, but what about later ones?  I think someone at Eduard should have read Britmodellers Spitfire information pages. 

I did notice that Eduard only has the hand pumped hydraulic undercarriage selector in the kit when preparing the parts and I too intend to use the spare from the Tamiya kit. Also the rivets on the wing leading panels can do with some filler as on the real Spitfire.

 

I wouldn't be surprised I come across some other issues during the build.

Cheers, Peter

[Retired Bob]

12 minutes ago, Basilisk said:

 Also the rivets on the wing leading panels can do with some filler as on the real Spitfire.

I did fill the rivet divots on the wing leading edge back to the mainspar on my Mk.IXs as per the real aircraft, not sure if they had time to do that on a Mk.I.  I'm not that keen on these deep countersunk "rivets", in reality that is just the hole.  I did compare the Eduard wing to the Tamiya one and I will have to wait to get paint on them to get a true comparison.  Whatever the final result, you can never have enough Spitfires. 

[lasermonkey]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think that this aircraft is just outside the groupbuild timeframe of 10/07/40 - 31/10/40 as it wasn't delivered to No. 421 Flt until 08/11/40 (or 09/11/40, depending on who's right). Please don't think I'm being an interfering busybody (at least I hope I'm not!) as I'd love to see this aeroplane being built, but it would be a shame for you to get too far in and then be told it's ineligible. Sorry.

Ugh. I feel rotten now.

 

Best regards,

Mark.

[Basilisk]

19 hours ago, lasermonkey said:

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think that this aircraft is just outside the groupbuild timeframe of 10/07/40 - 31/10/40 as it wasn't delivered to No. 421 Flt until 08/11/40 (or 09/11/40, depending on who's right). Please don't think I'm being an interfering busybody (at least I hope I'm not!) as I'd love to see this aeroplane being built, but it would be a shame for you to get too far in and then be told it's ineligible. Sorry.

Ugh. I feel rotten now.

 

Best regards,

Mark.

You are a interfering busybody - Just kidding For whatever reason, I had the end of November in my mind, so you are correct in pointing out that this aircraft is just outside the BOB period

 

Unfortunately most BOB Spitfire have not very interesting marking options compared to Spitfire prior the BOB and even after. But not all is lost as I found something a bit unusual on the excellent fündecals on early Spitfires. So I now build R6623 from 64 Squadron flown by Flight Sergeant Jack Mann, RAF Kenley 12 of August 1940

 

 

 

This is what fündecals has to say about this aircraft: "R6623 has absolutely the most bizarre fuselage roundels and fin flashes we have seen yet! Both are painted in multiples of 4 1/2'' The center spot is 9" and the rest of the rings are 4 1/2'' widths. giving an overall diameter of 36". The fin flash is also 4 1/2'' stripes. We have never seen this on any other Spitfire. but it was simple to verify using known dimensions from the photos on the following pages.

 

We're not 100% certain. but we believe this is Flight Seargent Jack Mann. He flew R6623 on 12 August when he shot down a Bf 109E and again the 14th when he damaged another. We are at a complete loss to explain SH-Q's odd roundel and fin flash colors. We admit to having missed that detail when we did the art - the odd proportions attracted our attention. But they are clearly a lighter color of blue than the companion aircraft in the background.

 

This was the 712th Spitfire built, delivered on 22 May 1940. She is very much a standard looking aircraft with the exception of the rear view mirror as noted above. Her lower surfaces were painted Sky. most likely obliterating all stencil data. This aircraft survived the Battle of Britain to eventually become an advanced trainer. and was lost in a mid-air collision in 1944."

 

To me it looks the person who repainted the markings on this Spitfire repainted previously Hurricanes using paint used on Gloster build Hurricanes!

 

Cheers, Peter

[lasermonkey]

@Basilisk yeah, sorry about that, but if it helps, I think your latest choice is even better! I have a soft spot for No. 64 Sqn and especially those strangely-marked aircraft. Some time ago, I chanced upon the Pathé newsreel of Nos. 64 and 615 Squadrons at Kenley, having tried and failed to find  decent pics of No. 64's Spitfires during the BoB. After watching it a few times, I realised there was something interesting going on, so I did a load of screengrabs and posted them online.

 

Reviewing the screengrabs, I realised that at least two of the Spitfires had oddly-painted fuselage roundels and fin flashes, the blue being noticeably lighter than that of the other aircraft and I remember asking about in on here. The Fündekals came later and while I can't claim that they saw my screengrabs, it was me that pointed out the odd roundel colours. One thing I'm not sure they have got right is the individual aircraft code, the Q being notably smaller than the SH. I've seen this on other 64 Sqn Spits too. Still, not much can be done about that, given the unique style of character. And I won't tell anyone if you don't!

 

I still feel somewhat aggrieved that they haven't seen fit to issue the decals in 1/72!

 

Cheers,

Mark.

[Basilisk]

1 hour ago, lasermonkey said:

One thing I'm not sure they have got right is the individual aircraft code, the Q being notably smaller than the SH. I've seen this on other 64 Sqn Spits too. Still, not much can be done about that, given the unique style of character. And I won't tell anyone if you don't!

Thanks Mark for this great info and I did find your mentioned post on Britmodeller which makes interesting reading.

 

Also many thanks to point out the smaller Q which is indeed noticeable smaller than the Squadron code! As I won't use the decals for this build as I prefer to paint the markings with masks (as I did on my 75th anniversary BOB build)  I hope I have no problem to represent the correctly sized Q

 

Looks much better than decals I think.

 

That is if I actually manage to finish the build and my track record is miserable in this regards

Cheers, Peter

[lasermonkey]

Those painted on codes look great! I hope you do manage to finish this one, as I can't imagine it will be anything less than brilliant, if those photos above are anything to go by.

 

Cheers,

Mark.

[Basilisk]

I had a closer look and compared the kit with the Tamiya and Airfix offering. Scale wise there is basically no difference between the three in length and wing span and the nose shape looks much better than the Tamiya version. Looks to me this kit is the new leader of early version Spitfires in 1/48 scale as it offers lots of alternative parts to build all the Mk.Is It is also the first kit containing the metal seat and it can be built with and without leather covering on the seat back.

 

But It is surprising that with all the alternative parts on offer the kit only comes with the early hand pumped hydraulic undercarriage selector and not the later automated version which would have been fitted to most BoB Spitfires.

 

Like with most kit, construction starts with the cockpit and the Eduard cockpit is a beauty containing lots of delicate parts.

I don't like "tub" stile  cockpit constructions so I assemble the parts the conventional way which in my view makes adding scratch parts and painting much easier.

 

The kit comes with the head armor as a PE part or cast with frame. Unfortunately the PE part is next to useless as it has no holes to attach to the frame and is paper thin. So I decided to use the PE part as a template and make my own from 0.2mm plasticard.

 

The instructions are a bit confusing and contain some errors. Here is the selection of the rear frame options.

Choices are no head armor (R23) casted head armor (R24) or PE head armor (R26) and it is all a bit confusing when it comes to fitting the voltage regulator.

 

Also the wheel well assembly has some mistakes.

Parts R18 and R19 are shown upside down in the instruction and they also have to be swapped as Part R19 is fitted on the right side and not the left as shown (it has a small cutout for the oil radiator casting which is slightly recessed). I know this is nit picking but shouldn't happen.

 

Still a bit more work on the cockpit assembly to be done.

Cheers, Peter

[royk4002]

Although not his usual mount. It’s noteworthy that Irish RAF Ace, Brendan ‘Paddy’ Finucane flew R6623 with 452 Sqn on April 27th 1941. 

[Olmec Head]

It will be very interesting to see your build of the new kit, will you be able to do some more comparisons please with the Tamiya and Airfix kits?  I found your previous review of the Tamiya kit against the Airfix to be excellent and very informative.  To have a comparison across all three kits would be ideal.  Do you still have concerns about the upper nose line for the Eduard kit, or are these allayed now you have the kit in your hands?  

[Ray_W]

On 8/28/2020 at 6:34 PM, Olmec Head said:

Do you still have concerns about the upper nose line for the Eduard kit, or are these allayed now you have the kit in your hands?  

I was of the opinion that any error was subtle but the more I look at the kit and Mk I images I think Peter @Basilisk is correct. I feel there is something also going on with the top cowl cross section. For most it will not matter. However, as I think it can be corrected through material removal, the correction should be relatively easy. As Peter usually has a mass of references and knows this subject well, hopefully, he will be able to clearly define the issues. Irrespective, armed with as many pictures as possible, I will make the change in my build. 

 

Ray