The last for 2020: Israel's Independence War Spitfire

[Giorgio N]

The last of the few models I completed in 2020 is this 1/72 Spitfire Mk.IXc built from the Hasegawa kit: one of the aircraft used by Israel during the wasr for independence in 1948, in particular "14" of 101 "First Fighter Squadron".

The kit had to be modified to a C wing by removing the bulges above the cannon position and those over the wheel wells. New cannon bulges came from a spare set in a Sword Mk.Vc kit while the new gun barrel fairings came from spares in the Eduard Spitfire IXc box. The canopy was modified in the rear section to make it a proper non-pressurised Spit canopy, as Hasegawa have for some reason made the rearmost section too deep, as in the pressurised Mk.VII. The model was meant to be built for this year Spitfire STGB, but as often happens it was not finished in time. Some steps in the construction can be seen here:

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235072687-israels-mkixe-from-the-172-hasegawa-kit/&tab=comments#comment-3696790

As you can see, the cocpit received some detail but nothing major.

 

Decals came mostly from the ADS "Middle East Spitfire 1948" sheet although I had to add the blue edge around the fuselage roundels. The ADS decals were very brittle and a bit too transparent. for this reason the roundels were placed om white circles cut from white decal paper. The number "14" on both sides was cut directly from white decal paper.

Paints were my usual mix of Vallejo (upper surfaces) and Lifecolor (lower) acrylics.

Unfortunately I had problems with the masks on the canopy and had primer creeping under the masks, so the edges of the canopy frames are a bit messy... a pity as the rest of the model was not bad... in any case, this model will now join the other "foreign" Spitfires that I built from the inaccurate but relaxing to build Hasegawa kit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS: one day I'll find the way to resize the pictures on Village Photos... the pictures here are way larger than the model...

 

 

 

 

 

[Stew Dapple]

Very nice job Giorgio  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Team Aer Lingus]

That's a real looker Giorgio very nicely finished 

 

thanks for sharing

 

regards

 

Eamonn

[swralph]

Very nice build Giorgio.😀

[Natter]

Another Israeli Spitfire appears on Britmodeller.  Excellent, you can't have too many.  Lovely model.

[Big Dave S]

Nice & tidy. Good job.

[SAT69]

Well done! I see nothing to be critical of.

[giemme]

Great job, G  - beautifully painted!  this could easily be taken for a 1/48 scale  

 

Ciao

[Ron Pearcy]

Corker.

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Nicely done!  These were ex-Czech AF, right?

[Dennis_C]

Hi Giorgio, a very nice Spitfire especially taking into account the job needed to convert it to the right variant!

The only question  - I guess this mk.IX has the E wing (which you actually modelled) rather than C wing.

[Giorgio N]

Thanks everybody. glad you like it !

 

2 hours ago, TheyJammedKenny! said:

Nicely done!  These were ex-Czech AF, right?

 

Yes, this is one of the ex Czech machines, that were themselves ex RAF aircraft. Israel later received former Italian aircraft (that were also former RAF aircraft) but these arrived after the war.

 

1 hour ago, Dennis_C said:

Hi Giorgio, a very nice Spitfire especially taking into account the job needed to convert it to the right variant!

The only question  - I guess this mk.IX has the E wing (which you actually modelled) rather than C wing.

 

Yes, this aircraft, as all the former Czech Spitfires, was a late build Spit IX, so with E wing. Since the Hasegawa 1/72 Spit IX only features the C wing, using this means having to modify this aspect. The kit is also moulded with the late war/postwar bulges over the wheel wells that must be eliminated for a standard wartime Spitfire IXc