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1/32 Spitfire PR.IV (Hobbyboss w/Tamiya engine?) Alistair McDonald's AA783, lost March 13th, 1942


elger

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Starting this topic today because it's the 79th anniversary of the incident in which Alistair McDonald was shot down in Spitfire PR.IV AA783 just outside of Leeuwarden - on March 13th, 1942.

 

All the information that I have about this comes from http://www.626-squadron.co.uk/willem3.htm. Slightly edited text from that page:


Pilot Officer Alistair Thompson McDonald from No.1 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit took off in Spitfire AA783 on 13th March 1942 from RAF Benson, S.E. of Oxford,  on a long distance daylight ‘spy operation’ with two vertically mounted photo cameras aboard. He was in service with 1 PRU from 30 August 1941 (first as a Sergeant). He is said to have had a ‘mixed reputation’, because he was, according to other personnel, a ‘hell of a pilot and a craggy little Scot‘.

 

On March 13th 1942 the weather was fine with clear visibility; more than 10 hours of sunshine were recorded. The unarmed Spitfire stayed at medium and high altitude, crossing snowy and icy Dutch Friesland, heading into occupied Northern Holland, and on to Northwest Germany and the naval base at Wilhelmshaven, tasked with photographing Kriegsmarine vessels in the harbour.

 

On his way back, McDonald was intercepted by Fw. Ernst Winkler who had been 'alarm-started' from Leeuwarden airfield, flying a Messerschmitt 109F. Although ‘unluckily surprised’, during the sudden interception and by the local heavy enemy gunfire, the Spitfire pilot bailed out successfully in the last minutes before the aircraft crashed.

 

Soon after landing he was picked up near a farmhouse on the Stienser village side of the local canal, named ‘Stienser Vaart’ - and made a POW. It had all happened in broad daylight close to the Luftwaffe air base at Leeuwarden, with all the personnel alerted when the burning Spitfire shot downwards like a comet.

 

fERAGq1.jpg

 

After some intense interrogations Alistair was taken to the Stalag Luft III Prisoner of War camp in Sagan (today in Poland). While there he took part in the 'Great Escape' via the tunnel ‘Harry’ on the 24th of March 1944  being the 73rd man to gain freedom. He was unfortunately recaptured after a few days.  During miserable snowy weather conditions and without food and adequate sleep, he became hungry, very cold and disorientated. Soaked to the skin and extremely weak, he was found by local ‘home guardsmen’, who took him to the nearest police station. Alistair McDonald was very lucky - he survived. 50 of his fellow escapees were subsequently murdered.

 

They were all imprisoned in one cell at Görlitz for a time. History relates: ‘On April 2 (1944), officers from the Luftwaffe showed up to escort 4 prisoners back to the camp (Sagan). For what ever strange reasoning dictated who would live and who would die, Flight Lieutenants Alfred Keith ‘Skeets’ Ogilvie (Canada), Alistair Thompson McDonald (Scotland), Alfred Burke Thompson (Canada) and Paul Gordon Royle (Australia) were deemed worthy of survival’

 

While imprisoned in Poland, Alistair McDonald was promoted to Flying Officer on the 24th of December 1942, and to Flight Lieutenant one year later. After the war he lived in Edinburgh, were he died in 1965.

 

-----

 

I had a Tamiya single-stage Rolls-Royce Merlin engine left over from when I added an Eduard Brassin engine to my Mosquito IV some years ago, and had been thinking about a model I could add it it to. When I learned about this incident of a PRU-Spitfire, combined with my irrational affection for the Hobbyboss Spitfire V kit, the choice was made. While the Mosquito Merlin engine I had left over is not a Merlin 45, with its single-stage compressor unit it comes closer to resembling one than the two-stage Merlin that Tamiya's Spitfire VIIIs and IXs comes with, and it's definitely much nicer than what comes in the Hobbyboss kit. I intend to write more about that later and post some more photos, but for now on the 79th anniversary of the crash of AA783 a photo of what I've been working on so far.

 

9MgD5bl.jpg

 

The engine framing on the Hobbyboss kit is rather heavy, and there's also too much of it - I've removed quite a few unnecessary bits. I'm also modifying the firewall, including moving it just a bit forward. I'm also planning to write more about this, but I've also sanded the upper front fuselage of the kit a bit more round following the shape of the Tamiya kit, which I hope will make the Hobbyboss model kit look a bit less boxy.

 

Why not the Revell I/II kit, Elger? Well, I've built it before and frankly I don't want to deal with its surface detail again. And it has tons of flaws as well. There's lots of things wrong with the Hobbyboss kit, but its surface detail and overall fit is superb. And as I said, I have an irrational affection for this kit.

 

Finally, I wanted to mention that I've been in touch with some of the people who are currently restoring Spitfire AA810; a PRU Spitfire IV which was lost at just around the same time as my subject. Its pilot, Alastair 'Sandy' Gunn, another Scotsman, was also taken prisoner, also took part in The Great Escape, but was murdered by the Gestapo after being recaptured.

 

You can read all about their project here: https://www.spitfireaa810.co.uk/ ; I've adopted Alistar McDonald's name for their "For Those Who Served" campaign.

 

S8tLVhw.jpg

 

They've been really helpful in sorting out some detail questions about the mk.IV. I've also been in touch with @DOD who is preparing a build of Spitfire AA810. We've both been surprised about how little is known about this variant, the IV, which is after all the first factory-built photo-reconnaissance variant of the Spitfire but is much more of a mystery than the XI and XIX.

 

Will post more of my build as it goes on, but I've got the feeling this one might take a while :)

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A really interesting story, will make a nice project. 

 

I don't think your love for the HB Vb is irrational at all, it's a nice enough kit! They can't all be Tamiya, and the less wealthy need models to build as well 😉

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A lovely project and tribute,  I can see why you like the HB kit   the fit is fantastic and smooth, I enjoyed the assembly of the kit, however could not live with fuselage spine and had to correct it and their cockpit detail is wierd as some is squashed.  Fortunately the Revell MKII  bits fitted too so was cheaper than buying aftermarket and you get a spare wings and fuselage too, win win.

Good luck with your fantastic project.

Chris

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm continuing tinkering away with the model. I'm fitting an Eduard Brassin cockpit to the Hobbyboss kit. The set for the Revell Mk.II is reasonably accurate for a Mk.IV. There are some big differences between the Revell fuselage and the Hobbyboss one, making it necessary to make some modifications. The first is that the Hobbyboss kit is about 2 mm shorter and this shortness becomes apparent when you try to fit this cockpit intended for the Revell kit (Revell being more accurate). I shortened the Eduard pieces by cutting 2 mm just behind frame #11 (the frame where the seat is mounted to) and then supergluing them back together. I also cut off the complete upper half of the resin side wall pieces, because none of the equipment featured there was on the mk.IV, and that made them also easier to fit. To facilitate fit, I also added a strip of styrene to the sidewall, as well as some other elements. Finally, I added some Archer rivet decals for more texture. Here's the result so far, with a spare original kit fuselage and the modified one:

 

gefIPIq.jpg

 

The frames/bulkheads also needed some modification. Frame #8 will receive a Yahu instruments panel. Frame #11 needed some wider shoulders, which I added with some layers of strip styrene. Frame #12 is a hybrid of Eduard resin at the bottom and the kit part on top. I drilled out the holes in the kit part.

 

bKIGcRQ.jpg

 

And I'm really enjoying scratchbuilding the PR equipment such as this camera control box that will go in place of the gun sight. It's a block of styrene with spare photoetch pieces, as well as 3d printed switches from Anyz.

 

wG5Htwj.jpg

 

Plodding along - thanks for looking, comments are always welcome.

 

 

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6 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Great work on sorting out the abysmal Hobbyboss cockpit interior details looking so much better .  Is the 2mm difference because of their rounded fuselage spine ?

Cracking work

Chris

 

No I don't think so - the fuselage is just a bit shorter overall than Revell and Tamiya (but similar to Hasegawa). The rounded spine does look a bit strange, but I hope that an open canopy will hide it. I don't think it's too low, by the way; that roundness comes from the fuselage being a bit too fat at the shoulders as it were.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Continuing work on the cockpit. I modified the Yahu mk.V instruments panel to make it resemble that of a mk.IV. Took a breath and added more holes by carefully drilling through the brass. I used Airscale photoetched instrument bezels, and the Eduard cockpit set I'm using comes with duplicate decals which came in handy especially for the two gauges for the fuel tanks, on the bottom right.

 

BHHE33B.jpg

 

The modified Eduard resin sidewalls and main section received a coat of primer...

 

z3qfy8H.jpg

 

...as well as the starboard sidewall. I added a lever that operates the 'mud flaps' which can be seen in a diagram of the PR.XI cockpit, assuming that the IV would have been fitted with a same contraption. Made it out of spare parts. Also added an oxygen hose and some other bits that are on PR variants.

 

uDBEqCH.jpg

 

The port side has the camera window in the hatch, and additional gauges in front of the cockpit door.

 

33C8ePg.jpg

 

Looking forward to putting some paint on all this!

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Great progress on a interesting project.Chris has pointed out the main issues with the kit but it's still a lovely build and look's every part a Spitfire.

just built one and plan another soon.

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Nice work going on here, I built two Hobbyboss Spitfire V's a while back and thoroughly enjoyed the experience so no apologies necessary, they may not be Tamiya but they are nice to build.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

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Finished the cockpit today - here are some photos.  Everything painted with Spanish acrylics (Mig Ammo, Vallejo) and metallics from Games Workshop. Here is frame 11 with the seat. This is all from the Eduard Brassin set (but the frame was slightly widened so that it would fit the Hobbyboss fuselage)

 

IP2JOgu.jpg

 

Port cockpit side, with additional instruments in front of the side door. Decals from the Eduard set and additional ones from Airscale.

 

RZ3O8r4.jpg

 

Starboard cockpit side, with additional equipment. According to the people restoring Spitfire AA810, it was fitted with 2 oxygen bottles in the fuselage and 2 in the wing. The exact configuration is unknown at this point, so I just mirrored the compressed air bottles on the opposite side:

 

PXJrYte.jpg

 

The floor unit and frame 8 before fitting the instruments panel

 

5ysK7iT.jpg

 

The re-assembled Yahu instruments panel with my home made camera operating box. The instruments panel also has 3d switches from Anyz.

 

SGNdkDi.jpg

 

So, moment of truth: will the modified resin set intended for Revell fit Hobbyboss?

 

zkmgAs5.jpg

 

Looks like it!

 

lqZVTDv.jpg

 

HgdIyrI.jpg

 

EqcxOod.jpg

 

IJefNJa.jpg

 

Now back to the engine - I was waiting for some new rivet decals from Archer to arrive and they did. Thanks for looking!

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm continuing the build by working on the engine compartment. However, one of the first things that I did in this build almost before I did anything else was reshape the upper fuselage area between the engine and the windscreen. Even if you don't do anything else with the Hobbyboss kit other than building it OBB I highly recommend sanding this area more round. There's plenty of plastic to work with, and I feel that by doing this you greatly reduce that boxy appearance of the kit. I hope this picture shows the difference:

 

WbmCUsq.jpg

 

Also notice that I've removed the lower area of the fuselage parts; Hobbyboss adds a false floor which needs to be removed to have any hopes of fitting the Tamiya Mosquito engine.

 

Over the last few weeks I've been working on the firewall. I started out with the Hobbyboss part, but removed all of its detail and then replaced this with scratchbuilt items, and the spare Spitfire IX parts you get with the Tamiya Mosquito engine. I based the configuration on reference photos of the V, assuming that the IV would be similar. Rivets from Archer.

 

H4LN2zM.jpg

 

wUyg3fu.jpg

 

A great reference for this has been UK Aircraft Explored's YouTube channel:

 

 

ugKXkJX.jpg

 

The work so far compared to that leftover unmodified fuselage half:

 

3cz43VU.jpg

 

With the modified firewall, the Hobbyboss engine bearers won't fit (and they don't fit the Tamiya Merlin anyway) so I've worked out how I can modify the Tamiya Mosquito engine bearers so that they resemble the ones fitted to Spitfires.

 

c2bOskK.jpg

 

Working on the coolant and oil pipes next, then moving on to the actual engine. Thanks for looking - feedback is always welcome!

 

 

 

 

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22 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

The firewall you have created looks awesome,  cracking job . Have you thinned down the cowling fastening panels ?

Chris 

 

I haven't thought about that to be honest - I think I'm going to leave them off (except for the bottom one)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update on my work on the engine. Not even nearly finished, definitely a work in progress at this point. One thing I did was make an ignition harness:

 

yRI1tay.jpg

 

Slowly but surely adding wires and plumbing as I try to make something resembling a Merlin 46 out of Tamiya's Merlin 25.

 

4D948lN.jpg

 

As I'm moving forward, what I'm most surprised by quite frankly is how well this kitbashed engine simply fits in the Hobbyboss fuselage once some excessive material is removed (like the false floor at the back). The engine Hobbyboss provides is not great - but the engine block itself has basically (very basically) the right dimensions, but the compressor unit is really underscale.

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