Spitfire Mk.1 - No Aerial Mast?

[Johnson]

A very well known photo of LO-B 'Bogus' of 602 Sqn;

 

 

What I never noticed before is that the aerial mast appears to be missing. Any explanations?

[Ray_W]

1 minute ago, Johnson said:

Any explanations?

 

I had to laugh Charlie, would you trust a photo with an aircraft named "bogus". 

 

And now seriously, my initial thought was war time censor removing the aerial on an early TR 1133 installation.

 

Ray

[Johnson]

I wasn't actually looking at the mast, but when I noticed it was missing I did a double take and had to think about where it usually was!

 

1 hour ago, Ray_W said:

And now seriously, my initial thought was war time censor removing the aerial on an early TR 1133 installation.

 

That's a good suggestion Ray but the photo was almost certainly taken before May 1940 when the yellow outer ring was added to the type A fuselage roundel. That would make it a bit early for the TR 1133 which was trialed May-June 1940 and didn't see widespread introduction until Sep 40.

 

But this is all a bit academic...

 

The photo above is from the Asisbiz collection, usually an excellent source, but not this time. Not only is the title of the photo a bit up the creek, but the photo appears to have been doctored! A bit more internet research told me that the photo was from the IWM collection, and here's the original;

 

 

Spitfire Mk Is of 'A' Flight, No. 602 Squadron running up their engines at Drem in Scotland, March 1940. The foreground aircraft has the name 'Bogus' painted beneath the cockpit.

 

Mystery solved!

 

And another photo, probably taken about the same time, for anyone who might just be interested in LO-B 'BOGUS' from the Ducimus Camouflage and Markings book;

 

 

And Goulding and Jones got the Sqn wrong! 

 

If anyone knows the serial number, can they let me know?

 

Cheers,

 

[Ray_W]

6 minutes ago, Johnson said:

but the photo appears to have been doctored!

 

So I suppose my first statement was, in fact, correct.  Never trust a photo with an aircraft named "bogus". 🤪

[Rob Henderson]

On 3/27/2021 at 3:59 PM, Johnson said:

If anyone knows the serial number, can they let me know?

 

Cheers,

 

Interesting photos! I'm after the serial number of 'Bogus' too as I've just recovered my 30+ year old 24th Airfix build from the attic, and I'm looking to do a strip and rebuild. I understand it was involved in the combat that saw the first Luftwaffe casualties to fall over the UK in while flying operationally from Drem in Scotland during 1939, so I hope that *may* help to limit potential candidates/production batches....?

[gingerbob]

I can give you a bogus serial number! 

 

 

Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week, folks...

[Johnson]

9 minutes ago, gingerbob said:

Thank you, thank you,

Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Next!

[Johnson]

38 minutes ago, Rob Henderson said:

I've just recovered my 30+ year old 24th Airfix build from the attic, and I'm looking to do a strip and rebuild.

Excellent, well done Rob. Will you be putting your resto in a WIP thread?

[Rob Henderson]

10 minutes ago, Johnson said:

Excellent, well done Rob. Will you be putting your resto in a WIP thread?

Definitely - I've got a second 24th MkIa unstarted in the stash (but shot decals through water damage) that I picked up a few years back for silly money, so my plan is I'll be doing them both side by side giving me both 602's 'Bogus' and Al Deere's 'Kiwi' 😎

[Seawinder]

I'm interested in the apparent small size of the wing roundels shown in the second photo.

[Johnson]

54 minutes ago, Seawinder said:

I'm interested in the apparent small size of the wing roundels shown in the second photo.

They are unusual. An alteration to the previous 56" A.1 roundel by painting out the yellow outer ring and filling the white with blue to create a much less visible B type.

 

 

If you think that was unusual/interesting how about;

 

 

15" diameter type B fuselage roundel.

 

(both pics from the Ducimus Camouflage and Markings book - for study purposes)

[Rob Henderson]

4 hours ago, Johnson said:

Excellent, well done Rob. Will you be putting your resto in a WIP thread?

If you're curious, I've now posted up the first lot of photos with a bit of background info to the project 😀👍

[Johnson]

Back to the subject, LO-B without the aerial mast, I see that Eduard are depicting it without the mast in their new 1/48 'Spitfire Mk. I early' kit 82152. Possibly they've been looking at the wrong photo as well!