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Supermarine Twin Spitfire PR.II - conversion


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Here is the second kit of my Twin Spitfire project which has kept me busy these past two months and my personal favourite:

 

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Supermarine Twin Spitfire PR.II
"T" of RAF No 541 Sqn based in the UK during summer 1945. The first prototypes of the Twin Spitfire didn't take long to show the potential of the design and requests were immediately made for a photo-recce variant but with some changes with respect to the planned initial fighter configuration. The most notable was the cockpit on the starboard side mainly for navigation although both crew members would end up being pilots, and the outer tailplanes which improved flight at high altitude. Due to the high degree of communality with the standard Spitfire F.XIVe, the changes were easy to make. The loss of extra fuel tanks in the starboard fuselage was compensated by extra tanks in the weapons section of the central main wing since the variant was unarmed. Various external tanks were tested and the type could actually carry up to three but a fortuitous event when one Twin Spitfire was fitted with a P-47's belly tank revealed this to offer the best performance and so this became the usual fit.
The PR.II actually entered service before the F.I when three machines joined 541 Sqn in April 1945. The type's exceptional performance combined with its array of 6 cameras (4 vertical and two sideways (on opposite sides)) made it a formidable photo-recce asset, eluding the Luftwaffe with complete impunity until early 1946.

 

For more general information of this project please see the first post (if you haven't already):

 

It's a conversion using two Mark I Models 1:144 Spitfire XIV/XVIIIs and adding the central main and tail wings. Otherwise the build was mostly OOB.

I opened up the camera ports and glazed them with Kristal Klear. I made the whip antenna and underwing pitot from stretched sprue.

I scratchbuilt a pylon and used a drop tank from a Platz P-47 kit as it was the only one I had available that looked right.

The decals came from various sources and the kit was fully painted and varnished by brush.

 

Personally, I think this one looks fantastic and it came out much better than I imagined.

 

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Many thanks for looking and all comments a welcome

Miguel

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22 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

It's very good in so many ways. Good modelling in the small scale. A good idea, well told. It made me smile anyway.

 

22 hours ago, Mike said:

Quite believable.  A short fetish, but it gave us a twin Mustang, a twin Bf.109 and loads of others.

 

Thanks a lot!

Miguel

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41 minutes ago, Dennis_C said:

Looks fantastic indeed! A Griffon Spitfire with bubble top in PRU blue paint. What can look wrong? Love it a lot!

 

Indeed!! Maybe that's why it's my favourite of the three. Thank you very much and glad you like it.

Miguel

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21 hours ago, binbrook87 said:

I missed this one Miguel. This has to be my favourite of all of your twin builds. It just looks so right! Fantastic job on the conversion work and the PRU paintwork really sets it off perfectly. Just great! 👍👍

 

Absolutely!! As I said, it's my favourite too. Thank you very much.

 

20 hours ago, Wulfman said:

A beautiful whif, great build !

 

Wulfman

Thank you very much!

 

Miguel

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