1/72 Eduard Spitfire VIII A58-429 Rima III 452 Squadron RAAF

[Michael louey]

I wasn't really planning on doing yet another Eduard Spitfire VIII so soon however early this year I obtained a new book "Spitfire Pilot" written by John Spence. For those who know a bit about RAAF fighter pilots, they will recognise the name straight away. John is the son of Lou Spence one of the senior pilots in the RAAF in WW2 and the Wing Commander leading 77 Squadron in Korea where he was killed in action.

 

In addition to reading some 1st hand accounts of Lou's experiences in WW2, the book also contained some previously unpublished photos which initiated this build. In the Eduard Aussie 8 book there is reference to multiple experiments in the RAAF Spitfire units to optimise them for their roles in the Pacific. This included upgunning to 4 cannon (i.e. Caldwell's aircraft) or 2 cannon and 2 0.5 cals (Gibbes), adding bomb racks, trying out different fuel mixtures (Trimble) to increase range and clipping the wings to increase roll rate(Gibbes and Spence). The book Spitfire Pilot contains a photo of Rima III while it was modified with the clipped wings. With this photo confirming an airframe modified with the clipped wings, there was enough information to represent this configuration.

 

There are pictures of Rima III in the Eduard book and also decals and painting instructions in the Aussie 8 boxing. The plane is in the repaint scheme of Foliage Green over Sky Blue with White leading edges. The spinner is red as was the preference of Spence for most of his planes.

 

The Eduard kit was assembled pretty much out of box - the wheels were replaced with treaded Barracuda resin whels, a Falcon vac canopy was added and the clipped wingtips from the kit parts was used (Note the actual wingtips were locally made wooden ones which were slightly more squarer than the official ones but I don't think its worth trying to modify the kit ones).

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few extra notes about modelling this air frame - In John Spence's book, there are 2 photos of this plane labelled as Rima II, Lou's Spitfire Vc. One of our club members pointed out this was incorrect as the photo clearly shows a 4 bladed prop and the cockpit/nose photo shows the script Rima III not Rima II which was painted in a different format. The Eduard decals and colour scheme show The codes QY V in stencil style based on a close up of the "V" in one photo but the picture in Spitfire Pilot shows the Q with no stencilling and the pictures of the full plane in both references also show no evidence of stencilling (i.e. gaps in the letters) so it appears the codes were repainted (filled in?) at some stage. I used the codes from a DK decals sheet for Rima II to complete the kit but the rest of the decals are Eduard from the Aussie 8 sheet. Note there are no technical stencils on the airframe other than the propeller blades due to the full repaint. One final point, the codes read QY V on the starboard fuselage rather than V QY as in the Eduard instructions. This is an easy to understand mistake as there were no previous known photos of the starboard side of Rima III and 452 Squadron had planes painted with codes in both formats.

 

Cheers

 

Michael

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Michael louey

[RMCS]

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