Spitfire FR.IX.. no, not the pink ones !

[Giorgio N]

Not sure if I should consider this a question, maybe more of a talking point... anyway, here I was a couple days ago stuck into doing very little by a fastidious but fortunaly short-lived health issue and I was contemplating the stash trying to decide on something for a quick build.

Having a few Eduard Spitfires (a dozen at the moment..) it was not strange that one of them caught my attention and since on my to-do list is an Italian aircraft I started reading througgh some books.

Here I found the story of SM174 and its conversion to a recce aircraft. This was not the only Mk.IX in Italian service to be so converted, there were another few and they were seemingly used to spy on Jugoslavia in the late '40s. These aircraft did not simply feature the oblique camera in the radio hatch, like the well known pink FR.IXs of 16 Sqn, they received two vertical F.24 camers, like in the proper PR variants. This means that such modification was possible without much trouble and brings me to my first "question"... was this something possible from the beginning ? Was the Mk.IX fuselage already equipped to be converted for such missions ?

These converted aircraft featured ventral openings for the camera lenses of course but also a new door on the starboard side of the fuselage.. exactly like the PR.XIs and other PR variants, that makes me think that even if the Italian technicians did the work on their own they may have followed a somewhat "standard" procedure. Interestingly while the external configuration was the same of the PR.XI, the controls used were of Italian manufacture and there were differences in the camera heating systems.

 

The chapter in the book interestingly also mentioned the presence of one aircraft already configured for recce mission since it's RAF service, PT656.

Now PT656 was indeed one of the aircraft passed from the RAF to Italy, however the only picture I found of this when serving with 237 Sqn. does not show any feature that may make it used for recce work.. that brings me to a second "question"... how common were the FR.IXs ? And were there aircraft configured with ventral cameras ? Were there FR.IXs used by the RAF in the MTO ? If so, were they all in one single unit or were they spread among various units ? I know of a few SAAF aircraft of course, but were these equipped with ventral cameras ? I only seem to remember obliques.

 

Not sure if these doubts will find an answer, in any case I've not almost decided on one of these aircraft, in particular MM.4102 of 51 Stormo, coded 51.31. This was previously MJ571 and was an aircraft with quite a history.... delivered to the RAF in Dec. 1943, she served with 312 and later 317 Sqn. She was later sent to the Mediterranean where she was with 72 Sqn. After the war was passed to the Italian air force where she was converted as described above. In 1952 she went to Israel where she served for another 4 years, being finally SOC in 1956.

That brings me to an idea that I had a while ago, building models of the same aircraft in different markings through her life! Here's a subject that could be built in 3 different and interesting markings...

P.S. and speaking of this idea, I'm still contemplatining building MK716 in both her pink dress of 1944 and the later French markings worn after the war...

Edited May 17, 2022 by Giorgio N

[Andy Fletcher]

Hi Giorgio,

 

With the original Spitfire I PR Type C (P9308), the first to feature a vertical fuselage camera, the main delay to its introduction was the re-routing of the flying control linkages to allow room for the fuselage camera installation. However, by the end of the war it would have been a well known modification and easily incorporated as opposed to early 1940 when the PDU were making it up as they went along.

 

 

Edited May 17, 2022 by Andy Fletcher
Typo

[Jazzie]

Expecting that these Spitfires arrived through official post war routes and that the engineering support went with the fleet, would the required drawings or even the mod kit of parts have been supplied as part of the deal?

Arabest,

Geoff.

[Giorgio N]

12 hours ago, Andy Fletcher said:

Hi Giorgio,

 

With the original Spitfire I PR Type C (P9308), the first to feature a vertical fuselage camera, the main delay to its introduction was the re-routing of the flying control linkages to allow room for the fuselage camera installation. However, by the end of the war it would have been a well known modification and easily incorporated as opposed to early 1940 when the PDU were making it up as they went along.

 

 

 

Interesting point ! Sure the modification was well known by the end of the war, afterall hundreds of PR aircraft had been built in the meantime...

Your comment made me wonder if all aircraft had the control linkages re-routed, however looking at pictures of a standard Mk,IX inner fuselage does not seem to show this. This would mean that such modification would have only been applied to aircraft carrying the vertical cameras and was not standardised.

 

5 hours ago, Jazzie said:

Expecting that these Spitfires arrived through official post war routes and that the engineering support went with the fleet, would the required drawings or even the mod kit of parts have been supplied as part of the deal?

Arabest,

Geoff.

 

These aircraft were all former RAF machines that had served in the MTO. Now no proper PR variant was delivered to Italy, but since the F-24s were likely supplied from the RAF it is sure possible that all other parts were supplied in the same way... although the camera controls were Italian and the camera heating system was different, so even if the RAF supplied parts they may have not supplied the complete package for one reason or the other.

Italian technicians already knew the Spitfire thanks to the Mk.V service in the Cobelligerant Air Force, so they may well have known the differences between variants of this aircraft. And then there's the matter of PT656... if this was actually a recce configured aircraft it would have been easy to copy the solutions used on this aircraft. But was it really so configured from the start ?

[Andy Fletcher]

10 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

 

Interesting point ! Sure the modification was well known by the end of the war, afterall hundreds of PR aircraft had been built in the meantime...

Your comment made me wonder if all aircraft had the control linkages re-routed, however looking at pictures of a standard Mk,IX inner fuselage does not seem to show this. This would mean that such modification would have only been applied to aircraft carrying the vertical cameras and was not standardised.

 

As far as I'm aware it was just PR Spitfires that were so modified. From the Type D (PR.IV) onwards it was done on the production line as opposed to fighter versions being converted to PR machines.

[Graham Boak]

If you are talking about the stereoscopic fitting with tw downward facing cameras, then that's probably true.  However from comments on 40 SAAF Spitfires in italy,  there was a standard modification for FR work permitting either one sideways-looking camera (either way) or one downward facing camera,  This was not something fitted in production.

[Giorgio N]

18 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

If you are talking about the stereoscopic fitting with tw downward facing cameras, then that's probably true.  However from comments on 40 SAAF Spitfires in italy,  there was a standard modification for FR work permitting either one sideways-looking camera (either way) or one downward facing camera,  This was not something fitted in production.

 

Interesting ! Do you have details of what was required for the downward facing camera ? Was the additional access panel on the starboard side required for this camera ?

 

[Graham Boak]

I recall there being a drawing posted in the thread dealing witn SAAF Spitfires, but I didn't keep a reference to find it.

[Andy Fletcher]

9 minutes ago, Giorgio N said:

 

Interesting ! Do you have details of what was required for the downward facing camera ? Was the additional access panel on the starboard side required for this camera ?

 

 I can't speak for the installation in the FR Spitfires but the addition of the starboard panel on PR Spitfires was to allow access to the rear camera (between fuselage frames 14-15) of the split pair.