Spitfire XIV collective hysteria - FF-B on the bench

[AdrianMF]

15 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

After July the stripes were removed from the uppersurfaces

I'm sure that's the case, fits in with the timing of the V2s. The FROG instructions show the under-fuselage stripes, and the photo shows the aeroplane with a ferry tank and markings on the cowling. 
 

Building AP-D was fun, anyway. I think I'll leave it as it is now. And I still have to build an accurate production V-1.

 

Hey ho, will try harder with FF-B!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[mark.au]

I’m quite sure the cockpit will look even better under paint.

 

Raid the Eduard box for the open canopy.  Drink the good wine.

[Dunny]

Lovely work on the cockpit Adrian!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[AdrianMF]

9 hours ago, mark.au said:

Drink the good wine.

Excellent advice, whatever the question  

[Galligraphics]

On 1/29/2023 at 6:51 PM, AdrianMF said:

To my shame, having advised @Zephyr91 not to go over the top on details on kits with dodgy canopies, I failed to heed my own advice:

I think I might look at options for open canopies. All the relevant Falcon canopies I have are too big (designed for the Fujimi kit), so I'm using the Airfix Spitfire IX canopy, which is pretty distorting. I have the option of cutting it up and plunge moulding the sliding bit to have it open, or I might raid my Eduard Spitfire IX box to see if there's a suitable spare in there (or I could leave the Eduard untouched until I sell it on or die, which is the likely fate of all the "nice" kits in my collection).

Firstly, that cockpit detailing looks fantastic . Secondly, taking an old basic kit and correcting/detailing it to bring it up to today's standards is, for me, probably a lot more satisfying than completing the latest "perfect" kit... which is why I have an old Matchbox Spitfire VIII, a Pegasus Spit prototype, and the Airfix Harrier from 1968?9? on the go at the moment, whilst ignoring much more recent, accurate and detailed kits in my stash...

Nige

[AdrianMF]

Painted up the cockpit, ready to be lost forever when I stick the fuselage halves together:

 

Not sure whether to bother with an open canopy or not. Can decide later after I've sanded in the gull wing, closed up the wheel wells and added the radiators 

[Galligraphics]

15 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

Not sure whether to bother with an open canopy or not.

Seems a shame to hide all that nice detail…

[AdrianMF]

3 minutes ago, Galligraphics said:

Seems a shame to hide all that nice detail…

You can always look at the gluey fingerprints instead 🙄

 

[Galligraphics]

Old FROG kits ALWAYS had gluey fingerprints… 

[AdrianMF]

On 31/01/2023 at 14:01, Galligraphics said:

whilst ignoring much more recent, accurate and detailed kits in my stash...

Amen, brother!

[bigbadbadge]

Cockpit looks Great Adrian.

 

Cracking job

Chris

[AdrianMF]

I did a tiny bit of trimming and the wing fit is pretty good:

I used Contacta for most of the join but CA on the rear bit which will get all the sanding. Now I have to leave it to dry before sanding in the gull wing.

[AliGauld]

Lovely looking cockpit, Adrian

You certainly are taming this beast.

 

Cheers,

Alistair

[Biggles87]

‘ It fits where it touches ‘ would be an appropriate caption for the above photo.

You’re doing a great job, keep it up.

 

John

[AdrianMF]

A bit of sanding this morning and I've got my gull wing:

[Dunny]

Adrian,

 

All looking very civilised - you have the measure of this one!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[AdrianMF]

FROG kits certainly had their fair share of issues, but they also had some great engineering, like these foolproof tailplane tabs:

 

(Well, almost foolproof:)

 

[gingerbob]

On 1/29/2023 at 3:53 PM, AdrianMF said:

Sadly, this is the picture that's keeping me up at night. It clearly shows stripes under the fuselage - to your point, it may be that they had less striping than cross channel aircraft, but I've just dodged the question and kept it clean for now.

 

I'm a little uncertain (nice understatement there!) about the invasion stripes in relation to dedicated anti-Diver squadrons.

 

RM619 was issued to 91 Squadron in early July; they were doing some offensive sweeps until mid-June, but then focused on anti-Diver.  It came to 130 Sqn in early August (or so).  Having converted to the XIV, 130 Squadron moved to Lympne on the 11th and began flying anti-Diver patrols the next day.  They began flying some offensive ops late in August, and in late September moved to 2TAF, trading places and aircraft with 350 Squadron (XIVe until the swap).

 

So, I guess it depends when the photo was taken- the stripes could date back to 91 Squadron days, or the current "coverage" might have been applied when 130 started flying offensive sorties, or...

[AdrianMF]

5 hours ago, gingerbob said:

I'm a little uncertain

Me too! Thanks for the info. I'm going to assume that it went straight to anti-diver duties and didn't get the stripes until later; that way I don't have to think about stains from overpainting or washing off full stripes. Definitely lazy and quite possibly wrong, but it's already off the bench.

 

Meanwhile, in the sunlit uplands of the current build, I've wrapped up the gull wing, wheel wells, radiators and filling gaps/sink marks, so it's time to have a go at an opened canopy, courtesy of Falcon set #2:

 

[AdrianMF]

I think I've got an opening canopy:

 

So far, the windscreen has been cut downwards by running the new scalpel blade in parallel to the windscreen facets. I think i need to flatten off the bottom to make it fit a bit better, but I might do that tomorrow when I'm feeling a bit fresher!

[opus999]

15 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

I think I've got an opening canopy:

 

Hooray!  I think it is well worth it since that cockpit turned out beautifully after paint.  The rest of the aircraft is shaping up nicely too.  I've never seen a Frog kit up close, but it seems that they were fairly accurate with shape for most subjects (especially given the age).

[AdrianMF]

27 minutes ago, opus999 said:

Frog kit

They are tremendously variable. They aren't ever very detailed (internal or external), their accuracy is pretty hit (Wyvern, Gannet, Corsair, Blenheim, Swordfish, Proctor and Magister to name a few that I've built) and miss (Beaufort, Oxford, Morane 406), and some are horrifically crude (Morane 406*, Tupolev SB-2).

 

BUT they had a great range of relatively exotic subjects (Beaufort, Whitley, Gannet, Wyvern and more, which remained unique in injection moulded form until the short run and Chinese companies took off) and they offered well-researched (for the time) colour schemes and transfers which were slightly more likely than Airfix to have the red dot in the middle of the roundel! I think they had a deal with the man who ran one of the decal companies of the time to come up with interesting schemes.

 

Plus I built them as a kid. Maybe if I'd had access to Monogram kits I'd have grown up more well-adjusted.

 

Hey-ho,

Adrian
 

* When I decide a kit's not worth building, you know it's pretty bad...

[Troy Smith]

On 29/01/2023 at 20:53, AdrianMF said:

Sadly, this is the picture that's keeping me up at night. It clearly shows stripes under the fuselage - to your point, it may be that they had less striping than cross channel aircraft,

 

from http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/p096.html

RM619 XIV EA G65 33MU 9-4-44 91Sq 12-7-44 130Sq 'AP-D' 4-10-44 350Sq 'MN-D' Hit by flak nr Aachen Germany and abandoned 16-1-45 FLt H Smets PoW

 

so this is after Sep 44, from another squadron.  No sign of previous codes, so has been carefully repainted.    

 

also, re anti Diver operations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb

 

"The Wehrmacht first launched the V-1s against London on 13 June 1944,[6] one week after (and prompted by) the successful Allied landings in France. At peak, more than one hundred V-1s a day were fired at southeast England, 9,521 in total, decreasing in number as sites were overrun until October 1944, when the last V-1 site in range of Britain was overrun by Allied forces."

 

HTH

 

 

[AdrianMF]

First coat of Medium Sea Grey:

 

The filled areas, new radiators, wheel wells and remodelled air intake all seem to have worked out OK.

[bigbadbadge]

Oh wow, looks fantastic with all that extra work and detail Adrian .  What a cracking build.

Chris