Three 1/48 "Airfix" Spitfires

by Matt Bacon

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Three Spitfires? THREE Spitfires??? It all made sense at the time... This project is the result of a Group Build over at Airfix.com. Somebody should have told me that Group Build means building the same kit as a GROUP of other modellers, not building a group of aeroplanes. Just kidding...

Desmo Jen suggested a GB of the Airfix Spitfire V - a nice kit with good shapes, OK detail, recently re-released to boot, and likely to pique the interest of more Airfix modelers than anything else that didn't sport the hakenkreuz. Unfortunately, I'd done the one I had, but I did have several other 1/48 Airfix Spitfires in the stash, along with "a few" aftermarket bits and pieces. Then the thought struck me; "If I'm going to build one Spitfire cockpit, I might as well do another..." And then I looked in my stash, and decided to do a PR XI based on the Airfix (ex-Arii/Otaki) Mk VII and the Airwaves conversion, a Mk 24 out of the Airfix box, and, oh, while I'm at it, I'll do that Mk 21 with the Aeroclub "90% kit" that just needs the spare non-folding wing from the Airfix Seafire 46/7. So, out come the Airfix boxes and the conversions and away we go...

The PR XI uses the resin conversion plus the majority of the cockpit from an ICM Mk VIII that was too badly moulded to build. The guy climbing aboard is also an ICM figure, with a Tamiya Mossie pilot's head grafted on (no one climbs aboard a plane WEARING their oxygen mask, surely). The main work is fitting and filling the underfuselage camera ports, and removing the weaponry from the top surface of the wings. I made this bit harder for myself by also using an Aeroclub "gull-wing" section, which is sadly missing from the Otaki kit's underside... The ICM cockpit is a little gem, although it's about 2mm too short, so you need separate the seat frame and floor beams as you install it. The conversion gives you everything you need, though you need good references: I have a copy of "Spitfire in Blue". PL965 is depicted in late-'44 markings, with the invasion stripes half painted over, and weathering based on "rare wartime colour pictures" in that book. You'd guess that she should have the one-piece windscreen, but there are a couple of period pictures showing the standard armoured fitting in the book. The canopy is a Falcon replacement, including the "blistered" hood.

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On to the Spit 21. This is a bit of a cheat in an Airfix GB, since it uses only the "hard" wing from the Seafire 46/7 kit. But what the heck? The Aeroclub kit consists of some rather soft pale grey plastic parts with good detail for the fuselage, prop, wheels and doors and a few other bits, plus a lot of nicely done white metal, most of which reproduces parts from the Airfix kit. I used an Ultracast seat in this, just as I did in the PR XI. The fit is actually very good, once you've cleaned up the parts, although if I did another one, I'd put a spacer in to push the fuselage apart a bit, and have slightly less dihedral. The worst bit is the white metal chin intake, which is hard to join, and fits really badly. I filled mine with epoxy to join the two halves, and "squidged" it into a Milliput layer which I trimmed at the "leather" stage to get it to fit... The colour scheme is for real, from the Blackpool Air Races of ?'46?. There's a warbird in this scheme, based on a Mk XIV, but it doesn't have the contra-prop. It's likely that this, the personal aircraft of W/Cdr T.C.Traill, was LA232, but the few pictures there are have no serials visible. I stole the contra-prop from the Seafire 47 kit (and many thanks to Rita at Humbrol for the replacement!) The arrowhead is debateable: the Aeroclub decals have a solid red one; the profile in the SAM Guide has the pale blue inner. The two photos I've seen are iffy - it COULD be lighter in the middle. But I thought it looked nicer...

Finally, the Mk 24. This is an OOB build of the plastic, with a mixture of kit decals, Eagle Strike, and Kits at War (which I had for a previous project). It's a great kit: I used filler on two sink marks, and some white glue around the rocker cover, and that was it. The panel lines are superbly fine and crisp. My only complaint is that the gear legs don't fit unless you trim off the forward bit of the "axle" at the pivot. Do that, and they click into place. The sliding part of the canopy is a Falcon replacement, because the Airfix part just doesn't quite fit. My little guy also had a "boxer's" squashed nose... but a bit of cyanoacrylate plastic surgery sorted him out. The Airfix instructions would have you paint the rockets with silver bodies and red warheads... why, I don't know. Mine are dark green with yellow bands like all the RAF RPs that I've ever seen pictures of.

This was a great GB. Hard work, but the models are the better for it. Next, I have to think about doing the Seafire 47 with folded wings, and then getting a Mk 1 and Mk IX in the gift set from Airfix later in the year. Now, if only someone would do an up to the moment Supermarine S.6b...

Matt

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Photos and text © by Matt Bacon