Spitfire prototype K5054.....finished!

[mozart]

It has always been my intention to model this:

 

 

as this:

 

 

…the fascinating Spitfire prototype on her maiden flight in 1936.  I occasionally pop over to Britmodeller to see what’s happening there, and a recent thread that drew my attention concerned the “old” Paragon 1/32 resin conversion set. I expressed my interest in it if the original recipient wasn’t interested, but along came “Spitfire” aka dennismcc…..our own Dennis, who just happened to have the same Paragon conversion set available. 
The lovely man has gifted the set to me, a generous and much appreciated gesture. It arrived this morning, the bits are:

 

 

The set was designed for the Hasegawa Mk V, so I’ll have to see what I need to change for the Kotare set, but significant is the angled radiator, the early rudder with the angled control balance horn, the exhaust stubs, the spinner and blades, tail skid and, not least, the vac canopy. 
 

There will of course be many alterations needed to the kit to accommodate these parts, but the one outstanding issue to be addressed is the upper surface of the wings, which look like this:

 

 

I would value anybody’s thoughts on how best I might achieve this lateral panelling which has been likened to a clinker-built boat.

 

My grateful thanks to Dennis who has bought this conversion so much closer to the top of my list! 

[Iain]

Excellent Max!

 

I have exactly the same conversion planned for one of my Kotare early Spits...

 

Iain

[mozart]

12 minutes ago, Iain said:

Excellent Max!

 

I have exactly the same conversion planned for one of my Kotare early Spits...

 

Iain

Am I not surprised Iain? And your thoughts about the wing? 

[MikeC]

1 hour ago, mozart said:

I would value anybody’s thoughts on how best I might achieve this lateral panelling which has been likened to a clinker-built boat.

I would be very surprised if the panels overlapped like those on a boat: that would completely destroy the aerodynamics and it would fly very inefficiently if it managed to fly at all. 

So sand it smooth,, get a ruler and a scriber out, and have at it.

[mozart]

Agreed, the panels can’t be overlapping, just too inefficient flight-wise. That may be the best solution, but I’m also thinking of adding panels once sanded smooth. 

[Sabrejet]

Bear in mind too that the colour photo shown is of the replica at Hawkinge. It's very well made but I wouldn't trust it as a source of 100% accurate features on K5054.

[mozart]

28 minutes ago, Sabrejet said:

Bear in mind too that the colour photo shown is of the replica at Hawkinge. It's very well made but I wouldn't trust it as a source of 100% accurate features on K5054.

That’s very true (though it’s at Tangmere), but this panel gives it quite a high degree of veracity:

 

I know memories can be fallible, but collective memories? 

[Christa]

If the replica offers some truth of K5054's upper wing appearance perhaps HGW decal rivet lines or double rivet lines could be helpful. Cannot  say more because I have not used them.

[geedubelyer]

I think @MikeC has the best idea Max. 

 

If it were me I'd certainly consider that method. 

I'd probably also try to sand a gently concave effect along the length of each panel before adding the rivets with a pounce wheel. 

 

I'm confident you'll divine a suitable solution. 

Edited September 4, 2025 by geedubelyer

[Sabrejet]

1 hour ago, mozart said:

That’s very true (though it’s at Tangmere), but this panel gives it quite a high degree of veracity:

 

I know memories can be fallible, but collective memories? 

 

Correct: and I should know better since I saw it only a couple of weeks ago! Not collective memories but collective resources to do things 100%. I did think that the panel fasteners around the nose didn't look quite right (using what was available entirely understandable), and I thought there was something different about the spinner too. Neither of which is a criticism because it's an awesome piece of work. But as with all museum/restored aircraft there must be care exercised.

[airscale]

Is there an original picture with the wings like that? I would be surprised if they were much different to early production ones in reality. Doesn’t seem to make much sense to fly the prototype like that and then throw away the design and tooling to then build them as we know them 

[cbk57]

So if the plans are available to make a replica of the prototype we would know if the prototype is correct or not.  If the plans are not available, then we do not know for sure that the prottype is correct or not.  It also makes it more likely that they did not know either.  If this were built as a non flying replica, then it may not have born the same attention to detail.  Also there were planes known to have been made by Supermarine prior to this, and I believe there was a well known float plane racer that used wing design principles that went into the Spitfire.  I would think what you see in that wing might be indicative of what the prototype looked like.  In short I think there are ways to infer whether overlapping was used by Supermarine prior to the prototype and if it were not then it might be unlikely that the prototype were made in that manner.

[Chad Veich]

22 minutes ago, airscale said:

I would be surprised if they were much different to early production ones in reality. Doesn’t seem to make much sense to fly the prototype like that and then throw away the design and tooling to then build them as we know them 

 

And yet by all accounts that is exactly what happened.

[mozart]

The prototype wing was most certainly different to the production wing Peter, that’s a fact. I have been trying to find out when it was changed but the date eludes me. Alfred Price’s book “The Spitfire Story” talks of the prototype wings being “plated”.

[cbk57]

If you run a google search as follows: Spitfire k5054 images, you will find an image of the prototype in flight from above with a clear image of the upper wing.  It does not look like the replica.  The wing is exceptionally smooth on the upper surface.  There are plenty of photos of the prototype.