PR.XI & Mk.Vc - Revell Mk.IXc & Mk.IIa kits

[Wackyracer]

2 hours ago, Fanes said:

One more thing to consider: the PR XI didn't have the replacement light bulbs for the gunsight (although the Barracuda bulbs are nice!) on the starboard side.

Ah so that's what they are. Thanks. I'll take them off the PR and add to the Vc

[Wackyracer]

1 hour ago, thierry laurent said:

Indeed, most items of the fighter version were removed from the upper section of the starboard side. 

Thanks. Yes would luv to see your pit.

[nmayhew]

Following with interest

 

I have planned a Malta Vc for a long time but yet to cut plastic

I too have Revell MkII and IXc, but was interested to see where you cut ie just straight down rather following the wing contour

 

your method seems to have a worked very well, but I wonder how the clean up of the wing root fillet will be?

 

looking forward to seeing more!

[thierry laurent]

Hi,

 

As you requested it, here's a set of pictures from my kit. I did not want to hijack your thread but added some information as they can be useful for you or for other guys willing to make a better PR XI from the Revell kit.

 

This took me long hours of research to identify such features. I do not believe they have ever been fully published on the web or in a single book. The Tome 2 of the Ventura booklet dedicated to PR Spitfires is nonetheless the best source to identify such changes. Alas, it is not fully comprehensive. The two camera boxes you can see in the pictures are unfortunately the only two internal components included in the Alleycat sets.

 

First, some components to show you the camera control box located where the gunsight was on fighters. You can also see the three short oxygen bottles to be located behind the seat with the various copper tubes connecting them. Normally a single short bottle is located there on fighters (on the starboard fuselage). To create the two additional ones, I simply used the long bottles of my Eduard resin cockpit set and removed the central section to shorten them. They will be replaced on the fuselage port side by the kit ones with some improvements. Out of my memory, such long vertical bottles are on all Spits as they were mainly used for the braking system.

 

 

A view of the port side. As you can see, most features seen on fighters were absent:

 

 

A view of the starboard side. This did not change that much except the addition of some components:

 

 

 

And a view of the modified IP (the camera box seen in the first picture should still be added):

 

 

The two following wing pictures may also be useful:

 

A view of the PR XI upper wing changes (I still have to add the curved wing tank pressure tube located close to the wing tip):

 

 

And finally a view of the lower side (do not bother about the fancy blue paint) to show the cut I made to mix the Mk II and Mk IX parts:

 

 

I think this is the easiest way to mix and match the parts. I modified the radiators myself and used cut RB photoetched faces intended for the Tamiya kit but I do not recommend that approach as the Revell parts have different dimensions and it was very difficult to adapt them. Barracuda resin radiators are far easier to use.

 

By the way, I did not cut the nose but simply added some leftover plastic strips and CA glue to copy the Mk II fuselage area at the level of the front canopy edge.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Thierry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Wackyracer]

Thierry, thank you so much for the post. It all makes sense and I will start scratch building/adding and removing the bits as per your photos. When the alley cat set arrives I will save its parts for another pr perhaps with the eduard cockpit which looks amazing.

[Thunnus]

Not very knowledgeable about Spitfires so I'm not making too sense of what's going on but I love to see builds loaded with detailed resin bits!

[thierry laurent]

Thanks! Happy to help. By the way I just realized I mixed the references to the port and starboard sides. Oooops! 

[Wackyracer]

Afternoon at the bench scratching...

 

 

Air scale instrument bezels

 

 

 

 

 

And found some more ref pics

 

 

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Nice progress, Aaron!

 

Kev

[MikeMaben]

 Yeah , nice 

[Greif8]

Looking good Aaron!

[dodgem37]

Nicely done.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Subodai]

Crikey, there's some detail going into that pit, beautiful! Glad I didn't know these products existed when I took the dive on my Mk IXc I'd still be stuck on the pit!

[dennismcc]

There is some great info in this thread, must follow more closely.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[thierry laurent]

Good work!

 

By the way if you were wondering what was the use of the brackets and support on the starboard pit side, they were intended to carry a ration box and a thermos bottle! Useless to say the flights could be long. This also explains the triple oxygen bottles set. For the same reason, there was a relief tube on the port side of the seat. Unfortunately, in spite of all my efforts, I never found a picture or sketch of that system! Even Edgar could not help me...! 

 

Note there were many PR IX variations. With or without head cushion, with or without side camera, with or without belly camera shutter, with or without reinforcement around the windows of such cameras, with or without wing cameras, with covered wheel rims or not, etc. etc. 

 

For more information about the use of such reco spits and probably the best PR XI scale plans, have a look at that book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spitfire-Blue-Osprey-Classic-Aircraft/dp/1855326159

 

It does not have all the technical stuff of the Ventura booklet but shows a PR XI restoration and has good chapters about PR XI ops. 

 

Hope this helps

 

Thierry