Spitfire Mk VIII

[Dpgsbody55]

After the last update, I had not a lot left to do.  The first thing was to add the exhausts to the engine.  I'm not 100% happy with these, mostly as I feel the kit exhausts are not quite up to the standard of the rest of the kit, but also because once they were mounted, I hated how I painted them.  This was mostly rectified by dry brushing with a burnt iron paint.  They're also fiddly suckers to glue on too.  Here's the engine.

 

 

 

Next up the undercarriage needed to be built.  Once assembled, the tires treads were dusted up, but Tamiya's rubber tires are not my preferred kit tire at all.

 

 

While I was doing that, I also dirtied up the bottom of the plane.

 

 

Which left me at final assembly.  To quote a certain late TV chef, "lets have a quick spin around the ingredients."

 

 

So we have the plane itself, engine and cowlings, propeller, landing gear and two doors, one open and one closed.

 

Landing gear on.

 

 

Engine and propeller on.

 

 

I've not fitted the engine intake filter as I'll be displaying it with the bottom cowling permanently attached.  So here's the lower view as is.

 

 

Door on.  Permanently, this time.  None of my sometimes hinges added to this one.

 

 

Cowlings on.

 

 

Done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that's it for me and this Group Build.  I'm off to join the "In the Navy" GB soon.  I have three WW2 fighters kits in my stash to choose from, so I'll be doing some navel gazing to decide which naval plane to do. 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Dpgsbody55]

Thought I'd post a few more shots of my Spitfire MkVIII, but first, here's the actual plane.

 

 

This plane is from the first batch of Spitfire MkVIII's delivered to the RAAF in 1944.  The picture above was taken on Morotai Island, Indonesia (or Dutch east Indies as it was then) in September 1945.  The machine was flown by Flt-Lt Norm Smithell of B Flight, 79 Squadron RAAF.  B Flight aircraft bore green spinners.  The plane still bears the white tail and wing leading edges which had previously been a recognition feature demanded of all south east Pacific theatre aircraft.  The white is starting to come off, and I've tried to emulate this on my model.  The colours I've gone for are those detailed in a book I have on RAAF Spitfires, and this Squadron was unique in over painting the dark earth that was predominant of this first batch of RAAF Spitfire VIII's.  This first batch was supplied in standard RAF South East Asia colours of dark green/dark earth upper and light sea grey or azure blue lower surfaces.  All RAAF machines had the dark green over sprayed in foliage green, but these colours were not considered suitable by RAAF squadrons operating in this area, so a few different schemes were tried, mostly unofficially.  A few of 79 Squadron's machines were also painted in the same semi gloss black green also used by 22 Squadron's Beaufighters.  Other squadrons used a much lower contrast foliage green/dark green camouflage pattern too.  I am aware that some believe this plane should be green/grey upper colours, and this would almost certainly have been the case if this machine was one of the last batch delivered which were supplied in standard RAF dark green/medium sea grey uppers with light sea grey lowers, but I've decided to use the colours described by those who were there, including a friend's father.  To achieve this, I followed the same process of adding white and a little blue to the foliage green, and the colour seems to match my information despite looking very much like RAF interior green.  In the "plastic", the latter colour is a little greyer, but it doesn't show in my pictures.  The plane bears the Disney cartoon Dumbo, a pink flying elephant painted on Smithell's plane in reference to his somewhat portly frame.  Again, the colour depicted is controversial as many today think the elephant should be grey.  However, I've gone with the pink version which matches the recollection of those there, and also as I feel this would have been more likely given the irreverent Aussie humour.

 

Here's those shots.  I've used the drop tank and stand for some which gives a slightly different perspective, but I'll probably display it without that for the moment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And lastly, with my Spitfire MkXVI which I did for the Colour My World Blue GB in 2019.  That plane represents the Spitfire which was the personal hack of Air Chief Marshall Sir James Robb, a plane which is still flying today.

 

 

Sometime in the future, these two will be joined by the Tamiya Spitfire MkIX, as flown  by Pierre Clostermann, but that's for another day.  This MkVIII, however, represents a model I've wanted to build in LSP for decades, so my thanks to Tamiya for giving us such a wonderful basis for such projects.

 

Cheers,

Michael

 

[MikeMaben]

Nice one Mike 

[VW Chris 1969]

Oooooo this looks absolutely stunning,  great job

Chris

[Uncarina]

I loved watching this one progress, and you did a fantastic job! Choice of subject, originality, attention to detail, skill in assembly and painting, it all adds up to a winner in my book!

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Dpgsbody55]

On 3/2/2021 at 3:12 PM, MikeMaben said:

Nice one Mike 

 

2 hours ago, VW Chris 1969 said:

Oooooo this looks absolutely stunning,  great job

Chris

 

1 hour ago, Uncarina said:

I loved watching this one progress, and you did a fantastic job! Choice of subject, originality, attention to detail, skill in assembly and painting, it all adds up to a winner in my book!

 

Cheers,  Tom

 

Thanks, Gentlemen, and a happy choice for this GB.  This one was a pleasure to do, and one I have wanted to do for decades.  A very dear friend and fellow modeller, Tony, gave me me some small publications in about 1971, and this plane was on the back cover.  I bought all the LSP Tamiya Spitfires as soon as they were released but work interfered with building them.  A couple of years ago, I was scanning Hannants website and saw these decals, but I held off doing it until I as confident enough in my abilities to do this model properly.  Tony's father had been with the RAAF Spitfire wing so it was always interesting to talk to him about the planes, pilots and his service at that time.  Tragically, Tony died in an accident in 1974, but I kept in touch with his family and became friends with his father too, so I'm dedicating this build to both of these great friends.

 

Cheers,

Michael

[BradG]

Nice job mate, will add you to the gallery.

[Gazzas]

Wow!  Great job on the Spit, Michael!