Friends! Thanks for keeping me company and your support during this build! I'm finally (almost) there! I've tried to spend my modelling time at the workbench lately, that's the reason for the updates being a bit thin on the ground.

Xtrakit Spitfire 22:

Airfix Spitfire 24:

And both of them together:

The differences between the kits look a lot more disturbing in the photos than they do in real life!

For those of you who have followed this thread it is probably clear that I am not very fond of the Xtrakit (or its Special Hobby reincarnations). The Xtrakit Spit looks "fat and swollen" over the nose while the Airfix kit might be a bit on the skinny side. I used Falcon canopies on both and the project ended up with me buying a second Airfix kit just to use the prop for the Xtrakit Spit (a bit counter intuitive really since I probably should have resorted to build the whole second Airfix kit and scrapped the Xtrakit but I was born stubborn 🙂 !) The canopy- and prop modifications even out the most immediate visual references, combined with the camo that effectively breaks up the appearance - if I had done them in high speed silver I think the differences would have been a lot more apparent!

I also ran into more trouble than necessary caused by my own laziness (check the instructions so you don't have to break off and re-glue the covers for instance) and bad research (British camo isn't a mystery, I can find it in at least ten books right behind my back). I only wish that the guy who did the artwork for Xtradecal had done it to start with...

Ps. Regarding that "(almost)" in the first section: I'll need to add pitots and some more fuel and oil spillage before taking them to the next show. On the other hand, the Mk 24 won it's class at last weekend's Modellexpo 08-Open so I must have done something right at least :)!

Regards

Magnus

Great work!

Very nice Magnus,you've managed to make the Xtrakit 22 look almost good.

The Airfix 22 is the gold standard in late Griffon Spits,nothing else comes even close,I've built three,one converted to an F.R 47,one as an F.46 and one as an XVIII,I will build one as a 22 one of these days.

AFAIK,it's only inaccuracy is it's prop,it's the same diameter as an XIX's,it should be bigger in diameter.

The Xtrakit,well,the wing planform is off,the fuselage too short,the spinner is too long to compensate for the short fuselage,the cockpit is too wide...as you say,put it against the Airfix 22 and the short comings are glaringly obvious .

Erm,IIRC Magnus,it's the Spit 22 fuselage minus the rudder and lower keel other than that it's pure 22 fuselage.The fin
had the 4" cap extension let in to take the bigger Griffon rudder(there's 3 types plus the 22/24/Spiteful rudder)fitted to the XVIII's and retro fitted to many XIV's.
I'd bought a Freightdog rudder/fin/rear fuselage,the transport break is just ahead of the tailplanes,so cut the fuselage at that point only to find that the Freightdog fuselage(based on the flawed AZ kits)section is around 2mm oversized to the corresponding fuselage joint on the Airfix fuselage,so I just cut the rudder off and used that.
The wing is an Academy C wing(very accurate actually) modified to the "Desert" E wing as fitted to the XVIII,the Academy inaccurate radiators were removed and replaced with a pair of Airfix XIX Griffon 65 rads. The tailplanes are again Academy.It's a shame the Academy fuselage is so out of shape,because the wing and tailplanes are pretty accurate for shape and detail. The undercart is Airfix Spit 22 as is the prop.The prop is the only inaccuracy by Airfix for an F.24,it should the 11'10" RoTol R14/F5F. The XIV and XIX used the RoTol R19/F5F at 10' 5",the 21 and 22 used the RoTol R19/F5F/1 at 11' dead. Airfix have it as the R19/F5F at 10'5" . Incidentally the RoTol contra propellers fitted to the F.46 and FR.47 were 10' 5" for the front prop and 10'4" for the rear.

If you go here: https://uamf.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=22594&p=507146&hilit=griffon+growlers#p507146
you'll find the XVIII at the back of the formation in the first pic(it's the silver one)
Go to the second pic and you'll find the FR.47 conversion at the back of the formation.

All the best.