AIRFIX 1:48 SPITFIRE MK.I (Kit Number A05115A)
I built this in tandem with the build I posted yesterday using the earlier and slightly easier to build kit. This is the other famous 57 OTU aircraft, LV⦿N, s/n AR212. I shamelessly copied from yesterdays article...Innards were painted with Tamiya XF-71 Cockpit Green. Masking tape harnesses. The bottom was painted with Tamiya XF-21 Sky. Upper colours were done with Tamiya XF-81 Dark Green 2 (RAF) and Mr. Hobby Aqueous H72 Dark Earth. The fuselage band is supposed to be Air Ministry Blue but we'll call it Polly Scale RLM65. Antenna is Uschi van der Rosten Super-fine thread. With its stripey-nose brother JZ⦾E, s/n AR213
Now the sharp eye will notice that I've reversed the colours. While looking for something else on the photo I noticed that the top of the tail was darker than the center. This is opposite to what Airfix will have you do. I then noticed that the area around the cockpit was lighter than the Dark Green below it This is how you are supposed to paint it...
Doing some looking around I found that besides the "A" and "B" camouflage schemes, there was a little used "C" and "D" scheme but they may have not been called that officially. There is a well known photo of a flight of pre-war 19 Squadron showing this. This was also used in the desert on Mk.Vs as well. This is what I see...
Here is another cropped photo of a 19 Squadron aircraft showing that I am not on drugs...usually...
Love the model, George!
Absolutely super research!
Thanks Spiros
Thanks for sharing this information, George. @blackadder57
I was not aware of yellow nosed Spitfires.
Your build is very nice.
The other Spitfire on the last picture also has exceptional nose art, what is the story behind this one?
@johnb Thank you John. This will tell the story a bit better than I could
Stripey-nose AR213 was flown by RAF ace F/L James "Ginger" Lacey and Yellow nose AR212 was flown by F/O James Eric Storrar among other pilots. While AR213 surprisingly survived the war, AR212 was involved in a mid-air collision with X4605 in Mar. 16 '42.
Thanks a lot for sharing this info, George @blackadder57
Is a Disney Character painted on the side cowling just before the white ,red and blue. It looks like Goofy holding a six shooter?
Good eye George, very nice build.
Thanks Paul
Another winner, George.
Thank you John
George,
I've been using Tamiya's interpretation of Dark Earth and have given up on that idea. It's way off and using there ratio's at times is a P.I.T.A. . Looks like Mr. Hobby has better grasp of the color. Operational training units could be very colorful and come up with some neat paint schemes. I too wasn't aware of the yellow nosed Spitfire. I wonder if it was water based paint that could be washed off after training exercises?
Two thumbs up.
@stephen-w-towle Thanks Stephen. I think the Dk. Earth could be a tad darker but it saved mixing Tamiya paints; I have three different mixes for those
Nicely done scheme, at least some diversion from the standard! I like it
Thank you
Liked a lot George.
Appreciated Marcus
And this time the photos work! Go figure.
Very nice work on this Spitfire @chinesegeorge - I like it a lot.
Thanks Tom. I changed the light settings and added one to the "Exposure Compensation"
Great job, George!
Thanks Robert
Fun looking and well done build. Good eye on catching the color switch of the camo colors, @blackadder57. Black and white pictures though always lend themselves to interpretation. In your photograph where you marked the DG and DE colors, to me I would have painted the nose of the aircraft white. Yellow usually shows up darker on a B&W photograph, not lighter, and in that picture, it is clearly as light as the white on vertical stab, and lighter than the light gray fuselage band. Ah the fun of interpreting B&W pictures for Color modeling. A source of lots of fun and frustration for modelers.
@luftwaffe-birdman There's been great debate over the nose colour and fortunately Storrar wrote in a letter or his log book that the aircraft had a yellow nose. To be honest, after all was said and done, I should have toned down the yellow a bit more
@chinesegeorge - It was probably RAF "Trainer Yellow," a color you can get in the Xtracrylix range, or you can take Tamiya gloss "Yellow" (which is actually "Lemon Yellow") and add about 10% white and you have "RAF Trainer Yellow" - this is also the yellow shade to use on prototype and other non-operational RAF types.
Too many Georges, you got the wrong one here!
@chinesegeorge One can never have too many Georges. I just started my 4th Kawanishi N1K1
Great job, George (@blackadder57). This is certainly a brighter paint scheme than you normally see on Spits. Well Done!
Thank you George
Good looking Spit George, I like it.