A Canadian Spitfire LF.IXc

Hi All!
Dana and I were invited to Ottawa for the dedication of Mike Potter's Spitfire XVIe. The Spitfire, SL721 was AVM Robb's personal Spitfire, but was restored as an aircraft flown by the average service pilot. Not a hero but someone who flew almost every day bombing the Germans with out any glory. The aircraft chosen was a Spitfire LF.XVIe TB886 (AUJ) of 421 Sqn (Red Indians) flown by Bill Harper. What has this got to do with a late Mk.IXc? During the reception after, Dana and I met a lot of Canadian Spitfire pilots, which had a lot of stories they were willing to share. One was the story of H. Garwood's adventure of June 10,1944 over Normandy. He had an engine failure and crash landed his Spitfire LF.IXc MJ255, VZS. A well known image shows his “kite” broken next to a road with British Shermans next to it. We met a lot of pilots, and I am not sure if I met Mr. Garwood. As a side note, the pilots of 421 Sqn made Dana an honorary member of 421Sqn because as one said “she's cute and knows more about Spitfires than most Canadians!”

          The kit used was Eduard's fabulous Spitfire Mk.IXc (late). I bought two as over trees, and did save some money. The kit is the best two-stage Merlin Spitfire on the market, bar none. Although a bit fiddly and over engineered in places It is well detailed, in scale and is shaped extremely well. Follow the instructions and the build will be fairly trouble free. It was built from the “box” and I only added seat belts.

          Have I mentioned I hate stripes? Well this kit has enough of them. The model was painted in the colors of RAF Fighter Command (Ocean Grey, Dark Green and Medium Sea Grey) using Vallejo paints. Polly Sale was used for the Dark Green. The leading edge stripe were added and the entire model was coated in Future  for decal placement. Super Scale Spitfire D-Day Stripes were used for the black and white stripes. These were very thin and fragile, tore easily and I needed to use copious amounts of water so I could adjust the decals. Aeromaster supplied the stencils and national insignia. Watermark (It was a shame about the Watermark series. Based on Robert Bracken's “Spitfire-The Canadians” they have some very nice schemes, but they are too thick) decals supplied the individual markings. All of the decals responded to the Micro system very well. When dry a second coat of Future was applied. Finally a coat of flat clear was applied. The final bits (prop, canopy, pitot) were attached and the kit was finished.

          The model represents a Spitfire LF.IXc, MJ255, VZ*S of 412 Sqn.  Flown by F/O H.G. Garwood just after D-Day and just before the engine failure.

           The <a href="https://imodeler.com/tag/eduard-spitfire/" class="st_tag internal_tag " rel="tag" title="Click for the Eduard Spitfire database at iModeler">Eduard Spitfire</a> kits are the best two-stage Merlin Spitfires out there. I can certainly recommend them to everyone. 

Bruce

2 additional images. Click to enlarge.