About a month ago I was at the LHS and saw they had one of these kits, which I had thought had sold out; perhaps this is a new release. Anyway, since I love this kit of my favorite version of Spitfire, I picked it up. Then a couple weeks later I got the new issue of Aeroplane, which had a long article on Johnny Johnson, and included a good shot of the Spitfire F.XIVe he flew in 1945 as his last wartime airplane. No score in it, but he did lead the first RAF fighter sweep over Berlin in it. Looking through the decal dungeon, I saw I could piece together the markings to do MV268 JEJ, so I decided to do it.

I followed my own instructions on how to assemble this kit so that there is no need of any putty or filler. If you didn't read those in the Modeling Madness reviews, here they are again:

1. Before assembling the fuselage, glue some Evergreen strip inside along the lower join line for the gas tank. Assemble the fuselage without attaching the cockpit. This allows you to work the fit of the gas tank to the fuselage from inside and out to get a perfect fit. If you take care in attaching the fuselage halves, you will only have to scrape down the centerline joint to have a smooth result. Before attaching the fuselage halves, cut open the side hatch if you want to pose it open on the finished model.

2. Assemble the cockpit. Cut off the ferschlugginah “gun sight” and make a Mk.14 sight, which is easy since it’s a cube with an adjusting wheel on either side. All Spitfire XIVs used it and it solves the one “mistake” in the kit. (There are photos of the gunsight to be found on the net, google “photos of Mark 14 gyro gunsight”) I only used Eduard photo-etch seatbelts, the rest of the cockpit looks fine when it’s viewed inside the fuselage.

3. Insert the cockpit into the fuselage, it will “click” into position, then glue it in place.

4. Assemble the main gear wells to the lower wing part, then glue the lower wing to the fuselage.

5. Carefully make sure that the inner edge of the upper wing part will fit perfectly to the fuselage, smoothing off the sprue nubs. Attach the upper wing by starting with the wing-fuselage joint, then glue the upper part to the lower.

6. Attach the horizontal stabilizer. Cut the elevators apart. Attach the plug in the vertical fin, then attach the elevators as you wish them posed.

7. Assemble and attach the radiators and housings and the carburetor intake. If you flood the area where these parts will be attached with liquid glue, it will fill any gaps and you will not need putty anywhere.

You now have a perfectly-assembled model, ready for paint.

Since this is a F.XIVE rather than an FR, I used Evergreen sheet to make panels to fill in the camera ports, puttied them and smoothed them in to vanish.

5 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Great description, Tom.
It will be a great build.

@gblair - yes, it will work for any Airfix Spitfire.

The camo look great, Tom.
Especially since it is done freehanded.

Camo looks great, Tom (@tcinla). Pre-shading gives you subtle shadows that look cool.

I actually got this finished 10 days ago, but just got around to photographing it. Kit decals for all but the "JEJ" taken from the Victory Decals "Spitfire: Aces of the Empire" sheet and the serial, pieced together from other sheets.
Reviewed at Modeling Madness April 22.

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Very nice result, Tom.

The Airfix Mk. XII is just fine, @blackadder57

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.