South African Spitifire

Spitfire Vc(T), No. 2 Squadron SAAF, Palata, Italy, 1944

I like the Vc as it affords the most unique paint schemes of all Spitfire marks; and appears to have been used by more countries during the war than any other single variant. This one I particularly like because No. 2 Squadron was likely the only unit to use the 4 cannon configuration of the universal wing.

The Subject

No. 2 Squadron SAAF took lots of photos of their Spitfires during the war. Many are in color (stills from a film of lengthy formation flying) so “color” is not really a debatable issue with these aircraft. DB-R had its serial number partially painted out, but it is obviously from the JK series. One source claims it is JK815, but provides only a profile, not a photo so I left the “815” off as seen in the only photos I can find.

This is a late model Vc with all the latest Vc mods incorporated. Late windscreen, gun heating, Rotol prop. It was used in ground attack sorties, typically (as seen in its photos) carrying a 250 or 500 lb bomb on the centerline and using its 4x20mm cannon to great affect against vehicles.

The Model

This is the relatively new Sword Vc kit that dates from 2011. The kit has been released as various Spitfire Vc, PR and Seafire IIc/III variants with different decals, instructions and resin, the basic plastic sprues being the same. Of note, some Seafire kits include an added fuselage and/or wing, however my examples did not, with the Seafire specific fuselage or wing replacing the standard Spitfire item.

Construction was straightforward. I had absolutely no issues even though this is technically a short run kit. The only thing “short run” about it is the lack of locator tabs on the fuselage and wings. Any modeler with a few kits under their belt can easily build this kit. The most difficult part of the build was prop alignment — the kit supplies the Rotol prop blades as separate items. So this means creating a jig of some sort to ensure alignment and feathering are correct. In my case I used a jig that came with a Quickboost resin Rotol prop that I saved after installing the prop on a Hobbyboss Vb(T) I made many years ago.

The landing gear was of greater concern, but I was impressed when the gear had perfect locating holes. It all went together perfectly only to be marred by the poor decals…these are not from the kit but are Airfix decals from a 2004-ish release of their Vc kit (which is very poor by comparison). Paints used are acrylics all around: Dark Earth is Vallejo English Uniform, Middlestone is Humbrol, and Azure is a Tamiya mix I created many years ago (I made a large quantity in a 10ml jar and it’s lasting me quite a while!).

Summary

This is the first really nice Vc kit in 1/72nd scale. The other options are kit bashing or the old Airfix Vb with the noticeably newer and much too thick Vc wing.

I’ve got lots of decals, both good and bad as I’ve discovered, to make quite a few more Vc subjects and now that I’ve got a decent kit to do that with I’ll certainly be able to do the Vc justice.

Thanks for looking…