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Supermarine Spitfire XVI

by Jon Tabinor

 

Description

This is Ocidental's 1/48 scale Spitfire Mk IX converted to a bubble canopy Spitfire XVI using Aeroclub's conversion set. 

This is a relatively easy conversion, with just a bit of filler needed around the rear end of the replacement fuselage decking to blend it into the fin area. 

Cockpit and other details are added using Eduards set designed for the Occidental Kit. 

The model is painted in a combination of Gunze, Tamiya and Aeromaster acrylics - the first 2 providing the Greys and being airbrushed, the latter providing the Dark Green and being brush painted as I can never get Aeromasters paints to spray properly. 

Selected panel lines were oversprayed using heavily thinned Tamiya Smoke to add "shadow shading". Paint chips were added with a Karismacolour silver pencil. 

I wanted a bubble top Spit XVI which had seen action in the war and fellow HyperScaler and historian Robert Bracken was able to point out this scheme for me using Watermarks decal sheet (which he himself had researched). So my Spit is marked as Fl Lt Bill Harper's TB886 "Dorothy II" from 421Sqdn during the last months of the war. Apparently Bill was the first in the Squadron to receive a low-back Spit XVI and only just managed to get his wife's name on the cowling and fly a few missions before the jealous Squadron CO commandeered the machine for himself! 

In conclusion, this was a straightforward conversion and produces one of the lesser known variants of the Merlin-engined Spit family. Many thanks to Robert Bracken for his help with the markings and, of course, to HyperScale for allowing me to meet him in the first place!

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