Hasegawa's 1/32 scale Spitfire Vb is available online from Squadron.com

This is Hasegawa's 1/32 scale Spitfire Vb.

I built this depiction of the RAF 315 Squadron (“Deblinski”) Spitfire Mk VB, PK*G almost straight out of box. It was a plane flown by the then anonymous Polish-American flier, Francis Gabreski. I built/donated it for a museum exhibit honoring the great ace. His service with 315 Squadron is not well known, but he did fly for them in at the end of 1942 and early 1943 before his service in the famous 56th Fighter Group. He gained valuable combat experience but scored no confirmed victories. However, any time spent in a Polish fighting unit was priceless; there one learned hard-won lessons on discipline and aggressiveness. Timidity in air combat is almost always a strategy for defeat, and the great Polish air leaders certainly honed the close and kill combat techniques which served the allies well.

There is one good shot of Gabreski exiting this aircraft, but no known photos depicting the entire side of the aircraft. The great scholar of the Polish Air Force Michael Dobrzelecki obtained the correct serial number, and possible airframes used by Gabreski in 315 Squadron. The red border of the squadron badge is something I had not known about, as the Squadron’s official emblem on their website was bordered in gold. I debated using full size versus the smaller size serials, as no full side depiction was available to me (both were employed). I decided on the smaller size when the standard serial numbers looked odd to my artistic judgment. There is also the question of whether or not the aircraft letter was repeated on the underside of the cowling—I left this off as a post-repaint speculation.

This is an especially fun kit to build. For those of you debating whether or not to buy the Revell-Monogram rework of this kit as an earlier mark Spitfire, I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed building this kit and am saddened that it has left my collection. This boxing of the kit dated from the late 1970s, and its decals certainly showed their age. They were replaced wholesale with Revell and other supplied markings I believe came from Techmod out of Poland (these were supplied to me).

I dropped the elevators as per Bob Swaddling’s recommendations, and also used a scaled up version of his Templates. He kindly sent me these courtesy of a HyperScale posting.

I did replace the gunsight clear plastic with an acetate substitute, and I replaced the cannon protrusions with tubing (no choice there—mine had been mangled by 25-years in a box). I also added brake lines. The control panel of this kit has excellent relief tick marks, and looked beautiful installed. My digital camera could not alas accommodate so close a range to appreciate it. Next time I work with a better camera.

My Spitfire was painted in Aeromaster Acrylics except for the Sky ID band which was Aeromaster enamel.

This is the first Spitfire I have completed in many years and was the first Hasegawa offering I had ever worked on. Great fun!

I love 1/32 scale modeling, but 1/48 has always been my first love. Yet, with the recent spate of 1/32 releases and announcements, I suspect that many of us will be happily dabbling in larger scales.