Hello everybody:
After the excellent article about the P-39 two seaters by Massimo and as himself suggested me,I?ll show you my conversion work of the ICM Spitfire Mk.IX in 1/48 scale.
It?s a pretty accurate kit regarding its shape,but my example has a lot of sinks marks.And I really mean a lot:the wheels were useless and the ailerons had very deep sink marks,I filled them and after several sandings,all the detail was gone.So I?ve got to look after resin replacements.
I?ll use several aftermarket products:Eduard Zoom set #FE142,prepainted Seatbelts RAF WWII #49 006,Ultracast 4 Spoke wheels,Cutting Edge Flying Control Surfaces "early" CEC48235 and Ultracast Exhausts #48060.
The plane I want to make is this:
First of all,I made a little analysis of this plane:
According to ?Red Stars in the Sky? n?1 by Geust,Keskinen,Stenman and Niska,this Spitfire was modified by the 1? Aircraft Depot in Leningrad.It?s an Mk.IXc,with rounded rudder and ?not clipped? wings,the light bulb fairing over the wing tip is one of this kind of wing features.I must say that the great majority of the Spitfire that reached the Soviet Union during the GPW were of the Mk.IXe type with pointed rudder,?clipped wings? and armed with two 20 mm cannons and two .50 cal MG.
The back cockpit canopy is evidently the same as the front one,so this should have been taken from an unserviceable Spitfire.Behind the back cockpit,there is a plate on the side that should support the canopy rail in this thinner zone of the fuselage,which is the proof that a standard Spitfire was used.A gunsight can be seen in the front cockpit,so this plane could be armed with at least one or two small caliber weapons.A photo of this plane (showing the front left) that can be found in Monografie Lotnicze n?4,shows that the position formerly occupied by the cannon tube was still open,no fairing was added to close it.Perhaps a UBT MG was installed in its place,inside the weapons bay.
Regarding the colour,it looks like it could be green AMT-4 all around,with white bordered red stars in the fuselage and tail.No star can be seen under the wing,but this is because there is very dark shadow, should be one in this position.There is no evidence of stars over the wings.
Well,now I?ll show the modified kit.First,both halves of the ruselage to give you a general idea:
The sides of the fuselage:
I added the plates,made the canopy rails on the right and opened the access doors on the left.The one for the back cockpit is a totally guess,it?s placed exactly where the radio access hatch used to be in the unmodified Spitfire,so the cut on the fuselage was already there.One still flying warbird Spifire was modified into a two seater in this way.
I hope you like this work.This is all by now,I?ll post more photos.I also converted a Hurricane into a opened cockpits trainer bird,but the work is in the initial stage.It looks that I really don?t like modeling in the easy way.Best regards to everyone:
Martin