Italeri 1/48th Supermarine Spitfire Mark IX By Scott Kruize

Background

Not all British fighters of World War II were Hurricanes. Some were Spitfires!

That's an inversion of my normal Message to Humanity, as ‘Hurricane Bookshelf’ columnist for the Seattle IPMS Chapter’s newsletter. Nevertheless, I accepted this assignment from Matt Bittner: build a brand-new kit of the Supermarine Spitfire Mark IX from Italeri, and tell you about it.

The real aircraft was supposedly only a stopgap, forced on its manufacturer and the Royal Air Force by the advent of the Focke-Wulf 190A. Still, it has interesting points: it was used as an air superiority weapon, for reconnaissance, high-altitude interception, and for low altitude attack. Reading about it in William Green’s, and other books on my ‘Hurricane Bookshelf’ (!) revealed that the main thing wrong with the Spitfire Mark IX was that it was not a Mark VIII, the version carefully re-stressed and engineered to take a new Merlin engine of over 1700 horsepower. During the year this took, the FW190A’s superiority had to be countered somehow, so the IX was produced… basically a Mark V airframe hastily fitted with 300 more horsepower. This worked to restore the balance of power in the air, and as it turned out, the IX was made in larger numbers than any other mark of Spitfire: 5,665.

Given my Hurricane preference, I confess to not having kept up with what, specifically, was out there to model Spitfires in ¼” scale, and had to do little catching up.

The Kit

All important versions seem to be in production from one manufacturer or another, with the numeric preponderance of the real IXs reflected in kit availability. I know of five others: the old Monogram kit, and current ones from Airfix and ICM, Occidental and Hasegawa. I’ve built only the first, introduced in 1962. Kit #6801 was excellent for its time, but none of you would take it seriously now, with its large riveted raised panel lines, minimalist cockpit under a ‘bottle-glass’ canopy, all held up by working, but scarcely detailed, landing gear.

The others I’ve never examined in kit form, but if they’re like stablemates in their respective lines, they’re likely to have one fault or another, being crude or with fitment problems, perhaps oddly engineered or with scale fidelity shortcomings, or at least good but expensive. I surmise there must be reasons why Italeri decided there was room in the market for this new offering of theirs. Or maybe it’s just that the Spitfire is right up there with the P-51 Mustang: why there are so many kits of it? “Because they sell, sweetie! --Because they SELL!”

Actually, I should face up to admitting knowledge of one more, which makes ol’ 6801 a certifiable gem by comparison: something from STARFIX… panic in the streets…!

Now, if you’ll all calm down: this is a First Look, so I’ll try to give a brief but specific account of my impressions. The kit comes in a top-opening box with fine cover painting by Roberto Valentini. It seems large enough for a twin-engined light bomber: 13 ½” by 9 ½”, by nearly 2” deep. This volume is nearly filled by one small and two large sprue trees, a decal sheet, and a folded up assembly printout.

The two main moldings are well-laid out, uncrowded sprues. They’re neutral gray, the absolutely best base color for painting. (I’m long past my Calvinesque days when manufacturers were expected to mold their kits in Navy blue, Zero yellow, or even Starfighter chrome.) The plastic is of medium hardness, holding detail scribing perfectly but not being too hard to cut and file, where cleanup is necessary. There’s very little flash, no more than what any of us would regard as a minor nuisance. Everything is numbered, but even so, the instruction sheet includes a matched set of sprue maps.

Careful examination of all the external parts surfaces shows only the tiniest of sink marks near the tips of the upper wing panels, directly above the location pins inside. That’s all! --I think the thinnest possible scrape of Squadron Green Putty, followed by brief passes with fine wet-or-dry sandpaper will take care of these very minor flaws. I can detect no flaws at all on the fuselage sides, tail feathers, lower wing panel, or details like the spinner, wing tips, propeller blades, landing gear covers or anything else that shows.

My only criticism of the moldings is that the sprue gates are fairly large. In practical terms, care and patience have to be taken not to damage the external surfaces. Specifically, what I did was to clip each part clear of its sprue with my coarse cutters, an eighth-inch away, then carefully trimmed the remainder of the stub with a sharp #11 X-Acto blade or my Micro Mark cutting tweezers, finally finishing up with some careful sanding or filing. This got me very close to perfectly finished components, with a couple of exceptions. In these, the sprue had developed slight voids where it met the structure, such that when it was trimmed away, left a small dent or hole. I don't want to make more of this than it deserves; the resulting voids to be filled are not much larger than, say, unwanted rivet holes.

With the major parts so prepared, I tested their fit to each other. The three main wing panels fit together snugly, and it appears the wing tips will need only the slightest amount of dry fitting and filing before they, too, will make an excellent fit. (Separate wing tips suggest that L.F. (Low altitude) clipped wings, or H.F. (High altitude) extended-tip wings may come available in later releases.) The fuselage sides go together equally well, with no shape or panel line mismatches. Lastly, I taped these two subassemblies together, then tried them against each other. This little exercise leads me to predict that the dreaded wing-to-fuselage joints will be OK. The insides of the fuselage halves are scribed with enough interior detail to complement the nicely molded seat and instrument panel assembly. I know some of you aren't content with any aircraft interior except expensive aftermarket resin-and-photoetched sets, but I think the interior detail on this kit is quite nice. The seat-supporting aft bulkhead and deeply-engraved instrument panel deserve careful finishing and display.

The ‘glass’ is bright and clear, with two complete, slightly different sets of windscreens and hoods, plus an extra canopy that the instructions say to ignore (a late-mark bubble). The gray sprues have a couple of parts options, too: carburetor intakes, wheel hubs or covers, and alternate bulged gun access covers. I’m no Spitfire expert, but I know early IXs came with two pairs of .303s to complement the Hispano cannon, and later a pair of Browning .50s. The latter array would need larger bulges over the breeches...

This leads me to the instruction sheet. It’s very large, and very clear, with text only on page 1, describing the aircraft and some rudimentary general assembly instructions, in six languages. The next three pages have excellent fine-lined drawings showing the ‘exploded’ subassemblies going together with numbered lines, leaving no question about the location and fitting of the parts. A fine thing: I've seen instructions where the placement of parts was only vaguely indicated, leaving the modeler to struggle.

Unfortunately, this clarity doesn’t extend to using the provided alternate parts. I certainly approve of kit manufacturers including such, but it's reasonable to expect guidance in their use. Here, two small drawings show removal and replacement of the upper wing gun blisters, but with no supporting text except for a terse "Versions B-F only", I can't make out which parts go on which version. Likewise, two wheel hubs sets are included: a pair of four-spoked and a pair of plain covers embossed only with valve hole access points. There are two different carburetor intakes. The instructions don't make clear why one part should be used instead of the other.

The remaining six panels of the instruction sheet, even though they're only in black-and-white, are a superb guide to painting and using the big 9 ¼” x 8 7/8” decal sheet. Each panel is a four-view, with color demarcation lines clearly indicated and paint colors called out by FS numbers and Model Master enamel and acrylic IDs. Every decal is numbered, and precisely indicated in position on each of the six color schemes. There are four in British WWII markings (some with invasion striping), and postwar French and Italian markings.

The decals have excellent color: subdued wartime British blues and reds, bright postwar Italian red, white and green. The French markings are as bright as the Italian, and include that shade of medium blue that other manufacturers struggle with. The color looks like a good match to French color profiles from the library. The decals appear thin and have what I want to describe as perfect surface finish: no flaws, not the slightest hint of glossiness, but on the other hand not a hint of matt roughness or porosity. The multiple colors are in near-perfect register, round elements exactly concentric except for the center spots on the two smallest French insignia, which are just a touch off-center. Many silk screeners do roundel center spots separately, leaving alignment to the time and skill of the modeler. Cartograf of Italy must be confident of their skill, which I endorse after examining tiny details like a ¼”-high pair white birds. Their orange legs are precisely registered, with black outlines exactly on edge. Overall, the markings look like they’ll go down easily over surface detail, and that a single thin coat of sealer, in whatever degree of the gloss or matt is wanted, will blend them in. I’m eager to put these impressions to the test during the build!

Conclusion

That's all for now. Time for me to turn this article in to placate our Editor, test kit builder coordinator, and Webmeister. Time to start applying glue to the parts and see if they really do fit... time to see if the decals look as good on the model as they do on the sheet. Time to forsake Hurricanes till the build is done...after all, not all British fighters of World War II were Hurricanes; some were Spitfires. Watch this space for developments!

Thanks to Testors for the review sample.