Eduard 1/48 Spitfire Mk.Vc ProfiPACK
By Jacob Russell
The Plane
The Spitfire Mk.Vc was a further refinement of the Mk.Vb, the most produced Spitfire variant. The Mk. Vc had a reinforced wing allowing for the heavier weaponry of 4 20mm cannon. However this armament degraded the aircraft's performance and most Mk.Vcs had the same 4 .303 machine guns and 2 20mm cannon of the Mk.Vc. CBAF (Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory) produced 3,003 Mk.Vbs and 1,474 Mk.Vcs and Westland delivered 140 Mk.Vb and 495 Mk.Vc aircraft.
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The Kit
You get 266 parts in the box. 228 of them are plastic on 7 sprues. There are 37 parts on a single photo-etch fret, plus a small sheet of rice paper masks. The surface detail of the wings and fuselage consists of delicate recessed panel lines and rivets along with raised elements like Dzus fasteners on the cowling. This detail is superbly executed and will look stunning with thinly applied paint and panel line washes.
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The cockpit is a major focal point of this kit. It is a complex assembly and you can use the instrument panel decal or opt for the PE "sandwich". You can choose from 2 different gunsight lenses, rectangular or oval. The PE fret also includes the seat harness, rudder pedal straps, throttle quadrant, etc.
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The wheel wells are deep and convincingly busy. The landing gear, gear doors and main wheels look good, too. The upper and lower wings are especially praiseworthy, with great looking panel lines and rivets of varying patterns. The elusive Spitfire lower "gull wing" is well depicted.
The kit includes marking options for 7 different Mk.Vc aircraft:
"IR*G", AB380, W/Cdr Ian R. Gleed, CO of Ibsley Wing, RAF Ibsley, Surrey, Great Britain, April-July 1942. This Mk.Vc was painted in the mid-War Ocean Gray/Dark Green over Medium Sea Gray camouflage with a Sky spinner and fuselage band.
"IR*G", AB380, W/Cdr Ian R. Gleed, CO of Ibsley Wing, RAF Ibsley, Surrey, Great Britain, April-July 1942. This is the same plane with Type C1 fuselage and C lower wing roundels as opposed to the earlier War Type A1 fuselage and A lower wing roundels.
"DU*V", AR548, F/Sgt Miroslav A. Liškutín, No. 312 (Czechoslovak) Squadron, RAF Churchstanton, Somerset, Great Britain, December 1942 - January 1943. This Mk.Vc was painted in the mid-War Ocean Gray/Dark Green /Medium Sea Gray colors with a Sky spinner and fuselage band.
"JH*D", EE681, F/O Jerzy Zbrożek, No. 317 (Polish) Squadron, RAF Perranporth, Cornwall, Great Britain, September 1943. Ocean Gray and Dark Green over Medium Sea Gray with a Sky spinner and fuselage band. This Mk.Vc had clipped wingtips and black/white ID bands on the outboard upper and lower wings.
"WD*A", "Impatient Virgin", F/O James H. Montgomery, 4th FS, 52nd FG, 12th AF, Corsica, January – February 1944. This Mk.Vc was painted in the Mediterranean Theatre colors of Middlestone and Dark Earth over Azure Blue with a Red spinner. RAF upper and lower wing r roundels were overpainted and replaced with USAAF national insignia
EF736, GR II/33 "Savoie", Dijon, France, September 1944. This Mk.Vc had the clipped wingtips and was painted Middlestone and Dark Earth over Azure Blue with a Red spinner. This plane had French roundels, yellow fin and mid span ID bands on the wings and a Red/White/Blue rudder.
"JM*T", AR560, W/Cdr John M. Thompson, 4th FS, Luqa Malta, January – May 1943. This Spitfire was repainted on Malta in the Maltese Theatre colors of Field Gray and Olive Green over Azure Blue with a Red spinner. The aircraft codes were also Azure Blue.
There are 2 decal sheets, one for the the 7 decal options and one for the airframe stencils. The instructions are well illustrated with a logical assembly sequence. Color callouts are for GSI Creos (Gunze) Aqeous and Mr. Color and Mission Models paints. This is a first class product!
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Conclusion
Eduard's Spitfire Mk.Vc is the first 1/48th scale mainstream injection molded kit of this important variant. It is accurate and well detailed. With the ProfiPACK edition everything you need to build a contest winner is right in the box. If that's not enough detail, you have a wide variety of Eduard photo-etch and Brassin aftermarket to choose from. I recommend this kit and I would like to thank Eduard for the review sample.
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References
The Supermarine Spitfire, A Comprehensive Guide for the Modeller, Part 1: Merlin Powered, by Robert Humphreys, Modellers Datafile 3, SAM Publications, 2000
Spitfire in Action, Aircraft No.39, by Jerry Scutts, Squadron/Signal Publications, 1980