1/48 Academy Supermarine Spitfire Mk.XVIe - Personal Hack of the Air Officer Commander - Gloss Black

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

Hello everyone, just finished of this Spitfire, something different and my first attempt with gloss on an aircraft.

The aircraft was flown by the Air Officer Commander of RAF No.21 Group, Swinderby AB, September 1948. Note the paler colours of the roundels featured on this aircraft.

The Spitfire loyalists will note that this is a Mk.XIVe and not the Mk.XVIe, the only difference I could note was the recon camera, which I realized after putting I had to cover them up.

It is OOB, with a bit of lead wire for brake lines on landing gear, decals are Lifelike Decals, which I had a few problems with as you can probably see. I used Tamiya acrylic gloss black and lots of Klear coats.
Thanks for looking

2

Mighty fine job, Grant, imagine having this as your own assigned A/C and at that time. It would have been like an Army C.O. having a Ferrari for getting around his command area today. Pretty sexy in Black.

Patrick

3

That’s a beauty Grant! She does look great in that gloss black too. Very well done mate.[B]

Gary

4

Hi Grant, this is a nice looking build but, and I don’t like saying this … you’ve put the markings of a Sptifire Mk XVI on a model of the Sptifire XIV.

While the two airplanes share some similar characteristics, like the bubble canopy and the clipped wing tips, they are two very different aircraft.

The Spitfire XVI is basically a Spitfire MK IX … the major difference being the use of an American built Packard Merlin engine instead of the Rolls Royce Merlin. The Mk IX and MkXVI looked almost the same but the later versions of the Mk XVI had the cut down fuselage with the bubble canopy and the clipped wingtips.

And the MK XIV was equipped with Rolls Royce Griffon engine and the 5 bladed propeller. A much, much different aircraft.

Tony H.