Airfix Spitfire Mk 1 - cockpit

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

Hi Gang - heres what getting up at 5 am for abit of dawn modelling gets you.

This is the new Airfix model - with cockpit pretty much out of the box except for some seat straps and a replacement head armour from styrene sheet ( which I now think shouldn't be there at all for an early Mk 1 - oh well...). Oh and a new map case from wine foil - which I've painted in a canvas colour to add a bit of life!

All I've done is paint with Xtracrylics interior grey green, and then add washes and details from vallejo and citadel ranges. The canopy will be closed on this model, so I reckon this amount of detail will suffice. I've also made a curved bottom "floor' for the cockpit to simulate the lower fuselage interior.

Also theres a pic of the fabric ailerons - toned down with some Mr Surfacer 1000 and a bit of sanding. So far, a trial fit of parts , and actual gluing of wings has shown a pretty good fit. I've sanding down the inner trailing edges of the wing halves to thin them dowm, and done similar to the rear fuselage rudder fin area- as it all seemed a bit chunky to me.

As usual the photos reveal far more imperfections than my naked eye can pick up

All comments welcome

Cheers

Jon KT

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

Wasn't the seat on early Spitfire's a red colour?

Hi Daz - my understanding, is that very early Spits had metal seats - so it would be grey green.

The red-brown phenolic resin (?) seat was introduced when it was thought the aluminium seat might buckle under high G manouevres. At least thats what I thought - I'm sure Edgar or John Adams will confirm or refute this...after the cockpit is all glued in place of course!

Cheers

Jon KT

[Edgar]

The "plastic" seat was introduced (as an extra option, not a replacement) from 14-5-1940. It was strengthened 19-4-1942. The crowbar wasn't introduced until 4-11-1941. Rear armour protection was introduced from 6-2-1940. Since this is BRITmodeller, the dates are d/m/y, before anyone asks

Edgar

Edited July 28, 2007 by Edgar

[Mike]

The "plastic" seat was introduced (as an extra option, not a replacement) from 14-5-1940. It was strengthened 19-4-1942. The crowbar wasn't introduced until 4-11-1941. Rear armour protection was introduced from 6-2-1940. Since this is BRITmodeller, the dates are d/m/y, before anyone asks

Edgar

...and there was me wondering what month 14 was called! Septober, Octember, Nowonder?

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

The "plastic" seat was introduced (as an extra option, not a replacement) from 14-5-1940. It was strengthened 19-4-1942. The crowbar wasn't introduced until 4-11-1941. Rear armour protection was introduced from 6-2-1940. Since this is BRITmodeller, the dates are d/m/y, before anyone asks

Edgar

Hi Edgar - I knew I'd duff it all up. I reckon I can get the head armour out, so at least that will make the cockpit look emptier.I didnt realise the crowbar was installed so late - all those BoB models we see with it are wrong then?

Cheers

jon KT

[Edgar]

Hi Edgar - I knew I'd duff it all up. I reckon I can get the head armour out, so at least that will make the cockpit look emptier.I didnt realise the crowbar was installed so late - all those BoB models we see with it are wrong then?

Cheers

jon KT

'Fraid so (though I wouldn't call it "duffed up." How many chances do you get to trawl through the RAF Museum's archives?), and a red one (on so many models)just compounds the felony; I think that was a post-war H&S special. I was looking at a display, several years ago, at a Shuttleworth model show, when the man, standing next to me, said "All these lovely models, but, do you know, all the time, during the war, that I flew Spitfires, I never saw a red crowbar; black, green, silver, yes, but red, never."

Edgar

[Edgar]

...and there was me wondering what month 14 was called! Septober, Octember, Nowonder?

Oh, Lord, now he needs to prove that he can count

Edgar

[dylan the rabbit]

'Fraid so (though I wouldn't call it "duffed up." How many chances do you get to trawl through the RAF Museum's archives?), and a red one (on so many models)just compounds the felony; I think that was a post-war H&S special. I was looking at a display, several years ago, at a Shuttleworth model show, when the man, standing next to me, said "All these lovely models, but, do you know, all the time, during the war, that I flew Spitfires, I never saw a red crowbar; black, green, silver, yes, but red, never."

Edgar

Must, make, mental, note... No, red, crowbars.

[Red Arrow Jag]

Wasn't the seat on early Spitfire's a red colour?

The seats on Mk1 Spits were made of aluminium alloy and painted green. The 'red' ones are Bakelite (modern restoration uses carbon fibre) found on later marques...much lighter, Mk1's could afford the heavy metal seats as they had less armour plate and no heavy cannons!

Restorers at Duxford has made one for there Mk1...

[perry]

Must, make, mental, note... No, red, crowbars.

I can see everyone having a quick colour check of their crowbars...

[chadders]

No red crow bars eh? I have 1 word for that... BUGGER BUGGER BUGGER (1 WORD 3 TIMES). At least I was right to delete it on my BoB models

Mark

[Guest les]

The "plastic" seat was introduced (as an extra option, not a replacement) from 14-5-1940. It was strengthened 19-4-1942. The crowbar wasn't introduced until 4-11-1941. Rear armour protection was introduced from 6-2-1940. Since this is BRITmodeller, the dates are d/m/y, before anyone asks

Edgar

Ws the red seat an optional extra, also I belive power steering was optional but air con standard on all models,

[StephenMG]

The 'red' ones are Bakelite

No, not Bakelite but SRBP (Synthetic Resin Bonded Paper) otherwise known by trade names such as Tufnol, Paxolin etc.. Bakelite is a hard, brittle, black/brown coloured plastic. It was used for lots of things in old aeroplanes though (switch bodies, knobs, etc., etc.) but not for Spitfire seats. SRBF (similar to SRBP but made using layers of fabric instead of paper) was also used for instrument panels etc. too.

I'll get back to my pedants cave now!

Edited January 10, 2008 by StephenMG

[Troffa]

No, not Bakelite but SRBF (Synthetic Resin Bonded Fabric) otherwise known by trade names such as Tufnol, Paxolin etc.. Bakelite is a hard, brittle, black/brown coloured plastic. It was used for lots of things in old aeroplanes though (switch bodies, knobs, etc., etc.) but not for Spitfire seats. SRBF was also used for instrument panels etc. too.

I'll get back to my pedants cave now!

Getting out of my pedants cave I have a photocopy of a page from AP2280A (B&C) that covers Seafires Mk I to III and it states "The seat is a bakelite moulding and is attached to the mounting by four links..."

So it would appear that either the seafire had a "bakelite" seat or a seat that was made from a material mistaken as "bakelite" by the Technical authors. As the seafires in question were simply navalised versions of the Spitfires at the time I would guess that the same seat could found in them as well.

I got this page and a few others copied a few years ago when I started work at a certain west country aircraft manufacturer, and they had some records left over from wartime production. I don't have a scanner but will see if I can get a digital photo of the extract and post it later..

Here you go..

Cheers

Troffa

Edited January 10, 2008 by Troffa

[Edgar]

I wonder if those technical authors were the same ones, who called Sky duck egg blue? Vickers only referred to it as the plastic seat, no mention of bakelite anywhere.

Edgar

[Troffa]

I wonder if those technical authors were the same ones, who called Sky duck egg blue? Vickers only referred to it as the plastic seat, no mention of bakelite anywhere.

Edgar

Hi Edgar,

I agree that it can be problematic when we modellers want to rely on contemporary documentation as the last word in accuracy on a subject.

I know from personal experience that the people writing the AP may not have any meaningful contact with the aircraft or its systems and that errors can and do occur, but on the other hand it is also easy to see where the "bakelite" seat proponents get their convictions from, if the plastic seat is referred to as a "bakelite" seat in official documentation of the period its difficult to discount.

All primary research is beneficial for the hobby and forums such as this expand the knowledge of the community as a whole, but we all have to realise that there is very often no definitive answers available to a lot of the questions that we as modellers pose.

Here are a couple of shots from the same AP with the seafire parts schedule, note the use of "seat, plastic"

Note also that the seats, "plastic, group" and "metal, group" change part numbers and presumably configuration when installed in Seafires later than the Mk1b

Its a funny old game!

Cheers,

Troffa

[dahut]

SO the dates are the important thing. right?

[periklis_sale]

nice cockpit mate!!!!!