Seafire FR 47 - VP 440 - 131

By Chris Novak

Not much to say about the well known British top WWII fighter- plane Spitfire: a great plane, a beautiful design, with many variants produced from the very beginning to the end of WW II and a few years more. Some of these variants of the Spitfire evolution were also delivered to the Royal Navy/ FAA, therefore some modifications had to be done like folding wings, adding a tail hook and some more. One of the most beautiful and most powerful looking Spitfires surely is the Navy version of the bubbletop MK 24, powered by a Griffon (which made it necessary to add the characteristic bulges to the upper nose of the late mark Spits because of the Griffons size) that delivers his incredible power to a contra-rotating six-blade double-prop. I was truly impressed and inspired by some pics of a fresh restored Seafire in the USA (flying in Montana now since a few weeks) I found in the great Aviation Forum and from the first moment I saw this beauty I though: wow, must be a killer in 1/32! So the decision was made, here is the bird which inspired me to start this project:

Unfortunately there´s only one kit of a MK22/24 Spit on the 1/32 market and that´s the old MATCHBOX release of the seventies which has a few inaccuracies in shape of the nose, panel lines on the wings, size of the underwing air-intakes and some more but the worst part of the kit is the cockpit which is very, very basic, so for example the cockpit-floor is...not existent! Ok, that´s modelling, the whole project started with the griffon and the double prop: As some of you may know all my birds have working props, so to get this two three-blade props working in the right way ( contra-rotating, inner prop clockwise, outer prop contra from pilots view) was the greatest challenge since I started modelling again a few years ago. Two or three sleepless nights by thinking about how to make it work and another three days for the build and the motor and props were completed. Some technical details? First I thought about doing it like the original, one motor driving both props with a gear but because I could not get some special gear parts in the right size I decided to give her two motors, one ( mounted on the middle axe) powers the inner prop, one ( mounted out of the middle axe with hollow shaft and a small gear ) powers the outer prop. Physically the better solution, ´cause each prop has is own motor and no power is "eaten" by a complex gear installment.

MK 24 and the Seafire I´m sure I would have thought twice about doing this conversion! Main differences are the modified tail with a tail hook installed and the air intake right behind the props at the underside of the front nose. Lots of 2K-filler were needed to fix this and also the wrong shape of the kits "Griffon- bulges" were corrected with filling and sanding them to the right shape.

After doing this conversions the build went on as usual in my "cutaway" style by doing the ribs and stringers of fuselage and starboard wing, some more modifications of the kits parts are the landing flaps in "down" position, the motor mount plus the exhaust covers, all made of aluminium and the landing gear, made from alu tubings.

Then the build went on the normal way....ok, a little bit more filling and sanding than normal, but all in all finally a nice bird. Some of the "Spit-specialists" may notice two inaccuracies:

Interior-colour - reference material of these late mark spits are very hard to get so I decided to use the colours of the actual restored Spit in the US showing this kind of interior-green.

Shape of front windscreen: I know that the wind-screen were different from that of a normal MK 24, but I´m not familiar with self-made vac-canopies so I decided to use the kits windscreen...........don´t shoot me for that.

Last pic is taken at the "ModelMania 2004" in June Frankfurt/Germany, notice the working prop.

Seafire FR 47 - VP 440 - 131

By Chris Novak

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