I built this kit to represent
Spitfire X4277 XT-M as flown by Australian pilot FLg Off. Richard Hillary with
No. 603 Squadron, Hornchurch during the Battle of Britain. Hillary had his first
battle victory when, on 31 August 1940, he used this aircraft to down a Bf 109
over Dungeness. He had inadvertantly formed up with a formation of Emils
thinking they were Hurricanes after he had become separated from his own unit.
After downing one fighter he made a hasty retreat undetected. He scored three
more kills over Emils, and claimed one as a probable and one damaged,
all in X4277 before being shot down in flames, in this aircraft, off Margate
on 3 September 1940 by Hauptmann Bode of Il.Jg 26. Badly burnt Hillary managed
to bail out and was rescued by Margate lifeboat. He spent many months in hospital
recovering from his facial burns and during this time he wrote the book The
Last Enemy, describing his training, experience in combat and subsequent
recovery. It was released in 1942 and became an instant classic. His victory
score was 5 destroyed, 2 probables and 1 damaged, all in X4277 during the Battle
of Britain. Hillary was killed in a Blenheim crash on 8 January 1943.
The first stage of
the build was the cockpit area, starting with the instrument panel and
cockpit sidewalls. Extra scratchbuilding was done inside the cockpit wall
areas as the kit, being an older one, only had minimal details molded
in which was disappointing for a kit of this scale. The fit of parts in
this kit is poor and reshaping, shaving of parts and in some cases scratch
built replacements were used in order to achieve an accurate look. |
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The two photographs above
show the cockpit side walls prior to closing the fuselage.
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The three photos
above show 1) The amount of clamping required to hold the wings together when
glueing them. These were warped and required this level of clamping to straighten
them. Then to close the gap between the wing top halves and the fuselage it
was necessary to place the glue and then apply upward pressure to the wings
until the glue set. Once this was done the gap was closed and the correct dihedral
was achieved, as well as sore hands from keeping the pressure on the wings for
long enough to set the glue. 2) The model once the wings were set. 3) Pre-shading
applied prior to painting. This was the first time I had attempted preshading.
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The above sequence
of photos shows different steps in painting process. One and two are the plane
after the application of the earth brown. Three shows the kit after application
of the green. I used Gunze acrylics for the painting. The last picture shows
the decals that I made for this kit. The original decals were that old that
they had yellowed and would not seperate from the carrier. In order to fill
the sheets I added additional decals required to finish pff a number of other
kits. Another reason for new decals was that the aircraft being modellled was
a different serial and codes to those provided. The decals were created using
Adobe Photoshop, corel Draw 10 and were printed onto Testors Decal paper using
an Epson Stylus Photo printer.
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This next sequence of photos
shows the aircraft after the applications of decals. Prior to applying the
decals I coated the aircraft with Pascoes Long Life Floor Polish, an Australian
equivalent of Future. The decals were thern applied followed by another
coat of Long Life. The first two photos show the high gloss that this process
gives. The third photo is the aircraft after the application of a clear
matt coat.
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These
next two photos are of the finished kit. I added paint chipping to the wings,
walkways and various access panels. Smoke stains above and below the wings
for weapons staining and exhaust stains were added. The underside of the
aircraft was painted with Gunze Duck Egg Green. The entire aircraft also
received a wash of crushed and diluted dark grey chalk pastel in order to
give the appearance of use and to highlight the panel lines.
Scott