Israel's first
Spitfire, a MkIXc coded D.130, was a bit of a 1:1 scale kitbash. It involved
parts from no less than 3 different airframes; one was an Egyption aircraft shot
down by Israeli forces, and the other two were salvaged from an RAF parts dump
after the withdrawal of British forces.
Hasegawa's kit has
to be one of the better Spitfires in 1/72, and the easiest to build. This kit
was built almost out of the box. Changes to accurately represent D.130 were:
-
the removal of
the wing top wheel bulges
-
filling of the
outboard gun ports and ejector chutes
-
removal of
the outboard cannons from the wing leading edge
Simple tape
seatbelts were added to the kit seat, and the kit gunsight reflector was sanded
and polished to a scale thickness. The cockpit was painted and assembled and the
rest of the model was built following the instructions. I left off the main
wheels, propeller and spinner, and exhausts till after painting and decalling
was completed.
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The
model was preshaded with flat black, using my trusty Aztec A470, including a
rough anti-glare panel (which can be faintly seen under the paint in photos).
The reference I used, and all research I came across, stated that the aircraft
was painted in "very patchy dark green primer" similar to RAF Dark
Green, but with a touch more olive in it. I use Gunze acrylics as my paint of
choice when airbrushing. The whole model was misted with Gunze dark green and
then various panels were hit with different greens to get the look as patchy as
possible. Control surfaces picked out in a lighter shade of green.
The
photos I had showed some bare metal parts on the airframe (radio hatch, main
wheel hubs, tail wheel, radio mast and gun access panels), and these were masked
off and airbrushed with Tamiya enamel silver. Then, the port wingroot was given
a very patchy application of the same silver using a paintbrush. I couldn't make
out any exhaust staining in the photos so elected not to add any.
The
decals are from a company called HQDecal and are beautiful to work with. D.130
had all markings crudely applied using white chalk, and the decals represent
this very well. Looking at the photos, it appears some of the decals are
slightly underscale (and don't ask me what the smaller ones say, but they are
correct).
The
model was sealed with Gunze gloss varnish and given a wash with a mix of 5%
Paynes Grey oil paint, 5% Raw Umber oil paint and 90% turps, before being given
a final matt coat. I used some Tamiya silver enamel on a fine brush to add some
paint chips.
Final
additions were to paint the tires, the prop and spinner, and the exhausts, and
add them to the kit. The spinner and props looked very clean in the photos, so I
applied a small amount of chipping to the spinner only.
All
in all a very different looking Spitfire, and a nice addition to my IAF models.
Reference
Craig
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images below to see larger images
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