Supermarine Spitfire Mk1

Injection moulded kit in 1/24th scale, extensively modified

I include this model, completed in my early 30s, as a humble tribute to Airfix. I confess that when I opened the box and glimpsed the ghastly white plastic I very nearly binned the entire thing. Yet with all the poorly rendered detail stripped out, the fuselage, wings and empennage blanks make a sound basis for a creditable project, which is far from damming this early 1/24th injection moulded kit with faint praise. The model, which featured in Fine Scale Modeler, is currently displayed at Marshall’s Aerospace in Cambridge, where the Spitfire made its pre-war public debut. It is finished in the markings of 19 Squadron, Duxford, October 1940. The Merlin is plundered from the Airfix Hawker Hurricane kit.