1:24 Spitfire MkVB Trop

A tropical filter under the nose

The word Trop in the designation means that the machine was given a bulky housing with a dust filter under the forward fuselage. Without it, engines in North Africa and on Malta were ruined within a few dozen hours, because fine sand got straight into the intake. It was paid for with a loss of speed and of some of the rate of climb, so pilots often modified the filter or swapped it for the slimmer Malta version.

The look of the aircraft changed more fundamentally than you would expect. The lower front outline is stout, the center of gravity moved and in profile the machine lost the slenderness the Spitfire is famous for. Along with that go sand and brown upper surfaces instead of the European green and gray combination, so the same type looks like a completely different aircraft.

The set in practice

The cockpit framing stayed unchanged from the European version, that is a fixed windscreen, a sliding section and fixed rear glazing with narrow side windows. The sheet carries shapes for both sides, so the strips can be painted from the inside too. Three masks for the national insignia match the simplified markings used on this front, where in some periods full roundels were given up.

For an accurate result it helps to spray the markings from the bottom upward in layers and to let them dry in between. Desert shades also tend to be very opaque, and with a heavy coat a ridge easily forms at the edge of the stencil that can no longer be removed once the film is lifted off. The stencils are supplied on their own; neither a model nor paints belong with them.