1:48 Spitfire FR XIV

A Griffon under a lengthened nose

The Mk XIV was the first production-built version of the Spitfire with the Rolls-Royce Griffon engine. Against the Merlin it had a substantially larger displacement and turned the opposite way, so a five-blade propeller had to be fitted, the nose lengthened and the fin enlarged. In 1944 the resulting machine was among the fastest piston aircraft flying over western Europe at low and medium altitudes, and it also found use in chasing flying bombs.

The letters FR before the numeral

The abbreviation marks the fighter and reconnaissance modification. An obliquely mounted camera was added to the fuselage behind the pilot and the spine behind the cockpit was cut down, so a sliding canopy of bubble shape with a view to the rear replaced the fixed cover. Machines modified in this way flew low over the coast and over the front zone, that is precisely where the antiaircraft fire was heaviest.

What the delivery includes

• shapes for the framing of the canopy and the windscreen for the outer side
• a second set of the same pieces for the glazing from the inside
• cut into self-adhesive film, to be peeled off with no adhesive residue

A bubble canopy has its framing led in a three-dimensional curve and ordinary covering tape puckers and lifts on such a shape, so paint blows under it. A piece cut in advance follows the outline of the frame and holds even in a bend. The inner set has a point of its own: the view into the cockpit from outside goes through the glass, and when the frame is sprayed in the interior shade from the inside, the glazing does not look like a bare transparent shell. The national insignia are not sprayed in this set; the sheets carry only the shapes of the glazing.