1:32 Spitfire Mk.I early part 2 - RAF aces 1938 / 1939

The Spitfires that stood on the grass before the war

When No. 19 Squadron at Duxford received its first production Spitfires in August 1938, it was an aircraft with no war experience and with equipment a later pilot would hardly recognize. A two-blade wooden propeller, a smooth canopy with no armored glass and a glossy finish of the kind peacetime service could afford. It is exactly this appearance that this trio of markings captures.

The oldest of them belongs to the aircraft with the serial K9797 from the unit at Duxford, as it looked in October 1938. It was flown by Sergeant George Unwin, one of the men who then went through the whole Battle of Britain. The second machine, K9906, flew in the summer of 1939 with No. 65 Squadron at Hornchurch, and in the cockpit sat Robert Stanford Tuck, later one of the best-known names in British fighter aviation. The third, K9962, carried the markings of the commander of No. 602 Squadron at the Scottish base of Abbotsinch in May 1939.

The set therefore offers something ordinary marking sheets do not have: particular machines with documented serials, units and dates. Anyone building a Spitfire in its early form gets the basis for a model that can be placed in an exact month and place.

Before applying, it pays to seal the surface with gloss varnish, so that no air is left under the decal and the edge of the carrier film disappears. Once dry, the area is coated with matte or satin varnish according to the period the model represents.

The sheet itself holds only markings; the kit and the paints have to be obtained separately. Anyone who wants to go into detail can count on a glossier surface on prewar machines than they are used to from the later periods of the war.