1:48 SPITFIRE Mk XVI

A Spitfire with an engine from Detroit

The Mk XVI is not a new airframe but a late Mk IX into which a license-built unit made in North America went instead of the British engine. The difference was administrative and technical at the same time: the redesignation was meant to prevent tools and spare parts being mixed up in the workshops, because the American production used different threads. Most of the machines got clipped wingtips for better agility near the ground and many of them a lowered rear fuselage with a teardrop canopy as well. The Mk XVIs served mainly for attacks on ground targets and stayed in service for several years after the war.

Stripes that lasted only a few weeks

Before the Normandy landings, Allied aircraft were given alternating white and black bands across the wings and fuselage so that ships' crews and soldiers on the shore would not mistake them for the enemy. The painting was done in a hurry, with brushes and often overnight, so the edges tend to be uneven. As early as the beginning of July 1944 the bands were being removed from the upper surfaces, because they gave away an aircraft standing on an airfield, and by the winter only part of them was left on the underside of the fuselage. That is exactly why machines that entered service only at the end of the year carry the stripes incomplete, or not at all. Anyone building a Mk XVI has to check the date of the subject before reaching for the black paint.

For the build

The masks fit on the glazing from both sides, so the frames look the same from outside and from the pilot's seat. Apply the light shades before the dark ones; on two-color insignia that saves one coat of covering paint. Leave the film in place until the painting is finished and lift it off just before the canopy is fitted.