Spitfire Floatplanes

[Spellbinder99]

I had the Eastern Express Spitfire floatplane in my stash so took it out and quickly established that although the Spitfire parts are absolute crap the "conversion" parts (floats, altered tailfin, ventral fin and rudder and wheel well inserts) are really very good.
In particular the floats have very nice and accurate looking panel lines and rivets and the replacement tail is good in outline but needs serious thinning.

I had taken this away on a work trip and decided to look in a few local toy stores for a replacement for the Spit Bits and basically found the now ubiquitous HobbyBoss Spitfire Vb Tropical kit. Now the HB Spit has in its favour a really nice looking basic airframe but horrible prop, canopy and undercarriage. In addition and it has a really good looking Vokes filter. What soon jelled the idea was a trial fit showed the EE wheel well blanks to be a firm wedge fit in the HB wells when turned upside down.
A drop of Tamiya extra thin and a smear of Humbrol filler and the wheel wells were filled.

More later.

Tony

[nev]

Hello Tony, not seen you around for a while.  Spit floatplane would look good in Aussie Foliage Green

[kitnut617]

Is the Eastern Express kit the same as the PM Models one Tony ? 

[Martin H]

no Its worse!!

[kitnut617]

Oh! that bad huh!  When I made the PM kit I dumped everything except the floats, prop and ventral tail extension. Then I got an Airfix Mk.Vb but I did add the dorsal fin fillet on mine.  Mind you I don't know why the various manufacturers modelled the Mk.V floatplane with that type of tropical filter,  I've not been able to find a single photo which shows it having it, and I've only come across a brief sentence refering to it and that said it was very quickly changed to a specially lengthened regular air intake.

Here's a pic of my effort:

[kitbasher]

no Its worse!!

And it's not even that good!!  I believe it's the old Frog Mk I Spitfire reboxed with the floaty parts.  I basically threw away the spitfire (some of it appeared in mty Supermarine Spartan whif) and built my 'Floatfire' using a recycled Italeri Spit Vb plus a few enhancements.  I'll try and get a pic up at some point.   

[Tojo633]

I was under the impression that this kit was the old Frog mk7/8 or 8/9 with the floats, although I am sure I have seen another kit around which may well have used the Frog mk 7/8/9 whatever with floats but it was not marketed by Eastern Express. Why not post some pics of the sprues so we can ID them??
Sandy

[Spellbinder99]

Both the PM and EE Floatplane Spitfire kits have similarities and differences but they also have usable parts for the conversion.

The PM version has the Volkes filter molded as part of the fuselage but it is too narrow and misshapen and the rest of the fuse is crap, as is the wings with molded solid wheel wells, plus the wings don't fit that well. The floats are OK, a little thick and chunky looking with no detail, especially around the water rudders.
The tail conversion is OK in shape for the pre-extended fin version, but way too thick. It is easily sanded down and fits the HobbyBoss fuselage fine once you cut the appropriate parts off.
The four bladed prop is fair, usable if you can't get anything else.
The decals are pants.

Ignoring the Spitfire parts, which are almost the same except for not having a Volkes filter, the EE kit has much better floats, with nice engraved detail and better water rudder detail. The wheel well inserts fit really well to the HB kit and are redundant for the EE kit as it has no wheel wells!
The tail conversion is again a good representation of the later extended fin version, but again must be reduced by over half in thickness, then it fits fine to both the HB and Aifix kit.
I will have to recheck but I think the EE kit comes with the extended carb intake as well.

Four a four bladed prop, the Heller Mk XVI prop looks really good, but I melted mine (left it in the car) so replaced it with a Special Hobby PRXI version.

With a little fettling, the canopy from the Italeri Mk V will fit the HobbyBoss kit , but I also found the Airfix canopy from the Vb/Vc boxing will do for a closed version and suits better as I am not going to try to go overboard with the cockpit.
I also used the cannons from the Airfix Vc as part of converting the HB wing to a Vc standard (sue me, I like the C wing better) plus a set of resin Vc cannon bulges and a Vc oil cooler from Red roo I picked up at the SAPMA model expo last month. Rescribing the panel lines to suit and carving the various other armament bulges from the Airfix Vc wing to do the conversion as well.

The HobbyBoss kit has the landing lights extended, so they have been carved off plus any bulges associated with the wheel wells.
The second floatplane using the PM parts will remain a Vb, so less work is needed there.
As I said before the HB Spitfire looks really good overall, but the canopy, prop and wheels let it down badly. Smaller parts like the exhaust stubs are top notch.

I would definitely say that the Eastern express kit is the better donor kit for doing the conversion, allied with an Airfix Spitfire Vb/Vc or HobbyBoss Vb kit.

Try to get some pictures up later.

Cheers

Tony

[Spellbinder99]

Just doing some PSR on the wheel wells of the Vb floatplane (so much easier with the blanking plates from the Eastern Express kit on the Vc conversion rather than filling the holes here with putty) and I was thinking about the floatplane based on the MkI or II with Blackburn Roc floats.

Am I correct in assuming that the Roc floats are the Blackburn Shark versions, thus the floats from a Frog/Novo/Eastern Express kit would do? Has anyone ver seen any pictures or drawings of the mounting setup in that conversion? I have seen a small drawing of the similar Hurricane/Shark float conversion that seems to retain the Shark float mounting multi-strut setup rather than the later single monocoque struts seen on the MkV/MkIX Spitfire floatplanes.

Would be cool to do a family evolution of the Spitfire floatplanes from MkI to MkV to MkIX and then go hog wild with later model WiF conversions.

Cheers

Tony

[kitnut617]

Just doing some PSR on the wheel wells of the Vb floatplane (so much easier with the blanking plates from the Eastern Express kit on the Vc conversion rather than filling the holes here with putty) and I was thinking about the floatplane based on the MkI or II with Blackburn Roc floats.

Am I correct in assuming that the Roc floats are the Blackburn Shark versions, thus the floats from a Frog/Novo/Eastern Express kit would do? Has anyone ver seen any pictures or drawings of the mounting setup in that conversion? I have seen a small drawing of the similar Hurricane/Shark float conversion that seems to retain the Shark float mounting multi-strut setup rather than the later single monocoque struts seen on the MkV/MkIX Spitfire floatplanes.

Would be cool to do a family evolution of the Spitfire floatplanes from MkI to MkV to MkIX and then go hog wild with later model WiF conversions.

Cheers

Tony

I've got the same plan as yourself Tony, got all my parts to do the Mk.I and Mk.IX (Mk.V is done), just need to get on with it.  You're correct with where the MK.I floats came from too, from the Roc which in turn got them from the Shark.  There's a photo of the Hurricane set up in the Putman book about Hawker.

Here's a 3-View of the Spit Mk.I.  BTW it never flew, as the sea trials were so bad they didn't chance flying it.  By that time the Norwegian campaign had come to a close anyway.  The Hurricane assembly only got as far as attaching the floats to a fuselage, no outer wings were attached and all work stopped on it for the same reason.

[Spellbinder99]

Thanks a lot Kitnut, that will do nicely. Should look quite nice with the Dark Earth/Dark Green Spitfire over the EDSG/DSG and silver floats as well.
Looks like the rear struts mate up to the original undercarriage pivot points, which makes sense from an engineering point of view.

The Hurricane has appeal as well, especially if mounted on a CAM Ship catapult. Make it a re-usable effort rather than the use once, throw away original concept.

Cheers

Tony

[kitnut617]

There's a lot of bracing wire that needs to go on too, and it would follow what you can see in the Hurricane photo if you can access it.  I believe there's four rear struts, you can see the diagonals in the underside view but it would need a couple of verticals I think, either that or it should have another horizontal between the rear struts which isn't shown.

Cheers,
Robert