Supermarine Sirius F1

[andrewj]

During late 1942 , early 1943 the problem of high flying German raiders and recconaissance aircraft was a worry for the RAF and the Air Ministry. A high altitude fighter , the Westland P14 Welkin or F7/41 had been ordered , but delays with the project led some in the echelons of power to look for a back up in case the welkin was a failure.
Supermarine were approached and offered a twin engined aircraft of compact size and unusual configuration. Possibly inspired by early sight of the American P38 , the Supermarine aircraft had two Merlin 61 engines in closely cowled nacelles joined to twin tailbooms , the pilot was contained in a central nacelle under a pressurised bubble canopy. To cap this the aircraft had a tricycle undercarriage , also an unusual feature on a British aircraft at this time. Armament was four 20mm cannon in the nose of the central nacelle. The design team considered that a compact , but high powered aircraft would give as good a performance at altitude as the much larger Westland design.
Production started in early 1944 , but was limited to only 25 aircraft as the threat from German high flyers never really materialised, the aircraft spent most of their time on trials and slipped into obscurity by the end of the war, very few people even ever having heard of them nowadays . Of these rarely seen planes the only photographs appear to be of WK387 which flew breifly with the AFDU in late 1944 / early 1945.




My model depicts WK387 when coded ZQ-E ,with the AFDU, It is in 1/48 scale and is a subtle blend of P 38, Spitfire and Mosquito.







Andrew

[Captain Canada]

Oooh....nice kitbash ! Love the look of it, way smoother than a 'real' Lightning. Love how big it looks too....great stuff !

[Logan Hartke]

Now THAT is lovely!  Well done!

Cheers,

Logan

[Tophe]

I clap my hands so much that it hurts...

[kerick]

Very elegant! I was considering how to do this with Mustang parts but this looks so much better using Spitfire parts.

[TallEng]

Nice work

Regards
Keith

[Weaver]

That's a beauty, and a really good blending of parts too: well done! 

[nighthunter]

This I must do in MS Paint! Also, why didn't it become a long range escort for the RAF night bombers to intercept German Nachtjagers?

[PR19_Kit]

I clap my hands so much that it hurts...

Now why doesn't this surprise me? 

A true work of genius there, and VERY sleek too, far more so than a P-38. 

[TomZ]

Great build 

TomZ

[Hotte]

Elegant and sexy 

Hotte

[63cpe]

WOOOOOOW, this is truly magnificent! Sleep, elegant though masculine......this is what whiffing is all about (ok, that's my opinion).

David

[kitbasher]

A very mid-1940's British-looking machine that pretty much removes all possible hints of Americana, very well done indeed.  

[deathjester]

Really nice - well done Sir!! 

[Ed S]

A Twin Merlin P-38 variant. What's not to love.

Great model.

Ed