Supermarine Twinfire

[andrewj]

Not a new idea I'm afraid , a lot of the credit must go to PR19 Kit, but I just had to build one. This one made it's debut at the IPMS Avon show last weekend and was I hope quite well received . Many thanks to Martin and the crew for the warm welcome on the What-if SIG stand.
The Spitfire F52 or Twinfire was Supermarines answer to the call for a long range escort fighter for the island hopping campaign in the Pacific war. It utilised two modified Spitfire 22 fuselages joined by a new center section and standard F22 outer wings, the tailplanes were replaced by a new center tailplane .
Six cannon were fitted in the outer wings and the center section contained extra fuel which along with the fuselage tanks gave a useful range.
The F52 saw service over India, Burma , and most of the Far East , with two squadrons being based in Japan with the occupying forces for several years after the end of the war.





Model is made from two Airfix Spifire 22 kits in 1/48 scale

Andrew

[Weaver]

Excellent! I like the fact that the centre section is constant chord: always makes a zwilling more convincing.

[PR19_Kit]

Oooh, that does look good, and you're right, it's like a 1/48 version of my Spitfire F32.    

A pity I couldn't make the Thornbury Show, they'd have made a good pair.

[Later]

Excellent! I like the fact that the centre section is constant chord: always makes a zwilling more convincing.

Absolutely right, especially so with twinned Spitfires, they look quite silly if they retain even a hint of the elliptical wing in the centre section.  

[JayBee]

I seem to remember that it was in one of these that "Ginger" Lacey took the honour of being the first Soitfire to get airborne over Japan. 

[sandiego89]

Looks great!  

Agree on the center section, and the horizontal stab looks perfect.  

Interesting landing gear- did you use the standard landing gear mounting locations (inners) and did you beef up the landing gear?  Request a head on photo and a belly shot if she can be rolled over without damage.  

[Librarian]

Speechless....stunning .

[zenrat]

Very nice.  Good job.

[The Rat]

That just looks so right! 

[NARSES2]

Gorgeous, so Kit's now has a big brother ? It will have to behave it'self from now on 

[comrade harps]

Wonderful!   

[kitnut617]

Very nice Andrew 

[PR19_Kit]

Gorgeous, so Kit's now has a big brother ? It will have to behave it'self from now on 

It isn't.......

I got it off the shelf to compare it to Andrew's and dropped it! 

Snapped one main gear leg off and BOTH white metal tail wheels! That's not going to be an easy repair.

[Tophe]

Wonderful new Twin-Spitfire!
Maybe it is not the first one, but this simply proves Twin-Spitfire prototypes were almost mass-produced, and each one has différences, this is marvelous!

[kerick]

With the number of Spitfire versions everyone could do one and never repeat!
Outstanding work! love it!

[Captain Canada]

Nice ! Now this one sure looks the part to me....big, heavy, fast, and heavily armed ! Excellent job all around. I love the tails and the six shooter.