A Trilogy of Twinfires

[steelpillow]

Not sure how much I ever posted about my twinfires.
The historical backstory is stranger than my embellishments.
When the Pacific war kicked off, the Allies were desperate for a long-range over-water interceptor/fighter. Famously this would eventually lead to the Twin Mustang. Supermarine were also asked to do a twin-fuselage Spit likewise, but refused due to pressure of mainstream work. Another abortive project was jettisonable extended wingtips, so that high-altitude Spits could still rumble when they needed to. Australia were sent some Mk Vs and roped in two RAF veterans, Clive "Killer" Caldwell to head up the wing defending Darwin, with EM Gibbs as his sidekick. They ended up with Mk VIIIs in the Pacific islands, where Gibbs introduced the famous "Sharkmouth" paint scheme before the two partners in crime headed up the notorious and successful Morotai Mutiny, at much the same time being caught running a booze racket to supply the Yanks there.
Into all this steps my protagonist Ben Tanner, a British designer who happens to be out there with his project competed and no wish to come home yet, and offers to knock up some Twinfires for them out of the machines they already have. Based out in one of the central Australian-American ARDs (Aircraft Repair Depots), in the same secret hidey-hole as the booze stash, he does so.
First off the line is Caldwell's "Mk. V-V (five-five)" for the Darwin campaign, optimised for range and altitude rather than manoeuvrability.
Next come a couple of Mk. VIIV-VIIIs (eight-eights) for the Pacific campaign, featuring clipped wings for improved combat manoeuvrability, and with jettisonable extended wingtips for range and altitude while on the way there.
Back in blighty and knocking around Superrmarine's after the war the last of the line is cancelled. With redundancy calling the team and scrapping the planes, for a lark they bolt together a couple of contra-prop Spitefuls to see how fast they can go. Optimised for speed with a much narrower centre section, so much weight is dropped: armaments, one pilot, wing tankage, etc, that one of the u/c legs gets dropped too.
Anyway, on to the models (I may have posted this before somewhere).
First, the Mk VV under construction. Note the canopies that have seen better days, now going milky and brown under the tropical sun and dropped crudely in place by me to see the effect:

[steelpillow]

Now the two Australian Spits, one is Caldwell's five-five the other Gibbs' sharkmouth eight-eight (I already have the two sharkmouth decal sheets!)
Note how the flaps from the discarded wings are re-used on the custom-made centre section.
Note too the additional fuel tank in the unused cockpit.

(By the way, is it possible to resize the displayed image, so visitors can click on it to see it full-size?)

[steelpillow]

And now the Twinful under construction and ready for interior painting/preliminary assembly. The plasticard trailing edges are corrections to the inaccurate kits.
Note too the odd cockpit side panels; the kit's is modelled on the Spit, which is quite wrong.
Also mucking around with chin intake ducting and contra-props that will turn but not drop out.

[Caveman]

Very nice!

(Re the image you can add width=300, or number of pixels of choice in the [img] tag. So [img width=300])

I've been pondering a British equivalent of a P-38 with spitfire components so will watch this with interest

[Tophe]

Wonderful model!

[steelpillow]

(Re the image you can add width=300, or number of pixels of choice in the [img] tag. So [img width=300])

Thanks. Much better now.

[kitnut617]

Watching with interest ---

Here's my attempt. yet to be finished --- 

[PR19_Kit]

Here's one I prepared earlier, maybe 20 yrs earlier, and also Pacific theatre markings. I think it's meant to be a Tiger Force escort.



I can't actually remember all the bits now, but the wings were Airkit resins, and I think the fuselages were Heller. Contraprops from Aeroclub via Narses2, thanks Chris. 

[steelpillow]

Very nice. Looks more Korean War to me (FWIW Tiger Force was Viet Nam -  except in Whiffland, of course).

[Old Wombat]

Very nice. Looks more Korean War to me (FWIW Tiger Force was Viet Nam -  except in Whiffland, of course).

Wrong Tiger Force, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Force_(air)

[steelpillow]

Wrong Tiger Force, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Force_(air)

Back the other way then, fair enough. It still requires whiffing the contra-prop forward a couple of years to make WWII; I'll buy that. 

[Old Wombat]

I give you three British aircraft designed with contra-rotating propellers (CRPs) during WW2;

Blackburn B.44
Folland Fo.117
Martin-Baker MB.5

Also, the Spiteful began its development (during the war) with a CRP but this was changed to regular 4- & 5-bladerd prop's later & it seems some of the later Griffon-powered Spitfire marks were also trialed at squadron level with CRPs during the war.

So, no great stretch to get CRP's onto these aircraft.

[Caveman]

Modified Battle with Monarch engine (1939).

[kitnut617]

In the Morgan/Shacklady book, they were testing contra-props on Spitfire Mk.VIII's and IX's. There's photos of both in the appropriate chapters of the types. This was in the early 40's. The DH Hornet's original requirement was to have it powered by two Merlin 130's (props turning the same way) with the option of having contra-props, which would have been the Merlin 140's for power as they had the same power rating as the Merlin 130. The Short Sturgeon which just missed the war was powered by two Merlin 140's. Then there was the Wyvern TF.1, also developed during the war, also Tempests and Furys --- all with contra-props.

[steelpillow]

Progress:

The two Aussie Twinfire pacific interceptors now have their top side camo and base varnish. Decals and weathering to follow once the undersides catch up. Not a great photo, but note the two-tone colours, according to whether that bit was shipped out from the UK and weathered in use, or spanking new Aussie-built.
Less obvious is the 1 ft (1/6 in at scale) reduction in centre-section span of the Mk eight-eight and the fact that its wingtip extensions are detachable in flight (something that Supermarine considered but did not develop). Thus, it has both lengthened span for range and altitude, and reduced span for combat. You are invited to spot other differences between it and the earlier Mk five-five.


The Twinful postwar racer has a tailplane now, and its four main subassemblies are stewing for a few weeks while the joining and filling bits dry out and warp to their inner satisfaction. Once they have calmed down I will do the final shaping and joining.
Note the tab-and-slot fitting of the tail plane. The kit just has a butt joint, but I wanted a snug fit to hold the airframe true when I glue it up, so I worked in tabs and slots that would put Tamiya to shame.
Not very visible here, but this is a Seafang kit, so I had to scratchbuild the Spiteful's rear fuselage under the rudder (Unlike the Spit, the Spiteful's rudder does not go all the way down behind).


On the backstory, I have discovered that Supermarine began studies for a twin-engined Spitfire/Hurricane replacement back before the war even began. However they were all single-fuselage types (boo! hiss!). Engines offered were either the Merlin or the Bristol Taurus. The Type 324 was basically a mini-Mossie/Beaufighter (some years before these appeared), while the Type 325 was the same thing but with pusher props. The Taurus-powered 325 looks particularly insane, with fat jet-style nacelles wrapped around the radial engines and tapering sharply behind, though to a spinner rather than a jet orifice. If I put up a model here, most of you would not believe it was not a whiff. The Type 327 then replaced the .303 brownings with those newfangled cannon things, but was snubbed in favour of what eventually became the Sabre-powered Hawker Typhoon. And a good job, too.
Later, after Pearl Harbour and Darwin, Supermarine were asked again, this time for a twin-fuselage solution similar to the twin Mustang and Bf 109 proposals. They declined due to pressures of work on the current type.
So ironically, before the war they offered a twin-engined Spitfire but it was rejected, while during the war they rejected a request for the same thing (though with a different tail). But only in whiffland did they then rage after the war, when their own redundant employees built one from scrapped machines and set an unofficial new piston-engined world record.