Spitfire PR.XIX Rearward-cockpit (Airfix 1/48)

[2996 Victor]

Hi and welcome to my second What-If Modelers build thread!

The idea for this came from a post in the 'Whiffs found on Facebook' thread, post #2892 on Page 193, posted by @jcf. For anyone interested, the article in question was published in The Aviation Historian No.36, pp50-55; its still available in print form or can be downloaded digitally from Pocketmags. Its very interesting and well-worth a read: the profile of the Mk.XVIII is the inspiration for this build, rather than the Mk.XIX with the F.24 fin/rudder.

Backstory
Early in 1943, the Air Ministry approached Supermarine with a request for a two-seat, dual-control Spitfire for the purposes of pilot conversion onto the type, the then available advanced trainers, being considerably slower to fly, no longer provided fledgeling pilots with an adequate level of competence before going solo on front-line fighters. Supermarine took a standard Mk.VIII off the production line and set about converting it accordingly, the finished article being tested extensively by A&AEE who pronounced it "excellent" and "ideally fit for purpose".

Although the T Mk.VIII was not put into production, the Mk.VIII being largely supplanted on the production lines by the easier-to-build Mk.IX, following A&AEE's assessment it was decided that instead a dual-control version of the Mk.IX would be built in small numbers, an initial batch of 20 T Mk.IXs being ordered.

As was customary, each and every aircraft was test-flown prior to delivery to the RAF, the T Mk.IXs being tested in the usual way. It was during one of these flights that the germ of an idea formed in the mind of Jeffrey Quill, Supermarine's chief test pilot. One sunny afternoon in late-September 1943, the ground crew were mildly surprised when Quill, having completed his customary test flight from the front cockpit of a T Mk.IX, climbed into the rear cockpit, started up again, taxied out and took off. They watched interestedly as he flew a half-dozen circuits, performed some aerobatic manoeuvres, and finally executed a near-perfect three-point landing.

No sooner had he landed and switched off the Spitfire's Merlin, than he was running across the grass to the office wherein he immediately grabbed the telephone and put a call through to Supermarine's Chief Designer, Joe Smith.

"Joe, Joe, I've got an idea for solving the range problems in the PR Spits!" he gabbled excitedly, "I'm coming right over!" And with that, Jeffrey Quill leapt into his car and made for the Factory. The rest, as they say, is history. The first Rearward-cockpit Spitfires came off the production lines alongside their more conventional brethren in June 1944.

The model will be based on Airfix's current Spitfire F Mk.XIII kit. I've not had much luck with their 1/72 kits, my fault entirely I've no doubt, and the depth of panel lines is always off-putting. However, in 1/48 scale, the panel lines are "more" appropriate, and while the mouldings aren't the crispest out there, they're pretty nice. There is a little flash here and there, but nothing to be bothered about. I normally start by washing the sprues but since a bit of hacking is on the horizon, that can wait! So here are a few obligatory box and sprue shots.

Thanks for looking in!
Mark     

[2996 Victor]

Made a little start, cut out the opening for the new rear cockpit. The first photo shows it marked out with tape and shaded. This overlaps the radio/camera hatches behind the normal cockpit, so slips of 20thou' styrene were cut to fit, slightly curved to follow the contours of the fuselage, and fixed with TET. The second photo is after prelim sanding of the opening. They infills need to be filled over and sanded flush in due course.

I've started on the interior in as much as I've been scraping and sanding the inside of the rear fuselage to take the kit's cockpit tub. The tub will still need to be modified, but it struck me that although it could be shallower, it can't really be narrower, so the fuse halves will be packed aft of the cockpit opening to maintain width. Hopefully, photos will show what I mean when I get there.

Thanks for looking in!

Cheers 
Mark

[kerick]

Looks great! Can't wait to see the finished product !!!

[2996 Victor]

Looks great! Can't wait to see the finished product !!!

Thanks  I've started with my usual flurry of activity - I just hope I can keep it up  More tomorrow, hopefully!

Cheers,
Mark

[NARSES2]

Looking forward to this 

[mat]

Something like this you have in mind?

You cannot view this attachment.

[2996 Victor]

Looking forward to this 

Thanks 

Something like this you have in mind?

You cannot view this attachment.

Almost exactly - that's the heading pic from the article in The Aviation Historian.

Hopefully I'll have a bit more progress to show soon, but at the moment I'm still scraping/sanding the insides of the fuselage halves to get the kit's cockpit to fit!

Cheers,
Mark

[PR19_Kit]

It may be very long ranged, but it'd be the very devil to land, and taxi about too.

But it looks great!

[2996 Victor]

But it looks great!

Thanks - I hope the finished model turns out okay!

Cheers,
Mark

[2996 Victor]

It may be very long ranged, but it'd be the very devil to land, and taxi about too.

Very true, but here again the article in The Aviation Historian has an interesting snippet. The article, written by Melvyn Hiscock, relates a conversation he had with Viv Bellamy. Bellamy had been one of the film pilots involved in making "Battle of Britain", for which Jeffrey Quill was a consultant.  If I may quote from the article:

'Several of the Spitfire pilots had flown one of the TR.9s with a Cineflex camera in the front seat and the pilot in the rear. Viv told me (Hiscock) that Quill had asked him how difficult that was, and if he thought a reasonable pilot could have managed to fly from the rear seat. Viv replied that visibility was not good from the normal position and so, in his opinion, a reasonably competent pilot would have no problems; he certainly had none. At that point, according to Viv, Quill said something along the lines of, "We were stupid, you know; this would have been the answer to the range problems of the photo-reconnaissance Spitfires'.

Just how "competent" a reasonably competent pilot might need to be is another matter, entirely!

Cheers,
Mark

[kerick]

They might have had to resort to the landing pattern used with the Corsairs on approach to a carrier landing. Just a long arc so the pilot could see to the side. Once on the ground a guide could sit on the wing and give directions like that well used pic from North Africa with the P-40s. Or that weaving taxi method. It's a whiff so just include some more imagination in the back story!   

[PR19_Kit]

They did just that with Seafires as well, and the 'Spitfire Approach', turning late from the base leg onto finals, is almost part of the Spitfire manual.

With the rear cockpit version they'd just have to turn later. 

[2996 Victor]

They might have had to resort to the landing pattern used with the Corsairs on approach to a carrier landing. Just a long arc so the pilot could see to the side. Once on the ground a guide could sit on the wing and give directions like that well used pic from North Africa with the P-40s. Or that weaving taxi method. It's a whiff so just include some more imagination in the back story!   

They did just that with Seafires as well, and the 'Spitfire Approach', turning late from the base leg onto finals, is almost part of the Spitfire manual.

With the rear cockpit version they'd just have to turn later. 

Excellent points, gents, and if the pilot performs a wheeler then the forward view only(!) diminishes to zero when the tail drops, so the job's a good 'un! 

Cheers,
Mark

[2996 Victor]

After much scraping and sanding, I arrived at a reasonably okay fit of the lower cockpit wall to the fuselage, so with a bit of trepidation I glued the former to the latter    and then laminated a rectangle of 5thou' styrene on the upper fuselage side. The latter was to provide a "smooth" sidewall on which to build a bit of new framework, but me being me I used a smidgeon too much MEK and the 5thou' to wrinkled a little bit. A smear of PPP and a gentle sand should fix that. Just need to do the other side now.....

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers,
Mark

[Old Wombat]