Eduard 1/48 Spitfire Mk.IXc Late Weekend Edition
By Andrew Birkbeck
Introduction
In September 1941, the German Luftwaffe began to deploy their new single engine fighter, the Fw 190A over the skies of Western Europe. This fighter was a dramatic improvement over then-current British fighters in operation with the RAF, including the Spitfire Mk.V, and losses soon began to mount alarmingly for the British and Commonwealth squadrons which encountered the Fw190 in battle. So much so in fact that the RAF almost completely ceased daytime operations starting in November 1941. When such operations were resumed in March 1942, RAF losses once again rose to unacceptable levels, and were stopped until a plan could be devised to stem the losses.
Then in June 1942, the British captured one of the new German fighters intact when its pilot mistakenly landed at a British airfield. Trials were immediately commenced to compare the Fw 190A to the various Spitfires available, and while the Spitfire Mk.V was indeed proven to be dramatically inferior to the Fw 190A, the Spitfire Mk.VII and Mk.VIII currently under development proved capable of matching the German fighter. These two aircraft employed the new and more powerful Merlin 61 engine, with its two stage supercharger. However, the Mk.VIII Spitfire’s numerous design changes over the Spitfire Mk.V made it unsuitable for immediate mass production, and so a compromised was reached to get a Merlin 61 powered fighter into the air quickly: mounting the new engine to a Spitfire Mk.Vc fuselage and wing. Thus the Spitfire Mk.IX was born, and following initial flight trials in March and April 1942, series production was begun in June 1942.
The first squadron to receive the new British fighter was No. 64 Squadron RAF in July of that year. The Spitfire Mk.IX had a top speed of 409 mph at 28,000 feet, fully 10% faster than the Mk.V, and with an increase in the service ceiling from 36,200 feet, to 43,000 feet. Eventually three versions of the Spitfire Mk.IX were produced, the F.IX with the Merlin 61, followed by the LF Mk.IX powered by the Merlin 66 engine, which was designed for maximum performance at low altitudes. Finally there was the high altitude HF Mk.IX with the Merlin 70 engine. The vast majority of Spitfire Mk.IX’s had the so called “C” wing, incorporating either four 20mm cannons, or two 20mm cannons and four .303 machine guns in the wings. The Mk.IX became the second most produced Spitfire of World War 2 behind the Mk.V, with a production run of 5,653 airframes. Along with various RAF and Commonwealth squadrons, the Spitfire Mk.IX was also flown by Czech, Norwegian and Danish squadrons fighting on the side of the Allies against the German Luftwaffe. Post WW2 the Spitfire Mk.IX took to the air with the fledgling Israeli Air Force against her Arab neighbors.
The Kit
Many modelers reading this review know that Eduard issues its 1/48th aircraft kits in two versions. They first release a “ProfiPack” kit, which includes injection plastic parts, together with highly detailed resin and colored photo etch parts, and often paint masks, together with a multi option decal sheet and a fuselage and wing stencil sheet. After a number of month’s time, Eduard then releases a so-called “Weekend Edition”. This consists of just the plastic parts with markings for only one aircraft, minus the PE, resin and masks.
I presume the “Weekend Edition” series was conceived with the idea that a modeler could build the stripped down kit in a weekend? They must have longer weekends in the Czech Republic than we have here in the USA. The Spitfire Mk.IX is not a simple kit (IMHO anyway) to build, paint and decal in a weekend! Barring perhaps someone with a three day weekend, armed with a 12 pack of Red Bull energy drink, and taking only the odd catnap over the 72 hours!
The plastic parts that come in this kit are exquisitely detailed, and devoid of any noticeable sink marks or flash. Countersunk and raised detail where appropriate abounds on the wing and fuselage parts, far outstripping the detail on previous Mk.IX kits from Hasegawa, Occidental and ICM. The kit also comes with a host of “spares”. There are approximately 200 parts to the kit, about 25% of which aren’t utilized for this model: spare wheels, elevators, wing tips, cowling panels, etc. So be very careful when working on the kit and double check the instructions to make sure you are using the correct parts for this build.
Despite being a “Weekend” version, the cockpit is very detailed. I count about 35 parts, although there are a couple of “options” when building the cockpit so care is necessary when studying the instructions. The main instrument panel is depicted by way of a decal, and while perfectly acceptable for a closed canopy, a modeler who wanted to display the cockpit will doubtless want greater detail. The very nice multi part seat also lacks any harness detail. The model does not come with an engine of any sort. Two sets of exhausts are included on the parts trees, though only one is depicted in the parts layout drawings. The exhausts have nicely detailed and hollowed out openings, so you won’t have to drill these out yourself. However, the carburetor intake scoop is not a one part affair, but rather is molded integrally with the lower cowling, and split into two parts. This will make for a tricky clean up of these two parts once glued together to remove the seam. And finally, as alluded to earlier, the canopy has two options, a three part open version, and a two part closed one.
Looking over the parts, and the instructions, which are 12 pages of black and white exploded diagrams, I don’t see anything that should cause the modeler any difficulties. The arrows point to the right places and each construction sequence isn’t over crowded with parts and their corresponding placement arrows. The kit comes with decals for one aircraft, ML296, flown by Flight Lieutenant Otto Smik, the commanding officer of B Flight, No. 302 (Czech) Squadron, RAF. The scheme is Ocean Gray and Dark Green upper surfaces with Medium Sea Gray undersides and a Sky spinner. The decals are well printed, with good color saturation and in excellent register. However, the extensive stencil decals in the Pro-fi Kit version are not included in the Weekend Edition.
F/Lt. Smik was the highest scoring Czech pilot of WW2, with 81 confirmed kills, from fighters like the Bf 109 and Fw 190, to V-1 buzz bombs. He unfortunately did not survive the war. He was killed in November of 1944 at the age of 22 while attacking the Zwolle railway station in the Netherlands.
All in all, this kit looks to be a great deal for the budget minded modeler not wanting the complexity or the cost of the ProfiPack kit. You get the same top quality plastic parts from a ProfiPack kit minus the frills. And since you can only build a model in one set of markings, I don’t see the lack of decal choice as a demerit! Well done Eduard, and thank you also to Eduard for providing Internet Modeler with this review sample.