Airfix 1/72 Spitfire I

“A walk down Memory Lane…”

There was a time when kids used to go out and play in the neighborhood (after having finished their homework, of course), coming back home by sunset, having beforehand meticulously cleaned all their small wounds after all that playing with the other kids, so they would not be told off by their parents.

When having free time at home and with the absence of computers, tablets, mobiles and the like, many of those imaginative, prolific youngsters would spend it on various “craft” attempts. One of them was plastic modeling, as the idea of making a scale replica of their beloved plane, armor or ship with their own hands was, simply, unbeatable.

Being a kid in the 70s, I was really fortunate to be introduced by my Parents to plastic modeling. If I recall well, my first kit was a 1/72 F-5E. I cannot remember the brand, but I cannot forget the shiny black styrene and the dual exhausts. And, of course, it was sold in a bag!

Needless to say, this kit (like all the others that followed) was impatiently put together in an afternoon with glue oozing from each seam, the goal being to fly it around the room in the evening and proudly show it to my friends the next day, hoping to make them jealous.

Those Were The Days, the days of the bagged kits hanging from the toy shops hangers, with us youngsters trying to peek through the transparent bags, in order to figure out the parts’ layout. “Cannot see the canopy, but I’m sure it will be in, it has to be in - or it will be missing? Will the decals work? Last time they were a disaster! WIll I manage to save sufficient money, so Dad will cater for the rest?”

One thing was for sure: we would build a lot of models!

Yes, these times are long gone. We now live in the golden age of modeling, being able to obtain (albeit, usually, at a price) almost every kit we would have dreamt of back then. But don’t a number of us miss those times…

As for the iconic Spitfire, little can be said that hasn’t been said: highly maneuverable, particularly at low and medium speeds, featuring a high roll rate and being sufficiently armed, it exhibited exceptional agility in dogfights, making it a formidable opponent in close-quarters combat.

Airfix came in 1955 with their first 1/72 Spitfire which itself looked like a pantographed version of the 1954 Aurora 1/48 “British Spitfire”. That Airfix offering was molded in a lovely blue plastic and sold in a bag. Airfix decided to recreate it in 2003, by molding its 1979 Spitfire Mk1a tooling in the same blue styrene and using the same sort of package (in a bag, with the original header, having the instructions printed overleaf). Though to my understanding, it was also sold separately (also in other versions), the specific kit was part of the Airfix “100 Years of Flight Centenary Gift Set” that contained six planes. For a more in depth look at the Spitfire kit’s contents, you may read its preview, found in the ever growing MM archives.

Having this kit floating in the Airfix big gift box for a while, I decided to quick-build it as a stand model and send it as a Christmas gift to a beloved friend in France. Just for old times sake, I would opt for a look close to the drawing featured on the header, which depicts a gloss medium blue bird, featuring the fictitious codes “BT/K’ and the equally fictitious RG904 serial number. To add to the nostalgia, I decided to hand paint it with the closest gloss blue Humbrol enamel shade, using a Humbrol Senator brush of course!

While not as basic as the original 1955 mold, this 1979 tooling is also basic, so construction was really simple: I started by attaching  the rudimentary seat to the cockpit floor and then trapped them between the fuselage halves. The gunsight was attached at this time, as well. Basic interior color, including that of the seat frame, was a home brewed green (close to Hu78 Interior green), with the instrument panel (which was basically a flat plane), gunsight body, inner front anti-glare area and head cushion painted black. The gunsight’s “transparent” section was painted chrome silver.

After having the molded hole in his stomach filled, the pilot was painted and attached to his seat. He had a medium blue uniform, brown leather jacket and helmet, black goggles and shoes, linen seat belts, yellow life vest, with his face painted Hu250 desert pink. The pilot, together with the clear but very thick and distorting canopy were my hopes for somehow blanking the cockpit’s non-existence.

The lower wing half was next attached, followed by the upper halves, the latter using my usual process of first removing the locating pins, then gluing them to the fuselage first, in order to obtain gap-free roots and finally letting them “rest” onto the lower half, bonding them with water thin glue using capillary action. This method usually yields to less messy joints, especially at the wing roots, an area that I find it more challenging to deal with.

The tail planes were then attached , followed by the radiator, the oil cooler and the main gear which was attached in retracted position, using the very handy half-wheels provided.

This concluded basic assembly, which was very simple and quite pleasant. As these 1978 molds show their age, fit was so-so, but some filler and the small size of the model helped fill all gaps sufficiently. After a final sanding, I took the bird to the paint shop!

I cannot stress enough how much I loved hand painting my models back then with Humbrol colors, so, for this nostalgia build, the decision to hand paint the Spitfire was a no brainer. Using an almost 20 years old Humbrol 14 French Blue Gloss straight from its tinlet and armed with an even older Humbrol Senator #3 brush, I hand painted the complete model, including the prop spinner. I have to say that the paint went down beautifully, even covering small nooks and imperfections, leaving my eyes dazzled by this beautiful blue shade.

Upon drying, I applied the kit decals, which, apart from having their yellow tad off-registered, behaved well, easily detaching from their backing paper, and nicely adhering at all contours. A coat of Future sealed them.

The exhausts were painted Mr Hobby Burned Iron and attached, followed by the prop, which had its blades painted black with yellow tips. The underwing mounted pitot, the topside antenna mast and the tail wheel were attached at this time as well and accordingly painted. Finally, the radiator front and rear faces and the visible parts of the main tires were carefully painted black, before a satin coat gave the bird its final hue.

The canopy had its well defined frames hand painted and attached, needing some trimming to fit adequately and some white glue to fill the gaps. Blobs of red and green clear paint represented the wingtip lights. I used the very nice kit provided base to mount the model after opening a suitable hole under it, before calling this “Nostalgia Spitfire” done!

It goes without saying that this bagged, old, simplistic mold with the fictitious decals neither can compete with modern offerings nor it is intended to. It clearly stands as a recreation of the vintage 1955 original kit and as such it does succeed effectively.

Not that easy to find nowadays, if you have one or come across one, resist the temptation to keep it as a collector’s item and go on building it, preferably in the same manner we used to build models back then. The resulting Spitfire might not win an accuracy contest, but I can guarantee it will offer you a big and long smile, kind like the one Back Then.  

Happy Modeling!

Spiros Pendedekas

29 November 2024

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