Subject: Vickers Supermarine Spitfire Mk. XVIc

Scale: 1/72

Manufacturer: Heller

Kit No.: Ref. 282 (Heller No., but Smer may re-release this one too)

Parts: 38 (3 transparencies, 35 gray styrene)

Media: Injection molded styrene

Price: Varies.

Detail: 8 (ascending scale 1-10)

Accuracy: 5 (ascending, 1-10); see review

(My aplologies to Mike for putting one of my kit photos here.  This is the Heller kit with decals from an unremembered source for a SAAF Spit XVI)

The Mk. XVIc is a bubble-canopied LF. Mk. IX with a Packard Merlin, pointed rudder and the 20mm/0.50 cal. armament. Another of Heller's Spitfire lineup, the Mk. XVIc deleted all the problems with the Mk. V and introduced one of its own. Detail is good on this kit, and the wings and fuselage fit well. Landing gear is also acceptable, with separate scissor links and well-detailed wheel hubs. Exhausts are separate, the cockpit transparencies are thin and distortion free, and the wing has the correct LF clipped-tip planform with outboard cannon and inboard 0.50 caliber machine guns (yes, 0.50 calibers!). The tailwheel - molded to the fuselage - is a little chunky in the yoke area, and some trimming and filing will help this.

The problem comes under the wing, when one notices that the radiator-oil cooler fairings are those from a Griffon Spitfire! Unless you put a Griffon nose and fin-rudder on this kit, the underwing fairings have to go. I suspect the reason for this flaw lies in the choice of Belgian postwar markings for one of the decal options. A picture of some Belgian natural-metal Mk. XIV's (visually close to XVI, the Roman numeral I mean) in Squadron/Signal's Spitfire In Action may have been the reason for this goof. The Matchbox Mk. IX/XVI offers separately molded underwing intake fairings and, being cheap, could provide the save to make this kit an accurate part of your 1/72 scale collection.

- Mike Still