The Phoney War, Essex February 1940
A young 54th Squadron pilot hangs around beside his mount on a crisp winter morning, hopeful that with the good weather, the Jerries will send a reconnaissance plane across that he can hunt down.
Having followed the Beacon Models project since day one I was very excited to get the kit onto the bench and the first impressions were very good.
From the glossy and clear instructions to the high quality parts breakdown and easy assembly, these kits are easily comparable to the best loved Sweet, Platz and Eduard, but with the added benefit of having richly detailed cockpits too, which Eduard and Sweet in particular typically lacked at all.
Finely detailed seats, accurate cockpit wall protuding detail, visible panel instruments and even a representation of the Spitfire control column will definitely reward a little careful painting. It is only a pity that the canopies cannot be posed open as provided.
Assembly was so simple that both planes were on their legs within a couple of hours, even allowing for cockpit painting and research. A little seam line filler will be needed but it is a world away from the all-filler Mark 1 Spitfire 14s and Armory Emils.
The kit at present just includes the one set of Mk1a decals, but has parts for several different Spitfire types, including the two-blade prop and thick antenna mast, so I decided to have a shot at an early war example DL-N which sported (probably) a black and white underside.
Along with the rare B pattern camo. This was brush painted using AK 3G and Revell Aqua.
You can see quite prominently here the deep panel lines that have attracted a lot of comment on this kit. To me they are no major problem - you don't have to worry about a panel line wash for sure!
Decals were obtained from a few sources to complete the desired scheme. A Mark 1 Decals set was perfect for the lettering.
I did have recurrent issues with silvering on this project, from several different decals. I can only assume the paints I used had a much more pronounced matt finish than others.
I ended up stripping and repainting part of the wing to replace the roundels after that photo as they developed a very pronounced rim.
Fortunately although some is still visible under the photobooth lights, it looks fine on normal display, so I won't be attempting to fix it further. I will be more careful to gloss before decals in future though!
Then it was on with the fun part, adding a vignette. I went with a Thompson three wheeler from Ray Rimes Minatures - these were used in the early war on RAF airfields, although I don't know specifically if they were used with 54th Squadron.
The figures are a driver from eBay seller 3djson and a pilot in resin from Heroes Models of Italy.
With these added, the scene was complete:
Aside from my own decal issues, I was very happy with this build, its a lovely kit and with all the parts in the box, gives lots of interesting potential.
Thoughts, comments and rivet counting welcome....