The baking heat of a Greek summer. The playful dance of midsummer fairies near Athens is interrupted by the infernal brutality of the fratricidal civil war that erupted between Communist and Nationalist Hellenes after the conclusion of the Axis occupation.
RAF donated Spitfires were used extensively by the Greek Airforce, mostly in camouflage schemes, but this stripped metallic finish IXc made an eye catching additional to the fleet.
The Eduard Spitfire IX is one of the classic 144th kits - superbly detailed - but showing its age in the complete lack of cockpit - not even a seat.
They did release an etch fret with seat, along with a few other details and I picked a few of these up recently.
So this build was really a tryout of this fret to see how good it looked and decide if I wanted more to fill out my stash fleet.
The Greek decals have been in my collection a while and were chosen for expediency as an NMF scheme would be quicker than camo for this test build.
The kit goes together smoothly and the etch was easy to fit.
The detail was really nice but ultimately would prove hard to see under the plastic canopy. I did manage to get some vacform canopies that can hopefully be cut to pose open that I might try next time.
Paint was a blast of Tamiya from a can, then I tried a new technique, lightly sanding the surfaces to give a grip for a wash, providing a dirty, well worn look.
Decals were added after as I wanted to give an impression of an airframe well worn before it was stripped and given Hellenic markings.
The decal sheet from Shelf Oddity of Poland even includes the small antiglare panel. Since the sheet I got, a new sheet has been issued with underwing serials that this plane is believed to have carried - but since you can't see that on mine anyway, I didn't bother to get the new sheet.
The base was one of my standard format designs based on a few reference photos of the conflict and the primitive facilities in which it was fought.
I decided to add the etched flaps to the Spitfire as they come on the fret, so since these would only really be deployed on the ground during maintenance, I went with a servicing team working on the plane and in keeping with the hot setting, these shirtless figures from Heroes Models seemed ideal.
Given that most figures of aircrew in North Africa, the Far East and Mediterranean theatres show them shirtless, they are not often represented as such in model form. These figures have great detail (look at those abs!) although I had to break and reposition the arms to fit the scene.
As a final step I added debris to the airfield to represent the late days of a debilitating Civil War, some roving sheep because it is Greece and two fuel tanks which were being used as Napalm tanks by the Air Force at this time.
This wrapped up one of my favourite builds of the year so far. It will be touring with SIG144 this year, including SMW Telford so do come and say hi.
Thanks for reading, comments, feedback, critiques and nice Greek lamb recipes welcome.
