Kit: No. 2157
Scale: 1/48
Manufacturer: Minicraft/Academy, P.O. Box 3577, Torrance, CA 90510, and310-325-8383
Price: $25
Comments: Injection molded, 88 parts, decals.
THE SPITFIRE XIV was considered an interim design while the F.21 was being developed. Still, nearly 1,000 Mk.XIVs were built, and they served from early 1944 through the end of World War II. The first Me 262 shot down fell to a Mk.XIV, and this Spitfire was credited with more than 300 V-1 "buzz bomb" kills.
Early Spitfire marks have been well represented in 1/48 scale lately, so Minicraft/ Academy's Griffon-engined Mk.XIV family is welcome indeed. The first released is the XIVc; a XIVe with bubble canopy has been announced for later this year.
Minicraft/Academy's parts are molded in a light gray and clear styrene and feature fine engraved detail. The cockpit interior is one of the best I've seen in this scale -- the seat alone consists of five parts. The rudder-pedal and control-stick linkages are delicate, so be careful removing them from the sprues. Some sidewall details are molded separately, which makes painting easier.
Several ejector-pin marks mar the sidewalls, and there is another in the seat. All of the parts fit perfectly, though. If there is a weakness to the interior, it is that the seatbelt/harness decal is too thin for the scale.
I painted the interior with Floquil British interior grey green, and the instrument panels and sidewall details flat black. When everything was assembled I dry-brushed the instrument panel with silver, and gave the interior a wash of burnt umber oil paint.
The clear three-piece canopy and drop-hatch door allow you to display the finished "office." The center section of the canopy has a mold-parting line down the center which I removed with a few swipes of a polishing stick and a couple of dips in Future floor polish. Be careful handling the thin center section -- mine cracked down the middle when I applied too much pressure on it while removing the mask after painting.
The rest of the assembly was nearly flawless. The fit is the best I've experienced. I used a spot of super glue at the rear of the wing/fuselage joint, and a dab of white glue to fill a tiny gap in the forward left wing-root seam.
The engine rocker covers are molded separately, but fit perfectly. Minicraft/Academy molded the gun-access hatches as separate parts, so they can be displayed open. The left wing hatch fits fine, but the right wing hatch refused to lie flush even after a little sanding, so I glued it in place.
The kit provides a pair of guns for each wing's inboard gun-bay, a cannon piggybacked with a machine gun. Although this arrangement was possible, it wasn't common. There is little detail in the open bay, so I posed both bays closed. The cannon barrel and port plug are interchangeable on the leading edge so you can arrange them according to photos of the aircraft you are modeling.
The propeller blades are separate and stick out too much from the spinner; trim the mounting stubs slightly for a better fit.
Minicraft/Academy's box top lists the flattened/bulged tires as optional parts, but they are the only ones in the kit. The wheel hubs are molded separately, simplifying painting.
I painted my model with Floquil Classic Military sea grey medium on the underside, with ocean grey and dark green for the topside camouflage.
All invasion stripes on the kit are supplied as decals, and I was worried that they might not fit. No problem. Even the huge fuselage side decals, which include the codes, roundel, serial number, and the sky-colored band fit perfectly. Place the upper-surface decals on the wings first, and note that the bulge for the cannon bay must be painted white. After they are dry, align the bottom stripes with the top.
A little decal solvent snuggled the markings right into the recessed panels. Unfortunately the white of the invasion strips is translucent, and the camouflage colors underneath can show through. Anticipating this, I painted all of the areas where the invasion strips would go with the underside color to provide a uniform base for the decals.
No mention is made of the unit the decals represent, but I found a photo of an aircraft from the same squadron in Osprey's Late War Spitfire Aces -- it is 130 Squadron.
The finished model scales exactly to the dimensions in Squadron/Signal's Spitfire in Action. If you have a little experience building 1/48 scale aircraft, you'll love working on this one. I spent 18 hours on mine.
John Plzak