Steady progress on building Tamiya spitfire Mk VIII

After building a few of these kits you'd think I should be speeding through building this kit. Alas, no, the kit is complex and there really aren't any shortcuts. This is a good thing given the kit is rather expensive so you are getting your monies worth with this type of kit. Go here for build article. It looks like I've made this huge jump from parts on the sprues to wing and fuselage ready to join. The steps in between are pretty much as for my earlier build of the Spitfire Mk IX so I didn't want to go over old ground. Some minor changes to cockpit detail was required that I'll refer to later.

Research Night - Spitfire and P-40 in RAAF Service

I'm planning a 'Research Night' for October (date to be confirmed later) to discuss the Spitfire and P-40 in RAAF service with particular emphasis on camouflage and markings. My previous research nights have been adhoc, informal meetings of a small number of local aviation history researchers and scale modellers. What I'd like to do is present a more structured night to a wider audience. I'll present some interesting bits of aviation history which will include a large number of period photos collected from private photo albums. The P-40 photos will no doubt be of interest to scale modellers as will the new Spitfire photos. If you are interested in attending please let me know by email. Venue to be advised, light refreshments to be provided but numbers will be limited. If you have old aviation items (uniforms, badges, memorabilia etc.)or old photos, please feel free to bring them along.

RAAF Spitfires research night

Had a very interesting 'researchers night' discussing the Spitfire in RAAF service with particular emphasis on the Mk VIII. This was very timely as Tamiya has only recently released their beautiful 1:32nd scale model of the Mk VIII. A number of films and photographs were viewed and discussed at length particularly those depicting the 'sharkmouth' adorned Spitfires from No. 457 Squadron (see photo above). Much of the discussion centred on identifying the aircraft, a task that is not as easy as it may appear. The end result is that we have uncovered the c&m, serial and individual a/c code letter of many previously unidentified RAAF Spitfires. Not bad for an evenings 'work' :)