The Kits

A comparative review has some big advantages for both reviewer and reader - I don't have to type as much, and you don't have to read as much - everybody wins! Seriously, it's far more efficient to build and review kits in this way. These are simple kits and most have been reviewed at least once here on SMAKR, and who knows on how many other occasions both in print and on the Web. The really major concerns are about ease of build, features and accuracy. For a subject as well-known as the Spitfire Vb, these are the issues that people really want to know about. On to the contenders:

• The Airfix kit, first released in 1974.
  
  
• The Heller kit, first released in who knows when - I doubt it's much newer than the Airfix kit, and it could be a few years older. It is currently only available from Smer.
  
  
• The Revell kit, released around 1996/1997.
  
  
• The Italeri kit, released around 1996-ish.

Straight away, this makes for a good comparison - two 'older' kits with raised panel detail from the former heavyweights in European modelling, and two 'modern' kits with recessed panel lines from the current European leaders. The only other option would appear to be the Tamiya kit, which costs almost three times as much as any of the above kits in this neck of the woods. For that price, it would have to be vastly superior to all of these kits, and the word is that it is less than accurate in area of the wing planform. Pioneer Models have a Spitfire Vb kit, but it is probably almost (if not actually) identical to their Spitfire Vc kit. Trust me: you do not want to go near that kit, ever.

I did not build the kits all together. Instead, I built them in an overlapping sequence, starting a new kit before I had completed a previous one, but never having more than two on the go at one time. The sequence was Airfix, Smer/Heller, Revell and finally Italeri.

I will deal with the features available in each kit later on. For the moment however, I should mention the configuration(s) the kits were built in:

• All were built with undercarriage down.
  
  
• The Italeri kit was built with a tropical filter and painted in an RAF Mediterranean camouflage scheme. All the other kits were painted in the Dark Green/Ocean Grey 1941 fighter scheme with Medium Sea Grey undersides, and had normal filters fitted.
  
  
• Only the Revell kit was built with clipped wings.

Building the Kits

The detail of the all the kits was painted in the same way, despite some contradictions and (in the case of the Airfix and Smer instructions), no instructions at all. That means Humbrol 78 for the cockpit, wheel wells, undercarriage legs and covers. The main wheels were painted natural metal (or was it silver?). The scheme on three of the kits was Hu 30/Hu 106 (Dark Green/Ocean Grey) on the topsides, and Hu 64 (Medium Sea Grey) for the undersides. The tropical scheme on the Italeri kit I will discuss later.

Airfix

I must confess to a bit of nostalgia here: this was the first kit I ever built, back in 1975. Perhaps tried to build might be more accurate. It was another few years before I went back to modelling, and it wasn't until 1987 that I built it again - properly, this time. This kit was in turn the basis for the excellent Mk 1a kit from the late 1970's. Airfix are convinced that there is still life in this particular mold, as the recently announced 2005 release list includes a 1/72 Spitfire Vc kit described as a 'modification'.

On the face of it, this is the simplest kit, the one with the least detail, the fewest options and the smallest decal sheet. On the plus side, it is the easiest to build, and is the only one that includes parts to build it with retracted undercarriage. Much of the 'build experience' is similar to that for the Mk 1a kit, so with the various reviews of that kit on SMAKR (including mine) and Peter Knight's review of this kit, there is precious little I can add. Peter found the surface detail to be a bit heavy - I must say that I did not think this to be the case. If you want to see heavy raised detail, check out the Heller mold ... if you dare! The kit was slightly rougher in places than the Mk 1a kit, which is hardly surprising. Some filler was needed along one of the wing root/fuselage joins, as well as at the rear join of the single piece wing and fuselage. That is still a problem with so many much newer kits that it seems hardly worth mentioning.

The subject options are the same as when I built the kit in the 1980's, and for all I know they are the same as when the kit was first released: an aircraft from RAF 303 (Polish) Squadron) - BM144/D+RF, and an aircraft from the USAAF 31st fighter group - EN851/MX+D. This is 'Lima Challenger', which was donated by someone who lived in the Peruvian capital. It was based at Merston in the autumn of 1942 (Ah! the things you find out when you scan your references). The two subjects have similar but not identical camouflage schemes. In common with many Airfix and Heller kits, the instructions quote Hu 27 instead of Hu 106 for the camouflage grey, but I know better by now.

The decal sheet has the same contents as when I first built the kit (properly), but the quality has improved, and it now includes the separate red centres for the three and four colour roundels. Apart from the Polish aircraft's 'kill' markings being out of register, I liked the Airfix decals. They settled very well without a decal setting solution, but then I also knew I would 'seal them in' with a layer of Humbrol MattCote, as I did on all the kits. There is no detailed stencilling to speak of, although I dare say the forthcoming Mk Vb kit will not be lacking in this department. However, for this kit I decided to use the extensive stencilling that came with the Smer kit, for reasons will shortly become all too apparent! That still leaves some missing wing walkway markings. Also, the 'Sky' band on the rear fuselage has to be hand painted, which I don't mind doing at all.

Heller/Smer

I am going to take a slightly unusual approach to reviewing the build process for this kit, even in the context of this comparative review. Basically, I am not really going to review it at all - it's rubbish. Mark B has done a typically thorough review of one of the many Smer releases of this kit, but was possibly too kind (maybe not quite damning enough would be more accurate) in his assessment - more on that later on. This is the Smer boxing that I built - artwork from some other boxings (including a HF.VI) are included in this review.

On the face of it, the kit appears promising, offering a number of optional parts that were not for use in the kit that I had. These include clipped wingtips, a blunt spinner (as well as the pointed one used in the kit), a windscreen/canopy in three parts and a Vokes filter for a tropical version. Dry-fitting showed this last item to be a brutally bad fit. The kit also has some nice detail touches, such as the panel on the port side of the bubble canopy, and the rear-view mirror on top of the windscreen. None of the other kits have the bubble canopy panel, but it wasn't on all Spitfires, or even a high proportion of them judging from the photographs and plates that I've seen.

The kit was more difficult to build than the Airfix kit, without being too much of a struggle - there was some minor surgery required to get the cockpit parts to fit properly. The main undercarriage assembly (and attachment to the wings) required much patience.

In common with a lot of Smer kits, the paint guide for one subject is on the back cover in colour, and other is in black and white on the instruction guide. The Humbrol paint codes are all over the place, but the basic thrust is this: the aircraft on the back cover (RY+S) was flown by PO Fejfar - no unit information, date or location is given. The decal sheet and the back cover have different aircraft serials. This subject has the 'standard' dark green/dark grey over light grey temperate scheme. The aircraft illustrated in the instructions (AD545/RS+T) is that of Stanford Tuck, complete with 29 'kill' markings. Again, no information on where or when, but it must be from about mid-1941. It has the 'mix' of dark green/dark earth over light grey. In 1941, the underside camouflage switched from 'Sky' to light grey before the upper camouflage changed, so this is certainly possible. The aircraft does not have the yellow leading edge markings that were introduced c. September 1941. I built Tuck's aircraft, but for some reason I applied the later dark green/dark grey camouflage with the yellow leading edge. Maybe I thought the stated scheme to be incorrect at the time I built the kit, due to the mix-up between paint codes and descriptions. If this aircraft stayed in service long enough to be repainted to the new standard, then I'm probably OK. If not, then I'm not too worried about dropping a clanger on a kit as poor as this.

The Propagteam-produced decal sheet is the best part of the specific kit that I built, as it includes a separate stencil section that looked as if it comes from a different source than the main decals - even the way in which the two sets of decals are keyed is different. Maybe this is from a stencil sheet from an aftermarket manufacturer? Anyway, I decided it was too good for this kit, so that's why I used it on the Airfix kit. As for decals I used, the white section of the roundels lack opacity, and the yellow outline on the fuselage roundels was out of register and As with Airfix kit, the rear fuselage band had to be painted on.

Revell

At first glance, the Revell kit appears to be the winner in the bunch, featuring the extremely crisp recessed panel detail that we have come to expect from Revell AG over the past number of years. Both regular and clipped wingtips are included, as well as cockpit sidewall detail and fully enclosed undercarriage bays, with rib detail on the underside of the upper wing where it acts as the roof of the wheel bay.

Then I began to build it and some problems began to appear. The cockpit looks very nice, with the sidewall detailing, the instrument panel decal, foot pedals, molded seat belts and equipment rack behind the seat bulkhead. Given all this detail, it seems strange that the canopy/windscreen is supplied as a single part, and there is no option to have the port access door open - only the Italeri kit has that. There is no panel on the port side of the bubble canopy either, although maybe not all aircraft had that. Also, there is no rear-view mirror. However, these missing details are not the problem - the problem is getting the cockpit sub assembly to fit to the fuselage. It was one of the most troublesome assembly stages in the entire 'Vb' project.

The next problem of note related to the wings. The wheel bay walls don't reach the underside of the upper wing, so there are unsightly gaps that need to be filled. Of course, the Airfix and Smer/Heller kits don't have any sort of wheel bay detail at all, but when you get this level of detail in a modern kit, you expect it to work properly. For some reason, the fairings above and below the wings (related to the cannons) are separate parts for which holes need to be drilled out before the wings are assembled. The only reason for this complicating step can be to allow a version with slightly different fairings to be modelled - if such different configurations ever did exist. What is certain is that this is the one and only release of this tooling. Unaccountably, one of the fairings was a poor fit and required more of ye olde filler.

The last problem was the propeller assembly. The assembly is of the 'modern' type, which means it can be attached after the fuselage halves have been joined together. The glitch is that the propeller blade unit rests right up against the fuselage, which means the blades are right up against the front of the fuselage, and this will just not work. This needs to be modified so that the unit is at least 1mm further forward.

The first subject is an aircraft (EP120/AE+A) from RAF 402 Squadron based at Duxford in 1943. 402 Squadron sounds Canadian to me, and the aircraft is called 'City of Winnipeg'. The pilot (an ace) was Jeff Northcott DSO, DFC. This was a clipped-wing aircraft, so this is the subject I chose. The other subject is an aircraft (BL924/AZ+G) from 234 Squadron based at Tangmere in 1942. The pilot was Axel Svendsen.

The decal sheet is excellent - perfect register, full set of stencil detail, and two full sets of roundels and fin flashes. There are also decals for the fuselage band and the machine gun ports. I didn't use the port decals - I think I didn't notice them until I'd already hand painted the ports. The 3 white spots (decals #18) must presumably go on the propeller blades, but I can't see this in the instructions.

One last point is that this kit seemed to be jinxed, although this is certainly no reflection on the kit itself. On several occasions, one of the main undercarriage legs broke off and had to be reattached with superglue. The final straw occurred when I'd just fixed it for the second or third time, and was holding the kit by the rudder. For some reason, the rudder is a separate part, so - you guessed it - it came apart from the kit, the kit fell and the leg broke again. Since then, everything has been OK, touch wood.

Italeri

This last kit is in many ways the most interesting of the lot. For one thing, it has commonality with the Italeri Spitfire XI tooling. The XI kit came first, not the other way around, as has been stated elsewhere. However, neither kit really has precedence - Italeri clearly planned to produce both versions from the outset, judging from the sprue layouts and parts breakdown. One of two the main sprues and the transparency sprue are common to both kits. In order to accommodate both versions, the construction process is somewhat involved. The kit also has the widest set of options - normal and clipped wing tips, two types of propeller blades, two types of spinners, two types of windscreens, two types of bubble canopy and two types of rear-view mirror. The kit also includes the distinctive belly ferry tank (409 litre capacity) and - as well as the regular filter - both Vokes and 'Aboukir' tropical filters. I couldn't tell the difference between the two bubble canopies, but the difference between the two windscreens was obvious, as one didn't have armoured glass. The recessed panel line detail is not crisp as on the Revell kit, but this is as one would expect. The plastic feels lighter and thinner than all the other kits, but there was no evidence of structural weakness or warping.

Of the three subjects, two are Mediterranean-based. The first is an aircraft (EP706/T+L) from RAF 249 Squadron, based at Takali, Malta in 1942. This has the big Vokes filter, regular wingtips and an unprotected windscreen. It also has the shorter, more rounded spinner, although you would never know that from the illustrations. It also uses the propeller blades with the broader base. This was the subject I built. The second subject (AB502/IR+G) is from RAF 244 Wing (?) based at Gourbin, North Africa in 1943. You'd think they could be a bit more specific about the location - you would never say something like 'Cologne, Northern Europe'. This features the neater 'Aboukir' filter and clipped wings. Note: in the construction guide, it is implied that the Malta-based aircraft is the one with clipped wings, but that does not tally with the paint/decal guide or anything else in the kit.

The final subject is an American-operated aircraft (LN853/AV+D) from the 355th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group, based at Debden in 1942. Naturally, this is painted in the 'European' fighter scheme. Unusually (at least for me), the 1942-style star insignia is applied only on the upper port and lower starboard wings.

The cockpit is generally inferior to the Revell cockpit - for example, there is no sidewall detail, and no instrument panel decal. The panel itself is detailed enough, although bearing no relation to what is illustrated in the instruction. One area that has been very well is the seat mounting frame - be careful not to install the frame parts upside down, which is very easy to do. For some reason, the instructions call for the cockpit floor to be painted wood, which I ignored. The cockpit sub-assembly is a much better fit than in the Revell kit.

As I said, the main construction process is a bit involved and messy: the engine section is separate from the main parts, and the different filters mean a third part to fit underneath the two upper cowling halves. There is one part with the Vokes filter (or most of it) molded into it, and another on to which the 'Aboukir' or regular filters can be attached. The instructions suggest that you completely assemble the fuselage before attaching it to the wing assembly. However, you don't need to do it this way. I thought it better to attach the 'main' fuselage section to the wing assembly, and add the separately assembled engine section later. Nothing here was quite perfect, so expect some filling and sanding, but not too much. The propeller blades had to be carefully fitted one by one, which required great care as the angle of pitch was not set - it's really up to you.

The wheel bays are fully enclosed, but unlike the Revell kit, they have been completely incorporated into the lower wing. This means they are not as deep as the Revell bays, but you don't get any fit problems. For some weird reason, the machine gun and cannon port panels are all raised prominently above the rest of the wing leading edge. I have no idea why Italeri did this, as at looks unsightly and not at all realistic. However, it was easy to correct. The cannon barrels were also sub-standard and quite crude looking. I cut them off at about the 60% mark and added some straight thin rod from the spares box.

This is something that really puzzles me: both the rear cover artwork and the paint/decal guide show a distinct bulge in the lower nose profile of the Gourbin-based aircraft. This could be to accommodate an extra large oil tank required for long-range ferry operations (e.g., to Malta). Such operations required the use of a belly drop tank, such as is supplied in the kit for optional use with the Malta-based subject. I have seen a photo of a Spitfire with this bulge, except that it looks even more pronounced than what is illustrated here. Then again, the aircraft in question was carrying an ultra-big belly tank (773 litres vs. the 409 litres tank included in the kit), and would thus require a correspondingly yet bigger oil tank.

The kit does not actually include this alternate bulged chin, and that seems to be correct as any aircraft so fitted would only be on a ferry mission, and thus be carrying a belly tank, which the Gourbin-based aircraft isn't. On the other hand, it is quite proper to offer the belly tank for use with the Malta-based aircraft. This subject had the bulky Vokes filter, and the extra chin bulge caused by this was enough to include a larger oil tank plus other additional equipment. There are several photographs of Spitfire V's with Vokes filter and 409 litre belly tank either on a ferry mission, or being prepared to go on one.

The wheels are a point of contention. The Italeri wheels have four spokes, but the other kits all have five. Reviewing all available photographs, it seems that five was the original number, but the design changed to four at some point. I have seen both types on Spitfire XI's, and it may be that Italeri's choice of wheel is correct for the Mk XI kit, but not this version. However, I would be loath to say straight out that Italeri were wrong - one of my reference books has one of those cutaway 'detail' diagrams of a Mk Vb, and that is depicted with four-spoke wheels.

Painting was straightforward once I decided on which colours to use. After much research and prevarication, I eventually settled on Hu 29 (Dark Earth) and Hu 84 (Mid Stone) for the upper camouflage, and Hu 144 (Intermediate Blue) for the underside. There is a wealth of opinion and conflicting facts about RAF Mediterranean camouflage schemes, much of which has been aired in various RMS threads over the past few years. While my choice of upper camouflage might have sounded straightforward in the sense that the colours I used are regarded as the 'conventional' scheme, it wasn't actually that simple. Firstly, I had to completely ignore the colours listed in the kit, they being ModelMaster paints/FS codes which were really only approximations. Then, references in other kits lead me to consider no fewer than 6 choices for the mid stone colour, and some of which were quite different to Hu 84 - indeed, there are suggestions that some RAF fighters in this theatre used a different colour than mid stone altogether! Faced with this situation, I decided to play safe and go with what I thought to be the most realistic looking colour, which also happens to be the most recommended one.

The underside colour also posed a big question mark. Hu 144 is said to be a good match for PRU blue. The traditionally 'correct' Azure Blue match (Hu 157) was, I felt, just too dark to use. In the midst of my researching, I found out that Humbrol had at some point lightened Hu 157 a bit, so I got a new tin to compare with the old stock that I had bought many years ago. Sure enough, the colour had lightened up, and it is now almost indistinguishable from Hu 144. I had already finished the Italeri kit by then, but it was reassuring to see this anyway.

In general terms, this whole area (RAF aircraft colours in the Mediterranean) is really a minefield, and the underside colour in particular seems to be a great source of confusion and speculation. I will return to this issue in more detail in a future review, as this multi-kit review is not really the forum for such a detailed discussion.

The decals are generally excellent, but I felt the red in the roundels and the gun port panels was too bright. I used the gun port decals left over from the Revell kit, as I hadn't realised they were in that kit until it was too late - see above.

Accuracy and Detail

Avoid this like the plague ...

Let's start with the easy bit: the Smer/Heller kit is dreadfully inaccurate. I had forgotten what I'd read a few years ago in Mark B's review, which was just as well - I wanted to approach my review with an unbiased mind. Looking back at his review now, I'm happy to say we are basically of the same mind when it comes to the fatal flaws in the wing area. The wing dihedral is all wrong - it looks as if someone dropped an elephant onto the outer part of each wing. That by itself is enough to condemn the kit, but there is much more:

• The wing chord is suspect because the trailing edge is way too thick. The very edge itself is OK, but that's only because the upper and lower surfaces converge very suddenly at the last minute. Both the upper and lower wings are 'full' rather than having the flaps and ailerons molded on the upper wing only. That's the way the Airfix and Italeri kits do it, and that technique should be pretty much mandatory on any similar-sized kit. Oddly enough, the Revell kit has full upper and lower wings, but using modern design and production capabilities, it's fairly close to the mark.
  
  
• The undercarriage - both main and tail wheel - looks distinctly unconvincing. The spoke detail on the wheels is horrible.
  
  
• The exhaust stacks look horrible. All four kits attempt to represent the 'fishtail' exhaust stacks, with varying degrees of accuracy. This kit is the worst by a wide margin, with the stacks being far too long.
  
  
• The framing detail on the canopy and windscreen is much too heavy.
  
  
• The bubble canopy is too flat.
  
  
• The cannon barrels are very poor reproductions. Unlike the Italeri kit, it didn't seem worth the effort to correct them on this kit.

... and so it goes on. It's just a personal opinion, but I don't like the raised detail on this kit, which I think is too pronounced and too widespread. Even without this, the kit is a dog - one of Heller's worst in terms of accuracy. I remember seeing a review of this kit in one of the main UK modelling magazines a few months ago, and the reviewer was nowhere near critical enough.

... and this

... and this as well!

... And Then There Were Three:

Most of the focus on Spitfire accuracy tends to be related to the wing profile (viewed from the front) and the wing planform. I will get to that later, but first, here's a list of other accuracy issues. This is not definitive, nor is it presented in any particular order. It merely covers what I feel to be the main accuracy issues, other than those already covered in the build review sections:

• I have steered clear of the propeller accuracy until now. Spitfire V's used either Rotol or de Havilland propeller blade and spinner units - actually, there were two types of de Havilland blades used. The Rotol blades were very wide and did not taper towards the base, unlike the narrower de Havilland blades. The Rotol spinner was longer and more pointed than the de Havilland unit. The Airfix and Revell kits both have the Rotol propeller unit and spinner, although the Airfix blades are considerably wider and (I suspect) more accurate.
  
  The Italeri kit is in a state of confusion. All the paint and decal guide illustrations show all three subjects fitted with a Rotol spinner, including the back cover illustrations. However, the construction guide is clear about the Malta-based subject being fitted with the de Havilland spinner and blades - this is the subject I built. Of course, on the cover artwork, it looks as if this subject has the Rotol unit. Neither set of (individual) blades look convincing, with the Rotol blades being very poor.
  
  The Smer/Heller kit comes with a de Havilland propeller, but both types of spinner. The illustrations (front and rear cover and construction guide) all show the pointed Rotol unit. The instructions are more ambiguous, instructing you to use the Rotol spinner but at one point showing what is obviously the de Havilland unit. Of course, you can't use the Rotol spinner at all in this kit. This realisation came too late for me. However, I'd never get around to building any kits if I did all my research before the event! It's just another reason to trash this kit if I ever get a good enough excuse!
  
  
• The Spitfire should have the wheels pointing in towards the base, going in the opposite direction to the undercarriage legs. The Hurricane shows the opposite effect, which is weird as it has wide-track undercarriage, and the Spitfire has narrow-track undercarriage - you would have thought the wheels should be pointing the other way around for both aircraft. Anyway, the Airfix kit is probably the best of the bunch in terms of having a tight parts fit that correctly positions the wheels. On a related note, the Airfix and Revell kits are probably the best in terms of the fit of the main undercarriage legs to the wings.
  
  
• Which kit has the best 'fishtail' exhaust stacks? The Revell kit clearly has the most crisply detailed units, but I don't know if they are any more accurate than those in the Airfix or Italeri kits.
  
  
• The Airfix kit is apparently missing some framing detail that should connect the windscreen framing (near the top of the armoured section) to the bubble canopy framing on either side. This was no trouble to fix with the paintbrush. It is a slightly confusing area, and one must be careful about making generalisations. You have to take into account issues such as the basic aircraft version and the presence or absence of an armoured windscreen. For example, the framing on the unarmoured windscreen I used on the Italeri kit connects directly to the top of the bubble canopy framing - note that the paint and decal guides show the extra struts on all three subject aircraft, which is wrong (sigh ..). The aircraft on the cover artwork is also shown with this framing, which is again at odds with the instructions, as this should be the one aircraft without the extra armoured glass.
  
  The presence of armoured glass seems to have resulted in different profiles for the windscreen section, with the main windscreen moved slightly forward - or perhaps set a steeper angle. This then seems to have resulted in a 'gap' that needed to be bridged by one central framing strut (in early versions) or by a strut on either side (in later versions). The Airfix Mk 1a kit uses the same part as the Mk Vb kit, so it probably requires the addition of central strut connecting the two frames. This is another area where I think I might need to do some more research.
  
  
• For some reason, the clipped wing tips used in the tropics were apparently slightly different to those used in Northern Europe. I don't know whether or not it would even be obvious in this scale if this were indeed the case.
  
  
• The Revell kit would appear to have the most accurate aileron detail. Late-model Mk. V's had the fabric covering on the aileron replaced by metal strips (for greater control), although I'm not sure if the countersunk rivet effect is accurate. I'm not even sure the Revell kit represents an aircraft with this design feature. The Italeri kit has much less detail, and the Airfix kit none at all, although some detail was introduced on the later Mk. Ia kit!
  
  On the downside for the Revell kit, the modified ailerons apparently had a sharper trailing edge. Because the ailerons are molded into both upper and lower wings on the Revell kit, they are not as thin and sharp at the trailing edge as they probably should be - they are good, but the Airfix and Italeri kits are better.
  
  
• The Airfix and Revell kits both have rivet detail around the engine cowling, which I think is a good touch.
  
  
• The starboard radiator intake and port oil cooler intake on the Italeri kit appear to be the least accurate when comparing the three kits. The radiator intake is slightly too short and the oil cooler intake is too wide - and high, since it has a mostly cylindrical cross section. The Revell kit is better, and (as usual), the units are the most finely detailed, although I wish the rear flap on the radiator unit was molded in the open position. For basic accuracy though, the Airfix kit is tops for both units. The radiator unit should taper up noticeably towards the rear, and the Revell kit doesn't taper up enough.
  
  
• It is just possible the wheel bays on some aircraft might have been painted in the lower camouflage colour, rather than RAF grey-green. This is a detail painting issue and not a question of physical accuracy, so it does not really reflect on the kits themselves.
  
  
• I have read that the 'universal' wing introduced on the Mk Vc incorporated a slight change in the position of the undercarriage, so as to better support increased overall weights when the aircraft was on the ground. The same wing was used in later versions, including the Mk XI. This raises the question of whether Italeri are correct in using the same wing for their Mk Vb and Mk XI kits. Similarly, are Airfix correct in using the current Mk Vb kit as a basis for a Mk Vc version? There may be nothing in this, in that the change (if it did happen) may have been so small as not to be noticeable in this scale.
  
  
• Which kit is the best in terms of the shape and position of the cannon mechanism fairings both above and below the wings? All the kits are good, but I think the Revell kit is the best.
  
  
• There is a small bump under each wing just outboard of the outer machine guns, but it is only reproduced in the two newer kits.
  
  
• On the three decals sheets that provide it, the stencilling is rendered in subtly different ways. For example, different fonts are used for the lettering, which is also reproduced in different sizes on the various sheets. I suspect this issue would rear it's head for just about any comparative review where there were at least two decal sheets with extensive stencil detail.
  
  
• I really should discuss the merits of the various roundels, serials and fin flashes in terms of colour, shape and size. But I won't. I'm not saying that they are all correct (apart from some issues that I have already mentioned), but they probably are pretty close to the mark.

And now (finally!) to the wings. When discussing the accuracy of the Spitfire wing, a lot is made of the 'gull wing' effect when viewed from the front or rear. I have always thought that this is the wrong terminology - either the people who use this term in respect of the Spitfire have never seen a bird of any description, or else they really mean inverted gull wing effect. People have no problem using the term inverted gull wing in the context of a Stuka or Corsair, However, while the configuration of those aircraft is plainly obvious, it's much less so with the Spitfire. In fact, the effect on the Spitfire is very subtle, to the point where it's very hard to find a photograph that clearly shows it. Also, because it's so subtle, you can trick yourself into seeing it when it's not there, or vice-versa.

In my opinion, the Airfix kit best reproduces the required 'gull wing' effect - the small anhedral (drop) along the lower wing until the top of the main wheel leg. The Italeri kit is next, and then the Revell kit. The difference between 'best' and 'worst' is very, very, small, and there is hardly any difference between the Italeri and Revell kits.

I can't finish this section without making the observation that the Revell wings look slightly too thick.

Final Comments

It is probably asking for trouble to do a comparative review of this many kits for such a well-known aircraft. The accuracy and detail issues are just far too numerous! Apart from confirming the fact that the Smer/Heller kit is not fit for public consumption, I don't think I can add too much to the debate about which is the best Spitfire Vb kit in this scale. Judging by the comments expressed in other reviews and newsgroups, it appears that there are plenty of knowledgeable people who hold quite contrasting opinions. For my own part, I still have a sneaking regard for the Airfix kit, despite its age and lack of fine detail. Why? Because lack of detail does not imply lack of accuracy, something that I keep having to remind myself about. As far as I am concerned, it can more than hold it's own against the two much newer kits. When the 'upgraded' Vc version of this kit is released, I certainly plan on getting at least a couple.

References

I used two main printed references. The first was Issue 9 of the Wings of Fame journal, which has a detailed feature on Merlin-powered land-based Spitfires. The second is a work I also used for my Spitfire Ia review, called Handbook of Great Aircraft of WWII, written by Dr. Alfred Price and Mike Spick. This book covers the Spitfire, Bf 109, P-51, B-17 and Lancaster. I also used a whole range of other minor information sources both from the Web and in print form.