I finished this 1/48 scale Spitfire Mk. IXc a week or so ago. I’d heard this was one of Airfix’s nicer kits. It wasn’t up to the standard you’d expect from Accutamigawa, but it was a fun build.
The only real fit problem was the fuselage to wing join, which I took care of with a piece of scrap sprue used as a fuselage spreader.
The cockpit was minimally detailed, but it did have a separate throttle quadrant. It makes a nice simple OOB cockpit, and with some scratchbuild or AM parts, it could really shine.
The kit can be built as a Mk. IX or XVI, and with all the parts it comes with, a few mods would make just about any of the later Merlin engined variants of the Spit possible.
The paint went on nicely, and I think it was one of the better airbrush jobs I’ve done. The decals were alright, though the upper wing roundels had a hideous black ring, so I used the ones with the yellow ring. Not the version used by this particular aircraft, but I’m no rivet counter.
Overall, this was a nice kit, especially given the price- about $17.00. The wings are a bit thick, and have some shape issues, but for the most part it looks every bit the Spitfire, and is a reasonable challenge to build, yet gives a good result.
This is a kit I’d actually like to build one or two more times.
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| Left side view. I left the door open to show the cockpit a little better. | Right side view. I thought the markings were interesting. I’ve never seen Spitfires with that design on the side. | Top view. The roundels I used on the top weren’t actually used on the real aircraft, but the kit ones that were accurate had a black ring around them. |
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| A left side view from the rear. You can see the cockpit a little better. | I drilled out the exhaust ports to make them look a little better. They really look good with just this simple detail. |
