Spitfire Mk.I, K9909, 65 Sqn, May 1939
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Quick little four-evening build of a Tamiya Spitfire Mk.I 1/72 scale kit that I received in a club gift exchange. I decided to build it as an early production Mk.Ia after scrounging through my spare decal bin.
Spitfire Mk.Ia Serial K9099 wasn't even two months old when she was photographed in a lineup of other No.65 "East India" Squadron machines in May of 1939 while wearing code FZ-O. Apparently she had an early stroke of bad luck as she apparently had a replaced oil cooler fairing and pitot tube painted black and a yet un-repainted port forward wing root fillet.
K9099 ended with another stroke of bad luck when, recoded YT-O, she was shot down by a Bf. 109 over Bazinghen, Pas-de-Calais with the loss of her pilot, Sgt Michael Keymer, on August 22nd 1940.
The model was built mostly out of the box with an added Eduard seat harness and brake lines from fine wire. I also replaced the later style gunsight with the early ring style one, and scratch built the idiosyncratic early style pitot tube and antenna aerial. Prewar markings were put together with a mix of spare decals from the bin. Paints were mostly Vallejo acrylics.
