[BITList] Simply beatuiful.

[John Feltham]

If anyone asked me why I set out to build a Spitfire in one-fifth  
scale, and detailed to the last rivet and fastener, I would probably  
be hard-pushed for a practical or even sensible answer. Perhaps the  
closest I can get is that since a small child I have been awe inspired  
by R. J. Mitchell's elliptical winged masterpiece, and that to build a  
small replica is the closest I will ever aspire to possession.

The job took me well over eleven years, during which there were times  
I very nearly came to giving the project up for lost. The sheer amount  
of work involved, countless hours, proved almost too much, were it not  
for a serendipitous encounter at my flying club in Cambridge with Dr  
Michael Fopp, Director General of the Royal Air Force Museum in England.




If anyone asked me why I set out to build a Spitfire in one-fifth  
scale, and detailed to the last rivet and fastener, I would probably  
be hard-pushed for a practical or even sensible answer. Perhaps the  
closest I can get is that since a small child I have been awe inspired  
by R. J. Mitchell's elliptical winged masterpiece, and that to build a  
small replica is the closest I will ever aspire to possession.

The job took me well over eleven years, during which there were times  
I very nearly came to giving the project up for lost. The sheer amount  
of work involved, countless hours, proved almost too much, were it not  
for a serendipitous encounter at my flying club in Cambridge with Dr  
Michael Fopp, Director General of the Royal Air Force Museum in England.




Seeing the near complete fuselage, he urged me to go on and finish the  
model, promising that he would put it on display. I was flabbergasted,  
for when I started I had no inkling that my work would end up in a  
position of honour in one of the world's premier aviation museums.

As I write, the case for the model is being prepared, having been  
specially commissioned by the museum with a case-maker in Sweden. I  
have not yet seen it, but from what I hear, it is enormous!

In one respect the story has gone full circle, since it was at Hendon  
where I started my research in earnest, sourcing Microfilm copies of  
many original Supermarine drawings, without which such a detailed  
build would not have been possible.

The model is skinned with litho plate over a balsa core and has been  
left in bare metal at the suggestion of Michael Fopp, so that the  
structure is seen to best advantage. The rivets are real and many are  
pushed into drilled holes in the skin and underlying balsa, but many  
more are actual mechanical fixings. I have no accurate count, but I  
suspect that there are at least 19,000!





All interior detail is built from a combination of Supermarine  
drawings and workshop manuals, plus countless photographs of my own,  
many of them taken opportunistically when I was a volunteer at the  
Duxford Aviation Society based at Duxford Airfield, home of the  
incomparable Imperial War Museum collection in Cambridgeshire,  
England. Spitfires, in various marks are, dare I say, a common feature  
there!





The degree of detail is probably obsessive: The needles of the dials  
in the cockpit actually stand proud of the instrument faces, but you  
have to look hard to see it!

Why the flat canopy? Well, the early Mk.Is had them, and I had no  
means to blow a bubble hood, so it was convenient. Similarly the  
covers over the wheels were another early feature and they saved me a  
challenging task of replicating the wheel castings.








The model has its mistakes, but I'll leave the experts to spot them,  
as they most certainly will, plus others I don't even know about. I  
don't pretend the little Spitfire is perfect, but I do hope it has  
captured something of the spirit and incomparable beauty of this  
magnificent fighter - perhaps the closest to a union that art and  
technology have ever come - a killing machine with lines that are  
almost sublime.






So, with the model now in its magnificent new home, what comes next?

Well, I'm planning a book that will have a lot to say about its  
genesis and perhaps just a little about me and those dear to me,  
including a long suffering but understanding and supportive wife. And  
then there's the Mustang. Yes, a 1/5th scale P-51D is already taking  
shape in my workshop. How long will it take? I've no idea, but what I  
am sure of is that at my age (58) I can't expect to be building many  
of them!



ooroo

If you don't hear the knock of opportunity - build a door.

Anon.



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