The Spitfire PRXI(T), the conversion that really DOES need a conversion......DONE!

[PR19_Kit]

And now it looks like aeroplane.   



Wings and tailplanes glued on now, with just a miniscule amount of PSR needed on the joints as all the bits are by KP at this stage.

Soon it'll be blue, but not with my fave Hataka paint as their PRU Blue is way too BLUE. It needs some grey in it and mixing that for a whole airframe may not work too well. I know I did it for the Dalgety, but the mix was pretty simple and there wasn't a RW blue to compare it to.

I'll try Humbrol acrylic as I know their PRU Blue is pretty well dead on.

[Freightdog862]

Great progress, Kit. I'm glad you have managed to make use of the Brigade parts. I look forward to seeing it in the flesh!

Colin

[PR19_Kit]

Thanks Colin, goodness knows how anyone would have built the Brigade conversion for real, the styrene is SO thick! Almost no room for the cockpit stuff in there. But it's coming on quite nicely, all primed up now and ready for some colour.

[PR19_Kit]

To use one of my fave sayings yet again, 'Also available in blue'. 



PRU Blue that is, this time Humbrol 230 acrylic, and very nice it is too. Smack on for the colour, in my opinion, and covers very well with two coats. First time I've used Humbrol acrylics 'in anger' for a main colour and I'm well impressed.

[PR19_Kit]

I'm FED UP TO THE BACK TEETH with teeny weeny detail parts that are so damn small you haven't a HOPE of holding them in your fingers and have to use tweezers! Not only that, most of them don't` have proper location points, they're too small, and rely on butt joints with almost zero glue area. How the devil are they supposed to stay in place?

I've got to detailing the PRXI(T), and luckily it seems the 2 seaters don't have rear view mirrors on top of the canopy, nor do they have the aerial stick just behind the cockpit, the rear cockpit is in the way. In both cases for this KP kit the parts are ridiculously small, the mirror is just about 1.0 mm in diameter! I didn't fit those two parts, nor the under wing pitot as it pinged off into the distance, and it's on the underside of the wing anyway.

But worse, one of the tailwheel doors (3 mm x 1.5 mm and curved!) has also pinged off too and there's no way I'll EVER find it. How the hell I'm going to make another one of them I've no idea.     

In future I'm just not going to fit these ridiculously small parts, they'll just go straight in the bin! 

[kerick]

I've had some armor parts as small as that. Looked like a rivet that could easily been molded on. Tossed that aside!

[PR19_Kit]

It's done, almost anyway.....................

Here's the singular Spitfire PRXI(T) PL839, a 2 seater modified to train PR pilots in the somewhat esoteric systems of PR flying, quite different from the usual sort of flying that Spitfire pilots did.



PL839, one of the large batch of PRXIs built at Aldermaston in 1944, was assigned to 543 Sqdn. and ended up in their Western Flight operating out of RAF St. Eval in Cornwall, perched high on the cliffs just north of Newquay. St. Eval was known for its bizarre runway arrangement, all three runways crossing each other at the same central point, and for its appalling weather, it being very close to the western edge of England and getting both strong winds, and when it wasn't windy, it was extremely prone to fog.

PL839 was returning from a mission over France just prior to D Day and was running very short on fuel due to adverse winds, but these abated approaching St. Eval, and were replaced by the dreaded fog. Flt. Lt. Carter, PL839's pilot, decided to orbit until he could actually see a runway. but eventually just had to put down as his fuel gauge was bouncing off the bottom stop. Accordingly he got the aircraft down, but the fuel finally ran out just as he reached the centre point, and he came to a halt, and called the Tower for a tow back to 543's hangar. After a short while the crash crew loomed out of the mist along one of the cross runways and rammed the aircraft between the wing and tailplane! Carter was OK, but somewhat upset as some of 'take', the photos shot during the mission, were destroyed by the accident and he was sure it would all go down on his record too! PL839 was reckoned to be beyond repair and was stored up in the hangar while the rest of the country got on with invading Nazi occupied France.



As the Allies progressed through France, Belgium and the Netherlands en route to Germany, one of the PRDU staff discovered PL839's wreckage and that triggered an idea they'd been discussing at the PRDU's HQ at RAF Benson. There seemed to be a need to train new PR pilots in the extremely precise flying that good PR missions required and converting PL839 to a 'PR Trainer' seemed to be worth the effort. Accordingly the wreckage was moved to Benson, and with some assistance from Supermarine's design office not so far to the south, a second cockpit was installed aft of the normal one, which was moved forward some 18" by fitting a smaller forward fuel tank. The trainer wouldn't be needing the large fuel loads required by the long range pukka PR Spitfires of course.

As the second cockpit took the place of the longer lensed cameras, the PRXI(T), as it became known, was only fitted with the shorter 24" lens wing camera pods, but all other equipment was as fitted to the standard PRXI. Classed as a prototype, PL839 had a large yellow ringed 'P' aft of its roundels, and the spinner was painted yellow, denoting its trainer role in life.



Although never fulfilling the original intention planned for it, PL839 did prove to be a workable idea, but no further PRXI(T)s were built, but the work carried out at Benson, and by the Design Office, later proved very useful as Supermarine built a number of trainer Spitfires post war, and similar conversions are still being carried out to this day.

====================================

I've yet to add the various stencils and the serial as the KP decals just fell apart, but luckily I'd scanned them already and have printed out a copy sheet that I'll apply later on.

[Rick Lowe]

 

[DogfighterZen]

Simple but looks so good!

[NARSES2]

Looks good Kit 

[Rheged]

Looks good and reads well.

[Old Wombat]

Yup, looks good, Kit!

[Freightdog862]

Great finish, pretty quick too!

Colin

[PR19_Kit]

It fought me all the way, SO many tiny parts, some still not there, and won't be either, but it looks as I imagined it to start with.

I wish my Dad could have seen it.  He'd have said something like 'Good idea boy'. 

[chrisonord]

Very nice Kit