Spitfire engine test bed

[PR19_Kit]

On my thread for the Arado 240 I showed a pic of a Spitfire II with a DB601 from the Arado placed in front of it, swapping engines in both directions in fact. This is the thread for the Spitfire.

The backstory is that Rolls Royce wanted to check out ducted spinner cooling for later Spitfire marks, but no-one  in the UK had tried it, but handily the RAF shot down an Arado 240 and lo and behold, it had TWO ducted spinners! The guys at Hucknall got to work and this is the result.



The two kits involved, two because I needed some extra Merlin cowling length as the DB 601 is set well back on the Arado's wings. They're pretty much identical, just the upper wing halves are different, and the Mk V comes with some lovely slipper tanks too, very handy.



Here's the upper view with the DB601 attached. It'll need some thin cheek pieces just aft of the engine bulkhead, plus some PSR too of course. The Revell Spit goes together very nicely, it all fits well and only needs a small amount of trimming here and there to clean off the ejection pads etc.



The underside before sanding off the small amount of PSR needed. Of course it doesn't need the Merlin's carb intake, oil cooler or radiator, so the underside is very smooth indeed, quite un-Spitfire like.

More progress soon I'm sure.

[kitbasher]

There was a RW ducted Spitfire project, Kit, there's a drawing of it in the Shacklady & Morgan tome (not sure if there's anything in Tony Buttler's WW2 (give or take) fighters/bombers 'secret projects' book.  Will have a look tomorrow.

[Wardukw]

Its strange ,,but that doesn't look out of place .
I know the Germans did mount a DB 60 something to a captured Spitfire and i was seriously considering doing that in 32nd scale ,,,it didnt cause as it turned out getting a 32nd scale Me-109 was a doddle and cheap ,,,getting a 32nd scale Spitfire tho ,,,ahhhh whole different matter 

[zenrat]

Lee will hate this.

I on the other hand am enjoying it.   

[PR19_Kit]

There was a RW ducted Spitfire project, Kit, there's a drawing of it in the Shacklady & Morgan tome (not sure if there's anything in Tony Buttler's WW2 (give or take) fighters/bombers 'secret projects' book.  Will have a look tomorrow.

I could remember that Dave, and although I've got Morgan and Shacklady's book (Two of them in fact....) they're 120 miles away from me just now. I looked in the 'Horsepower Race' book, but it's only given one mention in there, and no drawings.

I know the Germans did mount a DB 60 something to a captured Spitfire......

That was a DB605 Phil and they were comparing it against an Me 109G apparently. It's quite well documented, but they only did one of them. I thought they'd done it to a few, but apparently not, they must have painted it in more than one scheme at various times.

Lee will hate this.

I on the other hand am enjoying it. 

I had thought of Lee's reactions, yes. But he's not here at the moment, so we can play with our Spitfire kits, and subtlety be damned! 

[jcf]

There was also the oh so attractive ducted spinner and annular radiator combo tested on a Tempest.

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You cannot view this attachment.

[PR19_Kit]

I suspect that would  have been done by Napier, as they  supplied the engine.

I quite like the look of that one actually, at least with the ducted  spinner.

[kitbasher]

There was a RW ducted Spitfire project, Kit, there's a drawing of it in the Shacklady & Morgan tome (not sure if there's anything in Tony Buttler's WW2 (give or take) fighters/bombers 'secret projects' book.  Will have a look tomorrow.

There was a RW ducted Spitfire project, Kit, there's a drawing of it in the Shacklady & Morgan tome (not sure if there's anything in Tony Buttler's WW2 (give or take) fighters/bombers 'secret projects' book.  Will have a look tomorrow.

Here's the Shacklady & Morgan illustration I was thinking of, Kit.  Not quite the annular radiator I thought it was, rather a ducted propellor.

Quick check of the text (illustration is on page 100, by the way) suggests nothing more than the drawings and caption; not delved into the Butler book yet.

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[PR19_Kit]

Thanks Dave, I can remember it now, and it saved me a 240 mile return drive to check it.   

It looks as if it still has its normal radiator under the wing, a single one, which makes it a Mk1-V or close derivative. I wonder what the ducted prop would have
done for it anyway?

[PR19_Kit]

While the rest of the Revell Spitfire airframe fits together really well, almost no PSR required at all, that can't be said of the clear canopy parts. :-(

To start with there's no option for the whole windscreen/canopy to be glued on in one piece, it's a 3-piece canopy and each part has to be glued on separately. They provide early plain and later armoured windscreens, but the latter doesn't fit at all well at the front, so I opted for the plain version.

I'm never too pleased with using even thin Revell Contacta glue to attach clear parts, there's always the risk of getting glue on the 'glass' itself, and I've found that liquid glues, like MekPak or De Luxe's Plastic Magic, tend to creep up the inside of the 'glass', and there's naff all you can do about that once the canopy's glued on. 

So I've been trying to use De Luxe's Glue 'n Glaze, which is essentially PVA glue, which works OK eventually but takes an age to cure. And I've also found another problem doing this Spitfire and the Arado 240 as well. That's that because the Glue 'n Glaze doesn't 'grab' for a long time, positioning the canopy parts with your fingers goes OK till you try and let go! Then the slight adhesive surface of your skin is stronger than the Glue 'n Glaze and the canopy comes right back off again!   

I've taken to trying to position the canopy with one hand while holding a scalpel in the other to place on top of the canopy to stop it moving while I let go of it. Frustrating in the extreme as it's taken me about 20 minutes and multiple attempts to attach the Arado canopy!

[Gondor]

There was also the oh so attractive ducted spinner and annular radiator combo tested on a Tempest.

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You cannot view this attachment.

You would need THIS to do one of those. They also do the other version, but the BIG H doesn't have it in stock at the moment, it is available elsewhere though.

Gondor

[kitbasher]

Thanks Dave, I can remember it now, and it saved me a 240 mile return drive to check it.   

It looks as if it still has its normal radiator under the wing, a single one, which makes it a Mk1-V or close derivative. I wonder what the ducted prop would have
done for it anyway?

According to The Book the design study was based on the IIa.

[PR19_Kit]

According to The Book the design study was based on the IIa.

That's handy, by pure fluke so is my model. 

Which has just had it's first coat of primer, and of course it'll need a LOT more PSR as a result.

[PR19_Kit]

The Spitfire engine test bed is now all primed and ready for colour coats.



While it looks Spitfire-like with those unmistakable wings, that nose looks VERY different. 

And the underside looks amazingly different, very smooth indeed without radiator, or oil cooler.

[kerick]

That will cause some considerable head scratching! I'll be watching the rest of this closely.