National Spitfire Monument

Southampton being the 'home of the Spitfire', there are ambitious plans for creating a National Spitfire Monument in the city, visible from afar.

The centrepiece of the monument is a 1.5 scale model of a Spitfire, soaring into the sky.

Very recently, the first tangible evidence of 'work in progress' on the monument was displayed in public, at Southampton Airport to be precise: a 1/40 scale model of the final monument.

Needless to say that I quickly popped into the departure area of the airport ....

The base will feature roundels of all air forces that flew Spitfires.

It will look absolutely fantastic once the actual monument is in place; can't wait to see it!!

Spit in civil service

Nearly all my Spitfire models are diecast models. The one exception is the model of a Spitfire 'Floatplane', which is a plastic kit, but which I got off eBay fully built.

From there, it's one small step to looking at plastic kits of Spitfires, see if I can find Spitfire versions that are not available as diecast models, and then build them from scratch, right?

So here's the first one: a model of a Mk IX Spitfire with civil livery.

And here is the completed model:

In addition to what's stated on the box, here is more on the history of the airplane.

It was fun to go back to building model kits again, something I used to do quite a lot many many years ago. There will no doubt be more!

Spitfire Lighthouse

Over the years, Southampton has been livened up by a number of 'sculpture trails', and several of them had Spitfire-inspired sculptures! Another trail, Light the South, recently featured 40 large (8ft) and 40 small sculptures of lighthouses. And, sure enough, one of the lighthouses was inspired by the Spitfire!

I wonder what will be next ...

'Tolly Hello' Spitfire

'Tolly Hello' was a Mk IX Spitfire (serial number MK210) which was sent to the USAAF for testing the fitting of drop fuel tanks. Its nickname comes from the rather distinctive nose art!

The model I managed to get my hands on had the option of fitting a normal propellor as well as a plastic disc, which simulates a rotating propellor. As none of my other models has this option, I decided to fit the disc rather than the fixed propellor.

And here is a picture of the nose art on the real 'Tolly Hello' Spit.

Marwell airfield

For work-related reasons, I get to spend time at Marwell Zoo once or twice a year, and this has happened for quite a few years. But it wasn't until quite recently that I became aware that the area around Marwell used to harbour a secret airfield in WWII ...

To make the airfield less recognisable as such, it had removable hedges! Surfing the web, I managed to find a contemporary aerial photo which shows where the runways were.

This is a current Google Earth image of the same area ...

... so, obviously, I tried to overlay the WWII runways as best as I could on that satellite image:

And, of course, we set out to see what is still visible of that secret airfield today ... We started at the one remaining structure from those days: a 'Robin' hangar along Thomson's Lane.

The hangar, still called 'The Aircraft Hangar', is used by CNC Polystyrene.

Looking in roughly southeasterly direction from the Hangar, as indicated by the red arrow here, ...

... and all you see is fields:

We then drove in counterclockwise direction to Portsmouth Road, looking roughly northeast, from where the end of one of the two runways used to be (again, as indicated by the red arrow):

Fields again, but you can just spot the gap in the tree line where the two runways used to cross each other:

Further counterclockwise, along Hurst Lane, and looking southwest (as indicated by the red arrow), along where the other, longer runway used to be:

No sign of anything airfield-related!

Bit further along Hurst Lane, looking southwest along where the shorter runway used to be (as per the red arrow) ...

... and just a field!

So, it appears that, apart from the 'Robin Hangar', essentially nothing is left to show that there was a secret airfield here in WWII. Maybe no surprise, given that the airfield was meant to be secret ...

But did you notice the wind vane in the picture of the hangar above? If not, here it is in close-up:

Spitfire!

I expect this is a more recent addition to the hangar (rather than it dating to the 1940s), but it's certainly a nice nod to the history of the site.

Spitfire with 'Rutter' stripes

One of my Spitfire models has the D-Day invasion stripes, which were painted on allied planes to try and avoid them being shot down by 'friendly fire'. Recently, I bumped into a Spitfire model which had stripes around the nose and on the tail, rather than on the wings. 

Digging a bit further, it appeared that this (earlier) configuration of stripes was meant to be used for Operation Rutter, an invasion plan prior to Dieppe, which was called off when it became clear that the Luftwaffe was aware of the plans. A bit more about 'invasion stripes' generally is here.

And, as far as I can ascertain, this is a picture of the actual Spit that the model is based on.

"They keep coming!"

"They keep coming!" That was in the subject header of an email sent to me by Alan Matlock, the chairman of the Spitfire Makers Charitable Trust. 'They' of course refers to Spitfire Makers plaques, which had already been coming thick and fast in the last few weeks in Woolston (see here and here). Alan alerted me to yet another three that been given their rightful place. 

Two of the three are in the city centre, both linked to Martin's Rubber Co. One is on Oxford Street, where the company was based since 1937, and where they made rubber gaskets, seals, plugs, and hydraulic installations for Spitfires.

The second of these two is a few hundred meters away, in Orchard Place. This is where the company moved to in 1952 (and where they still operate), and where they kept making parts for Supermarine.

The third of this latest trio of plaques is at Langrish House, near Petersfield. Of the 22 plaques unveiled up to today, this one is the furthest away from where the Supermarine factories were in 1940. Based in the stables at Langrish, Talbot-Ponsonby & Co made munitions and parts for Spitfires.

So that's 22 plaques so far! Sure many more will follow ...