BBMF hangar visit

Some time ago, I saw a display box on eBay with three 1:144 models of aircraft from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight: Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane. 

Guess what happened next ...

Given that the BBMF hangar is just 20 minutes down the road from East Kirkby, where we met up with "Just Jane", it would be silly (and rude!) not to drop by for a visit and see the real aircraft

So we drove to Coningsby the day after having met "Just Jane".

The BBMF hangar has a small visitor centre ...

... and also offers hangar tours, which, of course, we signed up for. We were there to see the aircraft, after all!

The BBMF currently has five Spitfires, two Hurricanes, one Lancaster and one Dakota. The Lancaster wasn't present in the hangar, as it's undergoing major maintenance, but all other aircraft were. I'll focus on the Spitfires in this blog post, but there is a bit more on the other aircraft here.

The first Spitfire we saw is a Mk II (P7350), the oldest airworthy Spitfire and the last still-flying Spitfire that saw combat in the Battle of Britain. 

At the back is one of the BBMF's PR XIX Spits (PM631), sans engine and clearly undergoing maintenance.

Spitfire number three we saw is a Mk V (AB910); a model of this Spitfire is in the BBMF box. The real aircraft now sports invasion stripes.

The second of the BBMF's PR XIX Spitfires (PS915) at the back of the hangar, also missing its engine and undergoing maintenance.

And the final of the five Spitfires flying with the BBMF is this Mk XVI (TE311). 

The other side of this aircraft has the squadron code L-NG, in honour of Mark Long, who was killed when the Spitfire he flew for the BBMF crashed.

Really pleased to have visited the BBMF hangar and seen all five of their Spitfires!

'Spitbomber'

The Spitfire was designed as a fighter aircraft, to take on the Luftwaffe's Bf109 and FW190 planes. Their armament for this consisted of wing-mounted guns and (later) cannons.

Despite not being designed as a bomber, a number of Spitfires were employed as bombers, carrying bombs under their fuselage and/or their wings. Here is a picture of such a 'Spitbomber'.

When I saw this kit popping up on eBay, I thought it would be nice to be able to add a 'Spitbomber' to my collection, so I got it (it was cheap).

However, upon opening the box, it appeared that, despite the 'Fighter-bomber' text on the box, no bombs were included in the kit, so it wasn't a kit of a 'Spitbomber' ...

Well, Google is your friend, and it didn't take me long to find a set of 1:72 scale aircraft bombs I could easily add to the kit.

So here it is: a 'Spitbomber' added to the collection!

Spitfire with 'pointy' wings

Clipped wings on Spitfires gave them better speed and manoeuvrability (especially roll rate) at low altitudes and I have a few Spitfire models with clipped wings in the collection (see here and here). The opposite of clipping a Spit's wings is to extend them. Having such extended, pointed wings generated more lift at high altitudes. 

Of course, I'd kept my eye out for a Spitfire model with 'pointy' wings, but it took me quite a long time before I saw a listing of a Mk VIII with pointed wings on eBay. This was an already built kit, but it looked absolutely fine, so ...

And as far as I can ascertain, this a picture of the actual aircraft (JF404) that the model is based on:

Increased performance aside, from an esthetical point of view, the standard elliptical wing shape, originally designed by Beverley Shenstone, leaves 'clipped' and 'pointy' wings far behind for me.