Seafire L.III, 146, 1 (Fighter) Squadron, Irish Air Corps, 1948

Back in 2009 the club decided to have a theme that was anything Irish. Since I try to align Spitfires and Seafires to the themes, when possible (admittedly it can be tough sometimes) this was a bonus for me.

The Subject

Ireland acquired 12 Seafire III’s that were de-navalised. I understand that to mean the tail hook and catapult spools were removed and replaced with sheet, and the wing fold was disabled. The resulting removal of all that weight made for a rather sporting machine, given the Merlin used for the Seafire III was optimized for this airframe.

While Ireland used them primarily only from 1947 to 1949, at least one was used until 1954.

The Model

This is the High Planes Models kit, number 72076. I acquired this via online auction, but occasionally see them on their website. This is a limited run kit and it truly is limited run. This is not a kit for the light hearted, but I must say it was a good “first try” at limited run for me. I had made attempts at other kits that were also limited run, but always gave up or if I finished, was never happy with the results. This time I decided to stick with it. It paid off!

The kit has very thick sprue gates, in some places it’s almost impossible to tell where the gate ends and the kit begins. Lots of care is required getting it all apart. I used a razor saw and lots of patience removing all the bits. Additionally, the plastic is very hard. That’s a good thing when it comes to keeping the detail during all the sanding that’s needed.

At the time of building, this was the best cockpit I’d seen in a Spitfire kit, in terms of accuracy. I hadn’t yet built a CMR kit nor used any aftermarket, so this was a nice touch. Lots of filing and sanding to get it to fit into the cockpit, but it looked right once done.

Because this was an expensive kit, I took extra care to ensure that everything fit very well. I sanded, shimmed and tried to minimize filler as much as possible. Eventually I reached a point that I was ready to paint the exterior. That hard plastic really made it easy to ensure it was cleaned properly, as very little detail was lost in all that sanding.

The exterior is painted Brunswick Green, an enamel railroad color by Floquil. I chose that because 1) I had it, and 2) it was just different enough from RAF Interior Grey-Green to look ‘right’. But I have to say, all I can find are descriptions of the color, not a true color callout or standard for IAC aircraft.

After a coat of Future (Kleer) I put the decals on. They were a bit thin, but covered well. The thinness also meant they were a bit fiddly to work with. They didn’t fall apart but they sure had that ‘feel’ of being very fragile. Ultimately all was well and I sealed it up with another coat of Future, then made an attempt at weathering. This one is a bit better than most, but I’m still not happy with it.

Summary

After tackling this kit I built the CMR Seafire III. A world of difference! While I do have another of this kit, in the form of High Planes’ Spitfire Mk Vc kit, I’m avoiding it because of the work involved. That’s not to say it’s not enjoyable, because it is. It just requires modeling skills. Right now I’m building easy and quick kits, trying to keep myself to no more than 1 challenge kit a year.

Thanks for looking…