Author Topic: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires  (Read 18018 times)

Offline kitnut617

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A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« on: August 30, 2013, 12:35:58 AM »
Some time ago, Greg posted this profile of a Two-Seater Spitfire.  I thought I would give it a go ---

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #1 on: August 30, 2013, 12:37:21 AM »
But things didn't go to plan ---

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2013, 12:59:13 AM »
Greg's profile shows it to be a trainer and have two ejection seats, but in the space as shown I couldn't get it to work.  For the yellow Spitfire I reverted back to regular seats and then tried to get them in place with a fair bit of room for each cockpit.  I found if I used the same reasoning as I used on my Seafire (Hybrid) Mk.45 build, that was to raise the seat by 6-8 inches, I could make something to work.

First though I built up a couple of cockpits, one was from a 'low-back' Spitfire and the other was from a regular fuselage Spitfire.  This was to determine how much room I would need for the project.  I found that if I moved the front cockpit forward as far as it would go (in real life that is) I only had to move the rear cockpit a short distance backwards and upwards.

However, I then had to reason as to where the displaced main fuel tanks would go.  The answers came fairly easily.

Quite a large tank could be placed under the rear cockpit, and the wings I used are from an XtraKit Mk.22 which already have quite large leading edge wing tanks engraved so there was almost all the tankage recovered, but I've taken it a bit further.  The story behind these two builds stems from preparations for the Tiger Force operation in the Pacific, so for training I needed a Spitfire which could fly for long distances.  I also thought that the latest equipment would have been used so I've gone with a Mk.21 as a base.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #3 on: August 30, 2013, 01:08:52 AM »
The biggest problem I had was to find a canopy that would fit, searching through my spares box of clear plastic I found a long thin canopy which I just could not identify.  But because all the spare stuff are left-overs from models I built it had to have been from one of them.  It turned out to be from an OA-4M Skyhawk but as it is it was way too long.  Plus I wanted to have a rounded profile to the top of the canopy.

What I did was cut about 4mm out of the center, then filed the rear end so I had a vertical finish, then filed the underside of the windshield so it would match the Spitfire's fuselage.  Then I hit a snag, I buggered it up ------ a huge crack appeared half way up one side and went horizontally backwards which you can see in this pic below.  You can see here I've built up the rear fuselage even more than what a regular fuselage is. It's about 2mm higher at the end of the canopy, this is to accommodate the raised rear seat.  Also you can see how much the front cockpit has been moved forward by the gap under the center of the canopy
« Last Edit: August 30, 2013, 01:34:23 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #4 on: August 30, 2013, 01:14:08 AM »
The model is a mish-mash of different Spitfire kits though, fuselage, prop/spinner and one cockpit is from the Academy Mk.XIVc kit (1/72 scale of course  ;) ), the wings, tailplane, u/c, front cockpit and airfilter are from an XtraKit Mk.22, then some combat tanks and enlarge rudder come from a Special Hobby Mk.24 kit (there's a pile of spare parts in this kit BTW)
« Last Edit: August 31, 2013, 11:53:25 PM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #5 on: August 30, 2013, 01:21:59 AM »
Anyway, a request on the forum for another canopy was answered by both Evan and Carl, the one I got from Carl went on this one, the one from Evan is on the black Spitfire (actually it's Humbrol 181 Sea Blue).

In these pics you can see that there's plenty of room in the cockpit, and also the new canopy from Carl.  This was also shortened the same way I originally done the other one only refined it a bit.

In the top pic you can see behind the rear seat some styrene card, I put this there so that I could scribe onto it the rear shape of the canopy which I then filed down too.  I then massaged the fuselage side plastic so it would match the bottom rail of the canopy, then I filled in behind the styrene card with putty which was sanded down to the new rear fuselage shape.  I've read in the Morgan & Shacklady book that changing the top side shapes and profile of the fuselage was a regular accurance so this would fall under the same reasoning.

« Last Edit: August 31, 2013, 11:54:34 PM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #6 on: August 30, 2013, 01:43:09 AM »
So I'm going to call the yellow Spitfire a T.Mk.21.  They would have been converted in Canada by Canadian Vickers and issued to some of the training bases that littered the Prairies providing up-to-date training for operations in the Pacific (I've read recently that Canadian squadrons had already been transitioning back across the Atlantic before the end of the European phase of the war had finished and were trainig-up for operations in the Pacific, though mostly these were bomber ones but I could see fighter ones doing it too if the war had continued).

Another pic of the T Mk.21
« Last Edit: August 30, 2013, 02:36:32 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline Jeffry Fontaine

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #7 on: August 30, 2013, 02:10:45 AM »
Robert, you always manage to come up with some amazing models no matter how difficult the path was to get to the point to show us mere mortals what can be done with some imagination and ingenuity.  You claim mistakes were made but the end result is a rather nice looking two-seat late mark Spitfire training aircraft.  The other two-seat/two engine Spitfire is also looking quite promising. 

There is one question I would ask.  What about an increase in the rear control surfaces to compensate for the new canopy and fuselage changes?  Would the existing surfaces be sufficient for the modifications? 

As always, keep up the most excellent and exacting work! 
"Every day we hear about new studies 'revealing' what should have been obvious to sentient beings for generations; 'Research shows wolverines don't like to be teased" -- Jonah Goldberg

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #8 on: August 30, 2013, 02:31:47 AM »

There is one question I would ask.  What about an increase in the rear control surfaces to compensate for the new canopy and fuselage changes?  Would the existing surfaces be sufficient for the modifications? 


Thanks Jeff --

On the trainer, I've gone with the enlarged Spiteful type tailplane from the XtraKit box and in the Special Hobby Mk.24 box there are about 6 different rudders, a few of them are for a Seafire variant.  But there is one very large rudder which I've used for the trainer, I really should say a much broader rudder which I can't really say what it's for, because it's not the rudder the instructions say to use for the Mk.24.  It could possibly be for a Mk.XVIII which I know had a much broader type.

For the Double-Spit (build story coming soon), I haven't quite made up my mind if the fin needs to be bigger, they're both Spiteful type fin/rudders.  If it does I'll have a look through the Morgan & Shacklady book to see if there's something I could copy, but I don't really like what they came up with for the Spitfire Mk.23
« Last Edit: August 30, 2013, 04:50:45 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline Brian da Basher

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #9 on: August 30, 2013, 02:56:40 AM »
Wow that's some fantastic and incredibly well-thought out work, kitnut!

The yellow one, from the side view, reminds me of a Scottish Aviation Bulldog trainer a little.

I've got to commend you for taking on all that work on the 'pit and it sure paid dividends!

Brian da Basher


Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #10 on: August 30, 2013, 03:20:21 AM »
Not long after I got the trainer to the stage you see in the pics, the canopy Evan sent arrived.  So I got to thinking just how could I make a two-seat Spitfire have ejection seats and look right too.  Now I've had something on my mind for quite a while, I've always wanted to have a go at a Twin-something or other, and here was an opportunity because all of a sudden I had a spare Spitfire Mk.22 fuselage. And recently I bought about half a dozen XtraKit Mk.22's because they were going really cheap at Hannants (6 for C$45) just for what-iffing.

The first thing I did was to sort out the cockpit, I decided to use Martin Baker Mk.4 seats in the version I was going to build (a NF Mk.28) but quickly found out that a much longer space would be needed than the trainer has.  This was to accommodate the radar control panels etc plus the much larger seat area.  I did the same thing as the trainer by moving the front cockpit way forward but I had to cut much too much out of the rear end so the only solution I could come up with was to stretch the rear fuselage out some, which I did, about 9mm (24").  This played into my design because it now looks more in proportion.

Once the cockpit was sorted I then turned to the center wing section, for this all I did was to cut the kits bottom wing part right down the fuselage center to make two separate wings, then scratch built a new center section using various types of styrene strip and card.  One thing I decided to do was to give it wing leading edge radiators because having built quite a few Spitfires over the years, it always struck me as being really sleek looking aircraft without the underslung radiators.  So having a few sets of Tempest Mk.I conversions I decided to use one of them here.

In the pics below, you can see where I went about cutting and adding styrene and you can also see what I did with the other fuselage ---- I've since refined this from what you see here, but I taped it together just so I could get a visual on it.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2013, 11:57:21 PM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #11 on: August 30, 2013, 03:35:25 AM »
So this is the idea behind this one:

It's going to be a dedicated post-WWII nightfighter and the story will go along that it was a rushed 'stop-gap' solution to fill in after the sudden and unexpected demise of the Mosquito which was much sooner than what the RAF had planned.  It evolved from a Supermarine project that was proposed to the RAF for their 1944 Very Long Range Fighter spec (for Tiger Force) which was eventually awarded to the De Havilland Hornet.

As you can see it has a crew of two in the port fuselage and a pair of heavy cannon in the starboard fuselage (30mm Hispano for this story).  You can see them just protruding out along the top of the fuselage.  These cannon are operated similarly to how the Germans had their "Schrage Musik" and was adopted by the RAF after the captured equipment had been thoroughly tested.  Supermarines design had them depressed into streamlined channels and they could be elevated into one of a couple of pre-set positions moments before the actual attack would happen.  One position would have the line of fire just clearing the prop diameter, and then another at it's highest position, about 45 degrees (they could not be fired straight ahead though, that was for the wing cannon, which comprised of one Hispano 30mm and one short barrelled Hispano 20mm in each outer wing).  This would give the pilot several tactical options for attack, a line astern attack, slight below and almost below.

Below are some pics of where I've steadily refined the idea,  I've had to change the canopy slightly because once I got the pilots onto their seats I needed a bit more room (bottom pic).  I've gone with 50's style figures for the pilots (from the new Airfix F-86 kit kindly provided by Lance [lancer] on the What-If Forum)
« Last Edit: August 30, 2013, 06:22:35 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #12 on: August 30, 2013, 03:39:27 AM »
Wow that's some fantastic and incredibly well-thought out work, kitnut!

The yellow one, from the side view, reminds me of a Scottish Aviation Bulldog trainer a little.

I've got to commend you for taking on all that work on the 'pit and it sure paid dividends!

Brian da Basher

Thanks BdB ---

Offline Camthalion

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #13 on: August 30, 2013, 04:32:04 AM »
they are really cool.  Fantastic work.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #14 on: August 30, 2013, 04:56:56 AM »
they are really cool.  Fantastic work.
Thanks --

Offline Jeffry Fontaine

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #15 on: August 30, 2013, 05:06:18 AM »
Robert, is there going to be any "signature" radar pod or antennae affixed to your twin-engine Spitfire to suggest a night fighter/interceptor role? 
"Every day we hear about new studies 'revealing' what should have been obvious to sentient beings for generations; 'Research shows wolverines don't like to be teased" -- Jonah Goldberg

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #16 on: August 30, 2013, 05:23:43 AM »
Because the wing leading edge radiators protrude further out (by about 3mm), I thought that this was a good opportunity to have a revised airfoil for the center section.  In the top view pic a couple posts above, you'll notice that I've extended the trailing edge further back than what the outer wings have by about 4mm.  This created a problem on how to blend in the wing root fairing, but the answer proved easier than expected.  I just moved the wing root fairing back 4mm too ----

But after looking at the result for a while I didn't quite like the look of it.  So I've modified the trailing edge of the outer wings (at least on the port side for the moment).   I was told sometime ago by John Adams (of Aeroclub fame) that when aircraft are drawn up, the leading and trailing edge lines were always extended through to the center line of the fuselage and this is where the dimensions were always taken to.  So what I did was glue some styrene strip to the trailing edge of the outer wing from just where there's a little fairing on the aileron trim tab back to the wing root fairing, then using a ruler which I lined up on the trailing edge of the center section, I drew a line to the fuselage center line. After that I used a Spitfire Mk.I wing as a pattern (like a French Curve) and traced a line on the styrene from this center line intersection back to the little fairing on the trim tab.  What this did was broaden the wing at the wing root by 2mm which meant I had to move the wing root fairing back 2mm to.  In this pic below you can see the result ---

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #17 on: August 30, 2013, 05:32:36 AM »
Robert, is there going to be any "signature" radar pod or antennae affixed to your twin-engine Spitfire to suggest a night fighter/interceptor role?

Absolutely Jeff, but not that honking great big thing that the F-82 got ---  ;D

Sometime ago I tried to make some 200 Gal Mosquito tanks and my first attempt came out a bit small.  I stored that one away for another time and this seems to be a good time to use it.  Here's some pics of it and the last one showing it sitting on top of the wing to give you a size perspective.  Of course it will eventually go on the bottom of the wing.

Offline Jeffry Fontaine

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #18 on: August 30, 2013, 05:43:35 AM »
The "Long Dong" pod used on the F-82 for the AN/APG28 (F-82F) and SCR-720C18 (F-82G) was certainly obscene but it served the purpose to get the antenna ahead of the propellers and away from any possible interference. 
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Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #19 on: August 30, 2013, 05:56:35 AM »
I gave that some thought Jeff, but my thinking is that the Rotol contra prop I'm using for this project are made of wood, composite wood yes, but wood all the same (Freightdog's Seafire 46 conversion), so from what I've read wouldn't effect too much that couldn't be compensated for.  Of course the blades could also be made from fibreglass or something like that.  Plastics were beginning to be used in a lot of things at the end of WW.II, my 'Aircraft of the Fighting Powers' books have all the advertizing for this product in the front pages.

In this pic, you can see how much I've added to the outer trailing edge and also how my u/c will be orientated.  It's my opinion that the only outfit to get a ""twinned"" aircraft right, is North American ---  so I'm following along those line with certain things. 

The u/c BTW, is modified Tempest gear --
« Last Edit: August 30, 2013, 06:01:57 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #20 on: August 30, 2013, 06:07:41 AM »
The "Long Dong" pod used on the F-82 for the AN/APG28 (F-82F) and SCR-720C18 (F-82G) was certainly obscene but it served the purpose to get the antenna ahead of the propellers and away from any possible interference.


It should be mentioned that the P-82D was to have APS-4 which was a much smaller radar, something along the lines of the radar used on Hellcats, Corsairs and Fireflys. my Double Spit would have something similar I think, the Brit version  ;)

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #21 on: August 30, 2013, 06:35:15 AM »
In the Double Spit', I've reversed how the pilots are situated, this is because I'm having the u/c fold away under the fuselage and into the center section, I raised the pilot up to be above the u/c bay while leaving the radar operator at normal seating level.  The canopy shape allows me to do this. The canopy is from a TA-4 Skyhawk and I cut out the middle of it, not quite as much as the trainer canopy though. Then because I knew that the width of the canopy rails are just about the same as a Spitfire bubble canopy, I reasoned that somewhere along the two types of canopy there had to be something in common. And there was --  I carefully filed and sanded each canopy until I got a match, so right at the bulkhead behind the radar operators seat is where the two canopies are glued together.  I got a nice flowing shape to it ---

For the u/c bays, I've used as much of the bit's and bobs that come in the XtraKit box, the internal sides of the bays are all separate pieces.  I've also cut out the top of the bay in the outer wing and repositioned it in the new center section, the cannon bays are now moved into what was the wheel bays and the underslung radiator hole is now all filled in along with the rest of the 'old' u/c bay.  The starboard wing will all be done in a similar fashion once I get all the little details sorted on the port wing.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2013, 06:58:37 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline FAAMAN

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #22 on: August 30, 2013, 10:33:04 AM »
Excellent concept, great build!! :D
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Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #23 on: August 30, 2013, 07:15:35 PM »
The "Long Dong" pod used on the F-82 for the AN/APG28 (F-82F) and SCR-720C18 (F-82G) was certainly obscene but it served the purpose to get the antenna ahead of the propellers and away from any possible interference.


I had a re-think last night about what you said here Jeff, and I could do it another way.  I could use the pod as what it is, a drop tank, then rob my Airfix Fairey Firefly of it's wing mounted radar pod and fuel tank.  Or I could make a copy of them ----

But there's a precedent out there for doing it the way I planned to do it, I have a Fairey Firefly NF Mk.II conversion in the stash which has two wing leading edge mounted pods, but these are positioned close to the fuselage.  So the radar beam would have to pass through the prop disc and I think these NF Mk.II's had metal prop blades, but I could be wrong   ---

Top pic shows the conversion I have.  Bottom pic is of a NF Mk.I, you might notice that the operating date for this one is 1948-49, right in my project time line.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2013, 07:29:33 PM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: A Pair of Two-Seater Spitfires
« Reply #24 on: August 30, 2013, 07:42:52 PM »
Excellent concept, great build!! :D

Thanks mate !