Model if the monath febraury 2025
English thoroughbred...
The Vickers Supermarine ‘Spitfire’
From original to model
The more than 1,000 scale models, primarily of the international standards 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32, are an independent part of the collections of the Hanover-Laatzen Aviation Museum.
Such true-to-original miniatures enable visitors to the museum's history of technology to gain an ‘overview’ of the lines of development in aircraft construction by means of sequencing and comparison. Sometimes they complement the presentation of the originals. Their artistic quality alone is a pleasure to behold.
Today, in our ‘Model of the Month’ series, we present the various miniatures based on our original Spitfire Mk XIV..
The models
Of course, we owe our large exhibit the main versions of the type in model form and show them in various scales, from the Mk I of 1938 to the Mk II, V, IX and XVI in our display cases in Hall 2.
The original in the museum
Our Spitfire Mk XIV flew over from England to Hildesheim in the early 1990s, from where it was transferred to the museum by road transport. Built in Great Britain in 1944/45, it had been in service with the Indian Air Force before being brought home by a British aircraft veterans' club, overhauled back to RAF standard and finally sold to our museum
The Spitfire
The Supermarine Spitfire, designed by Reginald R. Mitchell in the mid-1930s, is one of the most famous aeroplanes in the world. The standard fighter aircraft of the British Air Force in the Second World War and beyond, the elegant all-metal low-wing monoplane with retractable undercarriage was also one of the most successful military aircraft in the history of aviation, with over 20,300 built. In addition to the RAF, many allied air forces from the USA to the USSR and, in the post-war period, armed forces worldwide used the type as a fighter, fighter-bomber and fighter-reconnaissance aircraft until well into the 1950s.
Modelled on record-breaking aircraft
Using the experience gained on his racing floatplanes, the Supermarine S.5, S.6 and S.6b, which won the most prestigious competition for seaplanes, the Schneider Trophy, three times around 1930, Mitchell developed the prototype of a land fighter in response to a Royal Air Force tender. However, the design was not accepted by the RAF until it was changed to an elliptical wing shape modelled on the Heinkel 70 ‘Blitz’, the fastest civil plane of the early 1930s, which then offered space for a retractable undercarriage and the impressive number of four machine guns per wing.
‘Secret weapon’ of the RAF in 1939: the first batch of the Mk I, here in 1/72 from the Hasegawa kit built by Günter Gelbke, Hannover.
And as with its German counterpart a year older, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the technical brilliance of a small team led by an exceptional designer combined aerodynamic finesse with the most powerful in-line aircraft engine available: the result was the pioneering aircraft types of the Second World War, truly military ‘sports cars of the air’ - it is no coincidence that our ‘Spit’ is complemented by a British MG roadster, which was also popular with its pilots at the time.
Life insurance
For Great Britain, the Spitfire developed to series maturity by the relatively small aircraft manufacturer Supermarine under the Vickers umbrella brand, was the ‘life insurance’ of the first two years of the war. Although the robust and reliable Hawker Hurricane made up the majority of RAF fighter aircraft during this period, only the Spitfire
Mk I and II were on a par with the Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-3 and E-4 in terms of performance - and superior in the strategic, radar-based defence of low altitudes.
Variations
Further developed throughout the war, around 24 main versions were produced from 1938 to ‘48 as fighters for low and high altitudes, fighter-bombers and fighter-reconnaissance aircraft with different wing profiles and armour sets as well as cockpit canopies - but always with great elegance and performance.
Our original Mark VIX from 1944 has the Rolls Royce Griffon 12 cyl. in-line engine, successor to the RR Merlin originally used in the earlier versions, with an impressive five-blade propeller, a full canopy, short wings (‘clipped wingtips’) for improved manoeuvrability at low altitudes and an armament of two 20mm MK and four 7.9mm MG. It was used as a fighter in Europe and overseas beyond 1945. With a top speed of 717 km/h, it was one of the fastest piston-engined aeroplanes and was initially also used as an interceptor for the German V 1.
Once again our Spitfire in 1/32 - it shows the standard wing shape and colour scheme of the type from the late summer of 1940.
Incidentally, an bare RR Merlin can also be seen in our exhibition section with aircraft engines.
You can find out much more about the type and operational history of this and many other classic aircraft in our aviation museum in Ulmer Straße opposite the Hannover exhibition centre. Over 40 originals and faithful replicas, around the same number of engines and turbines, uniforms and equipment, vehicles and a model exhibition comprising more than 1,000 exhibits await you!
The impressive five-blade propeller converted the power of the RR Griffon into propulsion. On the right, the all-purpose vehicle of the Allies, an MB Willys Jeep, which was also to be found at every Western Allied airfield from the middle of the war...
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You can contact the author of the Model of the Month series here: Autor-MdM