Top flite Spitfire Mk.IX Gold Edition

Britain's Spitfire Mk. IX was developed specifically to counter the Luftwaffe's Focke Wulf and is considered by some to be the finest Spitfire of all. When the plane entered operational service in July 1942, it had more power and fuel capacity than any previous Spitfire variant. With a total production of 5,665 aircraft, the Mk. IX exceeded Britain's expectations. As history shows, the fighter surprised many of Germany's top pilots and was instrumental in turning the tide of WW II.

Top Flite's" .60to .75-size, Gold Edition Spitfire is a fine re-creation of this historic warbird. Several modifications have been made to improve ground handling and flying stability, but the 1/7scale kit qualifies for fun-scale and sport-scale competition.

THE KIT

The kit features balsa and lite-ply construction with basswood wing spars and includes hinges, an adjustable engine mount, preformed landing gear, adhesive decals, ABS cowl, a vacuum-formed canopy and a generous hardware package. Two sheets of rolled plans and an excellent 64-page instruction manual are also included. This is a typical Top Flite Cold Edition kit with the high-quality materials and excellent parts fit that modelers have come to expect. Top Flite also offers several optional scale accessories to enhance the appearance of the Spitfire; these include a scale cockpit interior and fullbody pilot figure.

CONSTRUCTION

I had to make a few decisions before I started construction. Top Flite recommends a .60 to .75 2-stroke or .70 to .91 4stroke. I opted for a SuperTigre* .75G 2stroke. Next, I had to decide between fixed or retractable landing gear. The Spit is designed to accept Robart* no. 605 90degree, heavy-duty pneumatic retracts. You can use other retracts, but that would require making any necessary modifications. I went with the Robart. I also wanted to incorporate scale split flaps. The plans and instructions cover all of these options in detail.

I used Great Planes* Pro CAs and Pro Epoxy for most of the construction and Top Flite MonoKote* film and LustreKote* paint for finishing.

TAIL FEATHERS

Although the fin and stab retain an accurate hinge line, the entire empennage has been enlarged by 19.5 percent to give the model a solid feel in the air and enhance stability. The tail feathers have symmetrical airfoils with sheeted stab and fin, which are built directly over the plan. Neither the stab nor the fin have spars. Instead, the stab ribs, which have jig tabs, are pinned to the building board, and then a center core is glued into notches at the front of the ribs. After I attached the leading and trailing edges, I sheeted the top of the stab with 1/16-inch balsa. (The lh6-inch sheet balsa in my kit was extremely soft and fragile. This was frustrating because I accidentally put my fingers through the sheeting on more than one occasion.) I removed the stab from the building board, took off the jig tabs and installed the hinge blocks. Then I sheeted the stab and built the fin in a similar fashion.

The elevator and rudder are not built over the plan but are made by gluing ribs and tip blocks to both sides of a center core. This required quite a bit of cutting and sanding to get the tips shaped properly. The elevator halves operate with a single servo via a supplied 1/8-inch wire joiner. Top Flite provides a strip of easy-type CA hinge material that I cut and installed after covering the model.

WING

The Spitfire's elliptical wing is, by far, its most distinguishing feature. Since I had decided to go with split flaps and retractable landing gear, I knew the wing would also be the most complex and timeconsuming part of this project. Fifteen pages of the instruction manual are devoted to the wing. The construction isn't particularly difficult; there's just a lot of it.

The wing, which is fully sheeted with 1/16-inch balsa, has a Selig airfoil and is built directly over the plan in three pieces: the conventional framework construction consists of die-cut balsa ribs with jig tabs, two basswood spars and balsa shear webs. Plywood landing-gear rails for the retracts are installed during construction of the outer panels. Die-cut notches in the ribs allow the rails to go in at an angle to ensure that the wheels will be in the correct position when the landing gear is down.

During construction, I found that the labeling of the forward and aft dowel plates was reversed on the die-cut sheets. The forward plates are the narrow ones, and the aft plates are the wide ones.

After I sheeted the top of the center section, I removed it from the building board and temporarily installed the flap servo and pushrod. The outer panels are joined to the center section while the wing is upside-down. A couple of unique plywood jigs are provided to keep the whole assembly straight and ensure the proper amount of dihedral. This worked out really well.

At this point, I trial-fit the retracts into the wings, installed the flap bellcranks and servo-hatch rails and prepared the framework for sheeting. The outer wing panels use 16 sheets of 1/16x3x36 balsa. I sheeted the bottom of the wing and cut holes for the retracts and aileron servo hatches. The aileron servos are attached directly to the hatches arid then held in place with six flat-head wood screws. This is a neat installation. The top of the wing is sheeted while it is cradled in another set of jigs. Even though this was my first attempt at making split flaps, the detailed instructions made things fairly easy. There are four, 16-inch, diecut plywood flap skins; two are glued to the wing's top sheeting, and the bottom two are attached with four pivot-point hinges in each flap. The hardest part of the whole procedure was getting the hinge holes aligned accurately. Though not perfect, my flaps have only a 1/32-inch gap when closed-close enough for me!