Hello gentlemen (and, of course, ladies!),
I recently found this forum and I’d like to express how impressed I am – I never found such amazing photos and information about flying vintage aircraft before.
Being from Germany I rarely have the chance to see a flying warbird, let alone a Spitfire.
Since I’m actually starting to build a scale RC model of a bubble-canopy Spitfire XIV/XVIII, i started to search the internet for any Spit information I could find (this is how I found this forum).
Of course I found many photos of SM845 which seems to be the late-version Spitfire with most photos on the net.
This leads to my first question: I saw that SM845 was taking part in the Duxford display. Somewhere I read that it had been sold (and already shipped) to the US. Is there any hope that I got that wrong and SM845 is going to stay in Europe?
My second question: Anyone out there who knows the diameter of thr XIV’s gear strut or could point me to a site that contains this information?
Third question: Is anyone aware of a site that contains detail photos of SM845 (or the other still-flying XVIII, TP280, which features a nice wlkaround on http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com)?
Thx a lot for your patience
Andreas
By: alpha - 8th June 2004 at 16:56
Thanks a lot, Jim! These are photos that I haven’t seen yet… 🙂
If I can be of any help for you, please tell me – at the moment I have about 350 phots of Spit XIV.
By: jimflint80 - 8th June 2004 at 16:11
Alpha,
I found the following, which may be of some use – I’ve been using it for some of the details on the RC MK22 I’m buiding at the moment:
http://www.ansmodelisme.topcities.com/walkaround/aircraftswalkaround/spit14.html
Rgds
Jim
By: alpha - 8th June 2004 at 15:43
Thanks a lot for your help, gentlemen.
Unfortunately the museum of Laatzen is nearly as far from my home (I happen to live in the “Pfalz”, too) as Duxford. But my brother emigrated to Cardiff last year… and not it looks as if I had a good cause to visit him (after taking a minor detour to Duxford… lol).
😀
By: DazDaMan - 8th June 2004 at 08:50
Andreas – you’re in luck. There is a preserved Spitfire XIV in Germany.
MV370/EB-Q, Vickers-Supermarine Spitfire FR.XIVc, preserved/Museum, ex. G-FXIV, RAF/41 Squadron marks, Laatzen, Lower Saxony, Germany, 11/5/2002
(info from Paul Nann’s website)
And here it is.
By: merlin70 - 8th June 2004 at 00:32
Andreas, Welcome to the Forum.
There are thousands of photos on the web and certainly many of them also on this Forum. Duxford has an airworthy XIV and XVIII. If there are specific angles or parts that you need photos of, it might be worth posting a list.
You might also think about paying a visit to somewhere like Duxford. The flying legends display is on the 10 and 11 July. Well worth spending a few Euros for the experience. Both your favoured marks of Spitfire are likely to fly, along with several others.
Some friends of mine visited from ‘der Pfalz’, last year and simply couldn’t believe what there was to see there.
This weekend there were four flying which was fairly quiet as a number were away on both sides of the Channel.
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June 8, 2004 at 12:09 am