A Canadian Defender for Malta
Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Vc

by Jay Laverty

Tamiya's 1/48 scale Spitfire Vb (Trop) is available online from Squadron.com

When most people think of a Canadian ace the name Johnnie Johnson immediately springs to mind but in actual fact he was English, being born in Melton Mowbray. He was given command of the Canadian wing at Kenley. After originally being mistrusted by the Canadians he was accepted and given the Canuck insignia which (against regulations) he sewed to his tunic.

Buzz Beurling was Canada's true top ace, having been born in Verdun Quebec. Buzz finished the war with 31.3 kills, with 13 of these coming in Malta. George Beurling was given the nickname Buzz when, during his flight training, he was found to be prone to buzzing rugby matches, cattle, and even potatoes.

I made this model a while back after having seen Buzz Beurling's mount on a Watermark decals sheet. I so liked the scheme I decided it had to be done ASAP.

As I started into the project I soon found out there is a fair amount of controversy over the nature of the Blue scheme that the Maltese defenders were re-painted in and that there does not appear to be any definitive answer to this question. I decided I would use a two tone blue scheme over the original desert scheme as this would have the most dramatic effect on the finished piece and besides it would be unusual and look very cool.

The model is the Tamiya 1/48 scale Spitfire Vb ( trop.) which, in typical Tamiya fashion falls together without any effort.

I used the Airwaves Vc conversion which may have been a mistake as there were a couple of contradicting sources and a couple of pictures I've seen it looks like a Vb. Oh well, like I said it will be different! The conversion is great and requires only the minimum of surgery.

I painted the aircraft using a combination of Tamiya blues on the upper surfaces along with Polly-S Azure blue undersides along with the Dark earth and middlestone for the patches of original desert scheme. The decalling was going to be a bit tricky as I would need to place BR 301 on a patch of desert scheme on the fuselage.

I decided to paint this first, then gloss it, apply the decal, then mask it and paint the overall scheme. As you can tell by the finished model this approach proved sucessful and I hope you like it as much as I do.

The finishing touch on this one was to try some instant rust I found at my local art shop, a two step concoction, that worked a charm.

I enjoyed this project alot and I hope you will enjoy it as well.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2004 by Jay Laverty
Page Created 20 June, 2004
Last Updated 23 July, 2004

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