mawz

Also will the Canadian MLG and the Australian early front gear be present?

No, the Mk.VIII is not a pressurized Mk.IX, and did not come out after the IX, and the rear fuselages are different (same basic outline, but that outline continued right up to the XIX and 21, the actuality is different, only the RV fuselage Spitfires have a different basic rear fuselage profile). There are detail differences in the fuselages such as radio hatch locations, presence of rear fuselage fuel tanks and other minor changes and fairly significant internal changes. Different wings as well, but that doesn't apply to the XII conversion as it had its own Vc-derived wing which was common to

But only for the first 50 airframes, the last 50 were built with VIII tooling and have the retractable tailwheel of the VIII. The rear fuselage was different between the two production runs.

That's not correct. The XII's were built solely as XII's, the first run used serials from a Mk.V block and had Mk.V style tailwheels, the second batch used Mk.VIII serials and had VIII style tailwheels, the change was due to the tooling in use at the time of each batch's construction.

Probably an item needing destruction located there. You'll note that the radio compartment is also almost always open for destruction of the IFF gear.

It's pretty Engrish, That could read as they're developing it in both scales, or according to their SWS philosophy, which can be applied to both scales.

1/48, the 1/32 discussion is pure wishful thinking, Z-M has not mentioned it.

Who are they going to rebox? Tamiya's never provided them sprues, Hasegawa's tool is old and average at best and all the other options aren't good enough to waste time on. I'd bet on a new tool, they seem to be moving aggressively to cover the standard WW2 single-engine fighters from their own tools and this is the next obvious one after the Spit and 109's they are already doing alongside their 190's and Hellcats.

E-4 should be 02 unless rebuilt, it's only the very late E's that were possibly in 66.

That sounds like the cockpit isn't properly fitted in its grooves, get that a little off and the fuselage will push out the upper wings and flatten the dihedral. I've built a couple of the Airfix kits now and the dihedral is the same as on the Tamiya sitting next to them.

And I'm comparing the 1/72 Tamiya and Airfix kits.

The clipped wings today are only in their Corsair II kit (which they are correct for), only the first run of the -4 Late had them.

Nope, we never had them up here, we operated the CT-114 Tutor and CT-133 Silver Star instead. The Belgians were the last operational users of the Magister, retiring the last of their fleet in 2007.

It's been out for a month & change in the UK

Tamiya's trying to get around 2 things here. 1. Mosquito mainwheels are massive in 1/32 scale. 2. Everybody hates cleaning up the seams on 2-piece wheels. They've come up with an admirable solution to the seam issue on 2-piece wheels, even if it's only really practical for larger, block tread wheels like those on the mossie.

The VF-17 bird is a pretty common scheme. Academy's standard F6F-5 boxing in 1/72 has these decals in it and I guarantee they're available in 1/48 and 1/32 somewhere. In a pinch you can readily paint the ID squares, source the numbers from a generic sheet and steal the Jolly Roger insignia from one of the many F4U-1 kits with Ira Kepford's F4U-1A as a marking option.

The Tamiya kit is all of $3 more at Luckymodel ($152.99 before shipping vs $149.99), of course they don't have stock yet. Wheels & Wings will sell you one for $230CAD with no Texas tax (shipping extra) and they had stock as of Saturday.

Yes, it's just the Academy C/D kit with a few extras and higher price.

Looks like a mix, two of those look worn but flyable (and have aired up tires, indicating at least some maintenance) but one appears to have had a very bad day and been left to rot (see flat tires and the hull & wing damage)

It's also worth noting that Bare Metal wasn't necessarily Bare Metal. P-51 wings in the NMF finish were actually painted aluminium from the factory, as the wings were puttied. Most other NMF finishes in the late-war/post-war period were actually a mix of NMF and painted aluminium lacquer or dope.

Depending on which Airfix kit it is, the Airfix is either much better than Revell (Old one) or in a completely different universe (New Airfix Mk.1). It's probably the older Airfix if it's labelled as a Mk.II.

The problem is they did the Hurricane spinner with the same rear diameter. Only the Spitfire spinner should be oversized. Italieri is currently king for the Mk.II, hands-down.

The Italieri is more expensive (MUCH more so in Italieri boxings), is noted for some challenging fit, mostly due to extra modularity in the wings (they tooled up to allow for cannon, forgetting that a IIc requires a retool of the wings anyways due to the different wing/fuselage joint at the leading edge, which they did do for their IIc) and is less accurate in outline & detail. Although it's pretty decent kit, there's some notable and some minor detail errors, likely due to using less accurate drawings. Issues include a flubbed nose ring, oversize spinners, short flaps & mislocated gun

The biggest problem HB has with their Corsairs is price. They're way too expensive compared to the Tamiya kits. This wasn't as much of an issue when they were only doing late Corsairs but now that they have -1's out for the same cost as their -4's and -5's it's a real issue. Who is going to buy the HB kit when the Tamiya is only 2/3rds the cost? And that's regardless of any accuracy concerns.

The Mustang Mk1A also had only limited fairings for its 20mm and was also intended for the Army Co-operation role. Low-altitude & Mediterranean theater use was probably the reason for this.