Tamiya 1/32 Spitfire Mk. IXc - by Paul Bishop - Newark, California

Tamiya’s model of the Spitfire Mk IXc is one fantastic model. I’ve read a lot about the battle that Britain carried on in its skis during World War II and this model really brings those stories into focus. I had just finished a resin airplane and was looking for something that fit together better and this really delivered. There are some omissions however.

1. The cockpit seat doesn’t have a back pad
2. There is no oxygen hose.
3. There are placards missing from the decal sheet for the instrument panel.
4. The red in the kit roundel decals is off.
5. Ejector pin marks on the cockpit door that are hard to clean up.

I was fortunate because Roy Sutherland and I belong to the same model clubs: the Fremont Hornets and the Silicon Valley Scale Modelers. When he brought his castings and decal sheets in for the Spitfire Mk IXc I was smitten with the detail fidelity and color accuracy in both. I purchased the resin seat (BC32001), the cockpit door and crowbar (BC32002), and the instrument detail set with IP placards (BC32003) along with the decal set for the Spitfire – part 1 (BC32004 ). These products corrected all of the above problems.

My pictures below taken during the build will give you and idea of what you get. I really had fun putting all of the decals on the IP; the compass replacement had more detail too. It really brought it to life. The side panels got replacements for the throttle quadrant as well as the oxygen hose and landing gear levers. The set also comes with a better control column with small plastic control cables – very nice. The instructions for the resin parts have color pictures and easy to follow text that make build up very clear.

The model decal sets include all of the stencils done up in finer detail, the roundels have the correct shade of red. The instructions are very nice and correct some errors in the kit decal placement.

I also bought the Tamiya book (magazine) on how to build the MK IXc. It has some great articles and pictures on the a/c as well as a build up by Roy. This was a wonderful source for detailing and painting the model.

I highly recommend these aftermarket additions – great quality and not pricy at all.


BarracudaStudios products used:
BR32001 Spitfire Seat with Leather Backpad
BR32002 Spitfire Cockpit Door with Separate Crowbar
BR32003 Spitfire Cockpit Upgrade Set