Designed by Reginald J. Mitchell, the type 224 issued by Air Ministry specification F.7/30 was known as the "Spitfire" at Supermarine but its development got quickly abandoned in favor to a new design started as a private venture which was to become - with the same nickname - the most famous WW2 british fighter...but this is another story...

The Heritage Aviation kit has only two resin parts - one for the whole fuselage, the other for wings and undercarriage. The other parts are white metal elevators, propeller and pilot seat, plus two clear vacs for windshield. Decals are provided. Sounds like a piece of cake...BUT...!

Quite a bit of warpage and bubbles had to be dealt with, and the fuselage got partly devoided for the open cockpit layout to be built. I elected to scratchbuilt a more accurate windshield than the clear vac provided. Some large bubbles had damaged entire sections of the exhaust pipes which were replaced by Evergreen stuff . The tailskid, pitot head, and aerial were also scratchbuilt.

The entire model is painted using a Tamiya TS-30 (silver leaf) spraycan before applying the decals. I had problems with the black registration letters as they had a propension to curl off surface while drying. A bit of thin liquid white glue brushed over was a quick remedy. Two coats of hanbrushed Future Floor Polish were applied before enamel painting  for leather parts, exhaust pipes, guns, and wheels.