Its always best to take your time on a model project, but a British mans admittedly obsessive attention to detail kept him working on one project for 11 years. And does it ever show. David Glen of Whaddon finished an almost unbelievably faithful one-fifth scale model of a Spitfire Mk I late last year, and its so good that its on display at the Royal Air Force Museum. In fact, it was an offer from the museum to house the finished model that Glen credits with driving him to finish it when he was ready to quit from the sheer strain of the effort. Glen worked from scratch, fabricating each part by hand from drawings and photographs obtained at museums. He estimates there are more than 19,000 rivets in the model, all predrilled and set by hand. The instruments are accurate to the point where the needles stand proud of the faces. Placards, engraving and other details are faithfully reproduced. Glen said hes made some mistakes, which he said experts are sure to point out. He also admits to the odd shortcut made possible by the design of the first generation Spitfire. For instance, the Mark I had a greenhouse-type canopy rather than a bubble, which Glen said he had no way of reproducing. The wheel covers also saved him the bother of re-creating the wheel castings. At 58, Glen figures he has one more project left and hes started on a one-fifth scale P-51D, which means he must have figured out bubble canopies.
DAVID GLEN’S 1:35 SPITFIRE MK1 MODEL
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