Supermarine Seafire III folded wing

 

The port side of the fuselage, visible as the folded wings are still off. 

 

The PE parts and my initial styrene supports. The long styrene part is for the outer wing, the split part for the inner. 

The result of scraping and sanding to thin the edge of the wings. 

The double flap actuator panels. 

The port inner wing fold. 

The folded wings in place. 

 

 

The wing-tip fold has lots of detail (more than the Airfix wing folds) but is flimsy. 

 

 

The late Seafires III did not have IFF wire aerials (from tail plane to fuselage) but two rod antennas. One for IFF, the other probably for homing. 

The struts came from a Seafire XVII kit. 

 

I didn’t trust the white of the decals to be sufficiently opaque so I undercoated the ‘roundels’ with white. 

 

It is unclear whether these Seafires III had the reinforced catapult spools (the somewhat triangular plate underneath the right-hand bar of the 'roundel'). I left them on.