Spitfire R6882, Spitfire Mk.Ia, Mk.Ib or Mk.Vb ???

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le_steph40

Chief Master Sergeant
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Jan 18, 2011
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Hello,

I wanted to build an aircraft flown by Donald E. Kingaby: the Spitfire Vb W3320 "The Darlington Spitfire" when he was in the 92 Sqn during the summer of 1941. But I have not found enough reliable information about its code letter: QJ-? Some sources say QJ-N and others QJ-H (I think QJ-H was W3314 and QJ-N confused with R6882...).
So I decided to look into the Spitfire R6882 flown by Kingaby during Sping 1941... I found a letter code: QJ-N but the type of Spitfire is a mystery. Built as a Spitfire Mk.Ia but cannon wing fitt during September 1940 => becomes Spitfire Mk.Ib ? And a Merlin45 engine fitted between February and March 1941 before being tranferred in 92 Sqn...=> Becomes Spitfire Mk.Vb ?

http://www.spitfires.ukf.net/_prodn list.txt

Must I build R9882 as a standard Mk.Vb when she was at 92 Sqn ?

TIA, best regards
Steph
 
The 92nd RAF Squadron was one of the first to receive the new VBs in March 1941. These early Mk.Vb were converted at assembling lines Mk.Is. According to my reference the W3320 was Mk.Vb delivered to the RAF in 1941. The W3314 was of the same batch. And the W3312 that was coded QJ-J. But it seems that there were two Spits with the sam letter code. The R7161 was coded the same as well. The Mk.Vb W3312 was used at the Biggin Hill in August of 1941 while the R7161 was one of the first converted Mk.Ib of the squadron used in April 1941.
The R6882 is a Spitfire plane of a batch of the contract no. 19713/39 ordered as Mk.I but built as Mk.IA, Mk.Va, Mk.Vb and PR Mk.IV, delivered to RAF in April 1940.

Here a couple shots of Spits of the unit I found via the net...

92 squadron.jpg


92 squadron_1.jpg


Spitfire 92 Sqdn RAF_.jpg
 

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