Looking on Ultracast's website, they say the early spitfire seat (made of metal with the flare holders at the front) was used until March 1940. I'm building Tamiya's Mk.1 Spitfire and using the stock markings of DWO 610 squadron. searching on the net revealed this airframe was built in late 1939 off the top of my head. i've scratchbuilt one of these early seats, now my question is is it alright to use, as every other model i've seen has bakelite seats? would the Bakelite seat have been retrofitted into all older planes? thankyou

There is a good reply from Edgar Brooks (also a member of this forum) on Britmodeller:
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=35816

The Very cartridge "holes" were for Seafires, and are unlikely to have been on any Spitfire seat before 1941. Since Westland built Seafires and Spitfires, it's logical to expect to see the holders at any time, anywhere, after this; incidentally, in WWII there was a double row of holes, postwar one row was deleted. The plastic seat was an alternative, not a replacement, so you can, quite correctly, build any Spitfire model with either type; Seafires, due to the slamming effect of the sudden arrestor hook stops, were a different matter, and the seats went through all sorts of amendments.
Don't feed your Sutton harness through the handhold in the seat; the seat had to be specially strengthened for that, it didn't apply to Marks before the VII, nor did it happen before (at the very earliest) 1944. Also, it was a Sutton harness throughout the war; the oft-mentioned "Q" harness is a whole different ball game, and is largely a red herring.
Edgar

thankyou for the replies. puts my mind at rest. about the Very cartridge holders, i have a photo of a spit/seafire cockpit (caption says spitfire mk.1) that has the holders as well as the manual landing gear lever. that would make it a very early model? it is a b/w photo and appears to be from the genuine time period so not a restoration. i've included a few photos for those interested of my effort. the little yellowish spots on the seat back are where i couldn't get a smooth layer of paint so represented tears in the leather with the stuffing coming through. P.S. Edgar where you mention not feeding the harness through the handhold do you mean the right hand lap harness through the hole in the seat? should it go up over the lip of the seat like the lap harness on the left?



sorry about the pic size i'm not sure how to make it bigger

To get bigger versions, use those same URLs, but take out 'thumbs/':

arhh thanks for that. i had the same trouble posting a picture before so now i know

No, I meant the oval hole in the backrest. On early seats, as far as I can tell, it didn't exist, in fact the first factory-produced armour had the hole, and everyone, that I've spoken to, is adamant that it's a handhold for lifting the seat/armour, which got progreesively heavier as the war progressed. Very, very late in the war, provision was made for the Y-shaped harness (which normally went down behind the seat-back) to come through the hole, but the harness had to have part of the webbing replaced by a cable, and the seat had to be of a specific thickness; either way, it was not permitted to be used on any Mark before the VII. The slot in the right side of the seat-base is for the right lapstrap, and I think that it was to stop any possibility of it being fed over the seat raising/lowering handle, which could have caused it to jam. Again, early seats didn't have that slot, so its inclusion was probably due to operational experience.
Moving on (a little) it may not be generally known that the Sutton harness straps were numbered, and had to be put on in a proper sequence:- 1 (which had a sliding pin, with a hole through it, fitted underneath) came over the left shoulder, 2 came over the right thigh, 3 came over the left thigh, and 4 came over the right shoulder. No.4 had the triangular-shaped retaining clip attached to it by a piece of cord. In a "Scramble-ready" cockpit, it's very unlikely that the straps would have been neatly laid on the seat, since the pilot's parachute would have been a total nuisance, once he'd sat down, so the thighstraps would have been out of sight under the seat-pan, and the shoulder straps were often draped over the starboard sill.
Edgar

thank you for the reply. i had already added the hole, hopefully i can get the harness to cover it up, i don't think i'll be able to drape the p/e harness over the sill while still getting it to look realistic.