Model Airplanes

[Aperitif]

I remember painting the Afrika Corps - as an Airfix box of military figures...HO & OO guage? They were sandy coloured as it was assumed the Humbrol colours would be desert camouflage... Wellington, Lancaster (with the swivelling gun turrets everywhere) - the Panzer tank, the 'Specials' which meant you got more vehicles for your money! The bloody slidey-offy in water transfers that were hit and miss at times...One of the best was the Boulton & Paul Defiant - a nightfighter - all in black plastic IIRC
Great days.
The Ariel Arrow motorbike - with the supports for the twin exhaust pipes...and if you were flush, then moving on to Revell Mustang fighter bombers, Superfortress USAF bombers...
And then there was the balsa wood, tissue, dope and Jetex...[/QUOTE]


I made that same (well almost) leap...
Airfix kits ?, were there any boys that did'nt used to make them ?. We used to spend ages building and painting them....only to immediately shoot em up with an air rifle. i could pick the pilot out at 10 to 20 yards (well most of the time ) Spitfires were my favourite, anythink WW2. Jets and modern stuff just didn't have the same magic...well MIGs maybe...
Then i moved onto balsa, tissue, dope gliders and freeflight engined models. Tried control lined models, but failed miserably. Think the engine i chose was underpowered and they just used to fall to the floor.
Cant remember the name of the engines, but the smell of the fuel...the roar of the engine as you started them up in the garden on a jig

My pride and joy was a 6ft wingspan glider. We used 20lb breaking strain fishing line to tow it up, and it regularly snapped even that. The pull on the line on a beautiful summers day as the thermals got it was incredible. It had a built in timer to flip the tail and bring it back to earth gently.

Should have had that on my last model. Spent two weeks feverishly and painstakingly hand cutting every spar and crossmember to a plan as big as...a very big plan , assembling it all on the kitchen table.....flew it for the first time and quickly realised i hadnt put some trim on the rudder....and it promptly flew off into the distance at about 500ft. i ran for miles that day, desperately trying to keep it in sight ....twas not to be.

In answer to the OP...no, i havnt built a single model since my son was about 10...he's now in his late 20s.

"Vrooom!"

This is where C/Chat starts wasting time...

 

[Globalti]

Yep....done all that.... my first ever model was a Liberator bomber, which I glued together with Bostick. I even cut out the transfers and glued them on as well. It sagged and looked crap so later on when I discovered that there was a special glue and the transfer had to be soaked off I dismantled it and rebuilt it. But then I spoiled it by painting it gloss green, swopped it for a penknife or something after that.

At school we used to make crazy contraptions out of all the spare bits and pieces that came with the models. Also we invented "crystallised blotch" which was blotting paper (remember this?) soaked in glue and allowed to dry, you could make all kinds of things from that. Later on I got a balsa and tissue model that was supposed to be powered by a Jetex motor, but I could never get the damned motor to work. Eventually got it to fire up on the kitchen floor and was a bit concerned when it started skittering around the kitchen, red hot, spurting sparks and huge amounts of smoke. I reckon it would have set the model on fire anyway.

We used to have a kid at school called Michael Freestone who used to inhale the aircraft glue then go all glassy-eyed and funny. I wonder if he's still alive? This is the reason why model aircraft glue is so rubbish nowadays, although plumbers' plastic pipe weld glue is still the same, I love glueing waste pipes together!

My favourite ever model aircraft was the Catalina, a lovely aircraft. Recently found a video on the web of one of these landing on Lake Geneva.

 

[Aperitif]

Catalina! Lovely plane. The Canadair water bombers seen dousing fires remind me of that for some odd reason...I'm sure I built a 'Short' Sunderland flying boat. Don't know why it was called Short - builder maybe?.

Another thing model associated was the lucky American kids who could get seemingly thousands of soldiers, tanks and stuff for not many dollars. Remember the full-page adverts in Marvel comics? Or Confederates v Union etc...

 

[Arch]

Catalina! Lovely plane. The Canadair water bombers seen dousing fires remind me of that for some odd reason...I'm sure I built a 'Short' Sunderland flying boat. Don't know why it was called Short - builder maybe?.

Shorts - aircraft manufacturers since 1908

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Brothers

I haven't built a model for a while, I have gradually been accumulating the bits for a little diorama of an archaeological dig - no aircraft, but a land rover and a digger and lots of little adapted trackside workers from OO train stuff.

Did a few as a kid - had a piper cherokee, a harrier, a spitfire, a lightning, various different scales but it didn't stop me playing with them together.

 

[Joe24]

Look, I`m really not one of the spelling police, but please!!! it`s aeroplane, or if you must, aircraft, but never that vile Americanism.

At first i thought you were just against Americanisms.


Now i realise that your a spod

 

[Arch]

Oh, and all my 'planes were in flight mode, because I could never get the undercarriage to support itself, and it always sagged. I didn't have the patience to let the glue dry properly.

 

[Joe24]

I did make a few planes, me and my brother did, we shared a bedroom and had them hanging from the ceiling.
Were never perfect though.
I made some model lorries a while ago aswell, started off good, but soon lost patience

 

[Alan Frame]

All the ones I ever made ended up with gluey fingerprints on them, which does tend to detract from the realism !

 

[Globalti]

Mine ended up as targets when my Diana .177 air rifle became my favourite toy. Shot them all to pieces.

 

[joebe]

I remember making a B17 and using a mini tool to shave plastic off the inside of of the tail so it was paper thin and then breaking and bending it back to simulate a flak hole. I'd also use plasticard to make the internal framework that was uncovered by the hole.

I miss my Badger Airbrush now.

 

[stephec]

Oh, and all my 'planes were in flight mode, because I could never get the undercarriage to support itself, and it always sagged.

You should have put some y fronts on them!







I'll get my coat.

 

[Aperitif]

I remember making a B17 and using a mini tool to shave plastic off the inside of of the tail so it was paper thin and then breaking and bending it back to simulate a flak hole. I'd also use plasticard to make the internal framework that was uncovered by the hole.

I miss my Badger Airbrush now.

Must have got brocken...