Your First Model Aeroplane

Was in Midland Counties the other week and there is a new book on classic kits in the same style as the Airfix hardback one (now £5.99 at our local book publishers outlet!!!)
also there seems to be a couple on Revell (America) too –

My first Kit (and i remember it like yesterday) was the Airfix AOP Auster – i think they damaged the mould cos they’ve never released it…

FAVE kit of all time – the Airfix Stirling…AND you get a bomb tractor……

I built several of the wonderful Monogram B-17, including doing a RAF 100 Group conversion …motorised the engines the transformer i built to run em was dodgy and it caught fire….never got over that actually….sniff…

Even though some of the Airfix kits were pretty bad – you’ve gotta love em – £16 for a 30 year old lanc is taking the mick though innit…

Great thread!

TT

I think I tried to build one or two, as I had a book on how to build them from plans – there was a Spitfire, Bf109, P-38, Sopwith Camel, Fokker Dr1, B-52, among others.

Some of them could even glide!!

My first model

as far as I can remember it was a 1:144 avro Lancaster. I had no one to help me so its a wonder I managed to build it at that tender age. the glue problem mentioned above sounds familiar. In any case there was very little glue and no way to get more. Off course I knew nothing about painting so it stayed gray, but was a great toy anyway. Then came a yellow Hotspur glider, an X15 and PT109.
After that I switched to paper models, the first being a Hunter.
Anyone here built paper models?

Thank you Blue Leader (“Come In Blue 2…”) and Firebird – i’m off to investigate.

Hi Sat2, I’ve always wanted to see a book featuring the Airfix box artwork – the pictures used to captivate me as a kid, particularly Jonnie Johnsons MKIX Spitfire. Is this the airfix book which you mention?

There is a book by Arthur Ward featuring the Airfix artwork by Roy Cross.

Airfix art book

As well as the Arthur Ward book on 50 years of Airfix kits.

Airfix book

Hi Sat2, I’ve always wanted to see a book featuring the Airfix box artwork – the pictures used to captivate me as a kid, particularly Jonnie Johnsons MKIX Spitfire. Is this the airfix book which you mention?

I still have an early 70’s Airfix catalogue that contains dozens og photgraphs of built & painted kits.

There is a book that contains all the Airfix artwork, it was reviewed in Flypast or Aeroplane a couple of years ago.

It might still be available.

Steve

My first kit was a Spit,of course,followed every Saturday by another from the Airfix range.BTW,buy the Airfix book-I’ve spent hours gazing at the pictures and reminising.

Hi Sat2, I’ve always wanted to see a book featuring the Airfix box artwork – the pictures used to captivate me as a kid, particularly Jonnie Johnsons MKIX Spitfire. Is this the airfix book which you mention?

Regards,

…but my wife still thinks I’m a ten year old in a thirty-nine year old body……not far wrong!

As a mate of mine says – getting older is compulsory, growing up is optional.

I’ll think about this next time I’m in the studio doing a fashion shoot

Moggy

Hee hee, I’ve glued my eyes to a few models in my time. 😀

This is a great thread! :rolleyes:
Like many,my Dad made my first kits which I promptly destroyed “landing” them on the living room carpet!
My first kit was a Spit,of course,followed every Saturday by another from the Airfix range.BTW,buy the Airfix book-I’ve spent hours gazing at the pictures and reminising.
As an Air Cadet I became aware of Hasegawa and Tamiya and from then,the mysteries of filling,sanding and-the ultimate-airbrushing!! oo-er 😀
From then the pilgramige was to Les Littles model shop-nirvana! (where are you now,Les?)
Now old and farty I collect the Corgi models,but my wife still thinks I’m a ten year old in a thirty-nine year old body……not far wrong!
Thanks for all the great posts on this thread.

Having said all that, Airfix models do somewhat lag behind the best that people like Tamiya or Hasegawa can produce – but their products are cheap and some are still unique. I don’t envisage Tamiya ever releasing a state of the art 1/72 scale model of an Avro Anson, for example.

I still like the simplicity of Airfix’s models against the others, and the fact that, say, Revell’s Spitfire VB can only really be posed with its gear down – and an empty cockpit.

The Airfix Spit Ia and VB can be posed with wheels up or down, body or nobody in the cockpit, and still look good to the average eye… :rolleyes:

Th1st was Airfix’s 1:72 Spitfire 1X J-EJ that my Dad painted for me, I was about 9. he second was the same again, only I removed the cannons and painted it byself in BoB film colours, inspired by MH434 that I’d seen at an airshow in these markings. I eaven put a ‘shell’ sticker (removed from a toy racing car) on thae port side under the cockpit, just like the real thing.

I build hundreds of kits over the years until the day my Dad bought me an air rifal and, well, you can guess the rest. (well over thirty years later you can still find bits of plastic in the garden).

Steve

Wombat – if you go to the Airfix website you will find that a large number of the original models are still in production and are still availiable. For the past 20 years or so, Airfix have had a policy of “rotating releases” which means that each year they withdraw some of their range and re-release others that had been previously out of production. The number of brand new releases is tiny – especially in 1/72 scale. However, because their production and scope in the 60s and 70s was so vast, they still have an extensive range. Some of the really old moulds are permanently withdrawn – most of these would have ben replaced by more up to date and better quality moulds in the 70s and 80s (the Mosquito, P-38 and Westland Whirlwind fighter for example are now in their second incarnations and are much better kits than the original 50s and 60s versions).

Having said all that, Airfix models do somewhat lag behind the best that people like Tamiya or Hasegawa can produce – but their products are cheap and some are still unique. I don’t envisage Tamiya ever releasing a state of the art 1/72 scale model of an Avro Anson, for example.

It’s funny how little things remain stuck firmly in your memory after 40 years.

I remember not only the colour of the plastic used in my first model (yellow, as I mentioned earlier), but also some of the other early Airfix kits, like the Spitfire Mk IX, which had one piece wings, because they were so thin in 1/72 scale, with no wheel wells (I think), the Hurricane with just an upper and lower wing , (ie total of 2 pieces), probably because the wing was so thick in 1/72 and just filled in a big ‘ole under the fuselage, the first P-38 released around 1968 by Frog, I think, which had rivets the size of dinner plates on the engine nacelles, the early Airfix kits with an absolutely useless excuse for a pilot figurine, which glued onto a peg moulded as part of the fuselage…

I could go on forever. I built models from 1964 to 1970, then started work and discovered cars. I have only returned to the fold after a sabbatical of nearly 30 years. I am constantly amazed by the huge range of models available today of aircraft which were not available when I collected models, and the almost total dearth today of those kits I could get back then. Do Airfix and others still make the same range of aircraft in 1/72 that they used to in the 60’s or have many been ditched for much better updates?

Regards

Wombat

The little blue Airfix Spifire was the first I remember – built for me by my father when I was about 4.

First I attempted solo would have been aged 6 – I started with a Scammel Tank Transporter (utter disaster). I must have built hundreds of planes, tanks and cars until girls and cars took over. Last kit built was an Airfix 1/48th Desert Storm Tornado (I think) in 1993.

Currently awaiting construction (and have been for 10 years now) are:

Monogram 1/48th B24
Airfix 1/72nd Buccaneer
Airfix 1/48th MiG 29
Tamiya Brabham BT56 (?)
Tamiya Alfa Romeo 156 DTM

What I really want is a LARGE scale WW1 fighter (ideally SE5a) – any ideas?

Oh for the time!

JC

My Dad built the Airfix Spitfire and Gladiator in the late 50s, first kits I ever saw. There was a Monogram DC3 too, which I bet my Mum’s still got.

My first was an American single-engined jet fighter, something like an F-100 but with a round intake. Aurora or Lindbergh I guess. That would be 1959 and in the next 10 years I built a LOT of the Airfix range.
There are just over 100 unmade kits in various cupboards around the house, ranging from a 1/144 Typhoon to an unfinished 1/8 E-type.

Although not quite as elderly as Moggy, I also started with KeilKraft early on. The first was a Pixie, chosen because unlike all the other rubber-powered models, it had a Gipsy type cowling.
The only hooliganism I recall was attaching a Jetex to a Luscombe Silvaire. As I put it above the cabin area the thrust line wasn’t ideal. Not entirely successful.

No, but I clearly remember glueing myself to various bits of models….!!

I’ll think about this next time I’m in the studio doing a fashion shoot

Moggy

Build date was 0700, 27 June 1963. I had just turned seven.

Interesting, that’s the exact date one of my good friends was born on…….. 😀

My first was an F11F in the colors of the US Navy’s Blue Angels. Build date was 0700, 27 June 1963. I had just turned seven. Little spots of paint and glue were on the hardwood floor of my bedroom for years afterwards.

You know, I’ve spent the last ten minutes desperately trying to remember what my first one was, and I have no idea. But I do have fond memories of three models from my childhood.

The Airfix 1-72 Ju88 which the dog sat on ten minutes after I’d put the last transfer on it.

The Airfix 1-24 Spitfire, with the little electric motor mounted inside the Merlin, spinning the prop at an unfeasibly fast rate (until I managed to snap a blade off, and then it just wobbled a lot)

But the one which makes me grin the most (and which I really shouldn’t be quite so amused about) was my 1-72 Lightning, which served on my ceiling for about a year before me and my brother decided we’d fly it properly. We prised off the single piece jet-pipe bit, stuck a couple of bangers in the back, lit them, and threw it up into the early evening sky. For a fleeting moment as the bangers fizzed their jets of fizz out, the Lightning soared skywards, looking about as real as we could ever imagine it to be. And then the bangers went bang. Biggest bit we found was the top half of one wing…

Then about six years ago, I started to build them again; Haydn was just starting to take an interest in aeroplanes (like he had a choice!), and he is now the proud owner of all three of the RAF’s WW2 ‘heavies’ in 1-72, a Gulf War trio of Tornado Jaguar and Buccaneer (all 1-48), a 1-32 Typhoon in 609 Sqn colours, and about a dozen or so other assorted bits and bobs.

In my garage, I have THAT Monogram B17 to do, together with a 1-72 B52 and a Type XII U-Boat. But I doubt I’ll be able to make much of a start on them until Haydn presents me with a grandson in twenty years time when it’ll all start over again… 😉