I know it is sometimes necessary to hunt in order to survive and I understand the need for controlled culling, but if you already have access to all the cheap, safe & humanely produced food you can eat, what on earth makes an ordinary person want to stalk and kill a healthy animal for pure pleasure? Others have made a good point about a wild animal (unlike a farm animal) having a life of freedom, but surely that only makes it even more wrong to wantonly destroy that life? And how much “Sport” or contest can there really be between a dumb creature and an intelligent armed man? Like most people I eat meat, wear leather shoes, etc, and yes, I’m sometimes uneasy about where it comes from. But for me the big difference with hunting for pleasure is that at least my food is produced in a controlled, licenced environment with as little suffering as possible. For every quick, clean hunting kill we hear someone bragging about, how many go wrong (perhaps with inexperienced or careless hunters) leaving the animal to suffer a slow and possibly painful death?

I also have some sympathy with the argument that fox-hunting in the UK is neccessary to control vermin, but I just don’t understand how people can take a delight in turning any kind of death into such a celebration. If it has to be done, it should be done simply and discreetly like any other form of pest control, not turned into some kind of bloodlust festival. And please don’t insult our intelligences by saying the fox (or stag) actually enjoys running for its life, and that any “Townie” who disbelieves that is ignorant of “Country Ways” I understand the argument about tradition too, but just because something has been happening for a long time does not automatically make it right; after all, bear-baiting, c0ck-fighting and pig-sticking were once considered harmless and traditional, but surely no one would try to defend such barbarism now. Pluto makes a fair point about us evolving as predators, but I like to think we’ve moved on since then.

The bottom line for me is that I believe it’s wrong to kill anything for fun. If it has to be done for reasons of food production or preservation, it should be done discreetly by professionals. High time we grew up and put all bloodsports behind us.

Somebody had to… :rolleyes:

Moggy

🙂 🙂 🙂

There used to be a product called Modelstrip, especially for this. Think I used to get mine from Hannants. Not sure they advertise it because it’s a bit dodgy to send through the post (very caustic) Works a treat, though.

******. Tried three times to upload photos, with no joy. Pilot, can you PM me you email address, and I’ll try that way?

Must have a million memories connected to Airfix, but hard to say where they begin. I used to go shopping with my Dad on Saturday mornings in the Sixties, and every week dear old Woollies seemed to have at least one new Airfix release in. By “new” I mean a completely new kit, not a re-hash or re-release. I probably averaged a Series One kit every week or a Series Two every fortnight; a Series 3 or 4 was a rare treat, and anything above was usually just a dream for Christmas or my birthday. Didn’t see the point in those fiddly biplanes, and the tanks and warships always seemed so much smaller than expected. Got confused over the Seahawk & Skyhawk, and didn’t understand how there could be two DH Comets and two Westland Whirlwinds, but then everyone knew the S-55 as just “The Helicopter” anyway because it was the only one in the range then. Usually made them up in a single sitting, to a backdrop of Sunday Night at the London Palladium (you older UK guys will remember that) Loads of Britfix glue on canopies and furniture, drooping tailplanes, dodgy undercarriages and upside down transfers (no one called them decals then)

Back in those days when I couldn’t really afford books, magazines or air shows and there was no such thing as the Internet, videos or DVDs anyway, Airfix kits were my main window on aviation and my chief source of information; used to paste every box top and history into a rainbow scrap book from the GPO (still can’t bear to chuck them out) So much so, that as a very young lad I thought kits must be made in separate 1/72nd scale and 1/144th ranges because the real aircraft were also somehow fundamentally different and incompatible. Couldn’t quite believe it when I saw a real Comet and a Lightning together; think I turned horrified to my Dad and said “But that one’s a Skyking….”

At the time, my first Airfix catalogue probably felt as exciting as my first girlie mag many years later (really not as sad as it sounds). All those kits to tick off, promises to others that I’d get around to buying them some day, and tucked in among the old friends, tantalizing box tops of some new plane I’d never even heard of, but suddenly couldn’t bear waiting for. Now I have a large collection (roughly 2,000 of various makes) and can afford virtually any kit, but it still doesn’t even come close to standing at Woollies counter agonizing over the tough old Beaufighter I’d been looking forward to all week or the smart shiny new Bassett.

Pilot, I have an unmade Stranraer, if I can help in any way? Got to tell you though, both my scanner and digital camera are very basic. Would you see much internal cockpit detail, anyway?

I always felt that Matchbox took up where Frog left off, with kits that were a bit crude by some standards, but a whole raft of subjects that no other major manufacturer would touch. I know Revell have released some, but does anyone know what became of the moulds for the less commercial kits like the Seafox, Stranraer, Provost T.1, Heyford, Norseman, Twin Otter, HS125-700, Fury, Siskin, Wellesley, Boeing P-12, early mark Halifax, Privateer, etc? Like a lot of things in Life, I guess we took them for granted (cheap as chips, available in any toyshop) and I wish I’d stocked up on some of those gems when I had the chance.

I used to love Corgi Aviation Archive models when they first came out. I remember happily buying the York, Lancastrian, And Stratocruiser, probably in part because they were not readily available in plastic form. But then the quality seemed to start to fail a bit on things like the fit of undercarriages and stands; bit frustrating not to be able to pick up the Viscount model without the undercarriage units falling off one by one. Still got quite a few in the loft though, and nice to take one out and display it every so often. Does anyone know if the earlier releases are collectible at all?