Skybirds models by James Hay Stevens were the first assembly kits to a constant scale in the UK. Initially, as a boy Stevens had made models for himself to match his Britains lead soldiers.
These were 2″ tall or approx 1/36th. Finding it difficult to house his growing collection as his interest in aircraft grew, he halved the scale the 6′ = 1″ or 72 scale. His 1/72 drawings then started to appear in magazines.
Aeromodeller adopted this scale as it was a convenient scale for “solid modellers” and page sizes. It was also easy to scale up for rubber powered flying scale models in the popular 1/24 and 1/12 scales. For many years copies of Aeromodeller drawings came in 1/72 and 1/36 scales as well as 1/48. Frog as the first plastic model company also adopted 1/72 scale.for their Penguin series.
In America the popular scales were based on the 1/8″. 1/48 was halved to 1/96 and as pointed out 1/32 is 3/8’s.
John
Aeroclub Models Kit manufacturer and consultant
Scale Model Aircraft published 1933.
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