The Little World

If you are going to let teach inexperienced airmen the arts of flying, you send them up in training aircraft. And it’s not just the pilots that need to be up in the air – the observers, gunners, navigators, radio operators, flight engineers, and flight attendants also have to get their feet off the ground. It’s better all round if they do this over a landscape that doesn’t have big bodies of water to swallow them or big mountains to squash them. Also good if the weather isn’t constant thunderstorms and tornadoes, and there are a minimal number of enemy fighter aircraft around.

Which is why they set up the Empire Air Training Plans ( Also known as British Commonwealth Air Training Plans ) in Canada, South Africa, and Australia and buzzed the elephants, kangaroos, and moose for years. Odd fields dotted the landscape for years after WWII.

The Northrop Nomad was originally probably intended for an attack bomber in the USAAC but was obsolete by the time it was needed. So Canada got 40 of them and put them to use as trainers. Painted Trainer Yellow, a number of them operated out of Ontario. Then they got the distinctive bumblebee stripes and towed targets for air-to-air gunnery practice. Apparently this colour scheme was to warn the trainees not to actually hit the aircraft, though I think the colour would have actually attracted me. Privately, I think the only way to deal with over-zealous gunnery students is to employ a Boulton and Paul Defiant as the target tug and train two gunners at the same time.

Let’s face it, the one that comes back is the best choice for the job…

Note the Canadian exhaust on the Nomad. Special Model make a Nomad kit too, and their exhaust part is polyurethane resin. As I won’t touch the stuff, I opted for a piece of sprue filed to shape.

Sticklers may note the sway to the wheels on the model. I researched the kit and found that everyone complained about the weight of the plane overpowering the plastic landing gear struts so I made a fresh set out of brass tubing and pins. It’s sturdy enough now, sway and all.