The Little World

That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to cement the landing gear in while you can still get access to the nacelles and housings or wait until the paint job is finished. Which choice brings a better or worse chance of breaking the things off prematurely? And must we use Shakespearean language after the fact? Prithee. Forsooth. Shite shite shite…

I have spent an afternoon gluing in the landing gear of a Bolingbroke patrol bomber. The time was spent trying to get the landing gear legs in past the edges of the nacelle without removing paint or adding glue. I had elected to do the decorations before hanging the curtains, and found that it would probably have been better the other way round.

Of course, 1:72 plastic landing gear is problematical at the best of times. It is either going to be delicate enough to be in scale or rough enough to be practical. When a manufacturer proposes to balance a styrene elephant on a fly’s legs there is bound to be trouble. I can only imagine the trepidation that real test pilots felt when looking at the prototypes of full-sized aircraft and being handed into the cockpit for the first time by a grinning designer…

I’ve capitulated in the case of the die-cast Nakajima Hayate that I bought – the one with the knickebein. I’ve closed the gear doors and decided to display the thing on a plinth as a museum oddity. That’ll teach me to buy secondhand die-casts – it’s the second time I’ve been stung. Shame on me.

I do mourn for the old, crude, childish kits with telephone pole landing gear struts that slotted into definite sockets in the wings or fuselage. I was prepared to excuse the construction then and I am prepared to excuse it now, provided it is easy to cement together and will stand normal handling. Please do not make me knit spider webs at my age.

Note: I succeeded eventually, but I am a pragmatist. I reinforced the scale gear joints with white PVA glue and I’ll paint flat black in there tomorrow to hide it all. I can be delicate and precise and prototypical for only so long and after that I want strong drink and red meat.