The Little World

When I was a child in Canada in the 5th grade, I was friends with a little English kid who had migrated with his parents to our mining town. I can’t remember much about him but I have one picture fixed firmly in my mind – he had a magnificent collection of English cigarette cards. Albums of trains, planes, and ships of the Royal Navy – all purchased at the cost of the health of his parents and other relatives. That aside, they were a wonder and I was enormously jealous of him.

One airplane stood out in all the cards he had – as much for the exotic and implausible nature of the pilot’s compartment as anything – the Bristol Benheim Mk I. I had never seen anything with that short a nose closed-in with flat plates before. Up until that time my concept of aircraft had been shaped by Revell kits and passenger trips on a Lockheed Lodestar. I mean – airplanes had big curved noses…

Not if they were made by the English, they didn’t, and not if Bristol had a hand in the design. Both the Beaufighter and the Blenheim seemed far too pug-nosed to be real. But they were…as was the De Havilland Mosquito. I’ve since come to see the utility of the design. As far as the flat plates go, I later got to see how angular the German Junkers and Dornier designs could be as well.

Okay – an Airfix kit was found in Stanbridges and I just had to build this oddity – and in doing so I found out that it was only odd in one spot – the rest of it seemed to make perfect sense. I’ll record my admiration for the new makers of Airfix – this kit was one of the first introductions to their current production, and I have to say that I am delighted with the fit and the finish.

Note: I built this kit before I had the notion to record each step of the process – so you get to see only the box art and the finished product. The format of recording each build is still in the formative stage – I see many people doing it on YouTube and on other sites, but I will continue myself to see if I can add anything to general knowledge.

PS: I did excel in the number of bubblegum cards I had of American aircraft and ships, and I paid for them myself with holes in my teeth.