The Little World

Our winches between our knees.

As they say in the recruiting posters ” It’s Men’s Life In The Target Tug Crews “. It sure is. Of course the men are nervous gibbering wrecks who shy away from sudden movement and loud noises, but that’s beside the point. Someone has to tow canvas cones behind an airplane while amateurs shoot at them and those someone’s are the ones who graduate lowest in the class.

The tradition has been to paint a target tug as brightly as one can, in the hopes that the enthusiasts doing the shooting will be able to tell the difference between it and the drogue. I think a far better idea would be to provide the tug crews with a cash poker float from squadron funds and to encourage them to lose it to the other pilots – and then to run into debt. You are a lot more careful shooting near someone if they owe you money…

My experience with this kit has been delightful – I forgive Special Hobby for the Anson Mk I and look forward to the next kit that I buy from them. I hope to get an RCAF version of the Northrop Delta that has just been announced. Actually I shall look with favour at a lot more of the Czech kits if I can get them at a good price now that I know the lacquer system of painting is open to me.

It also suggests that the rattle cans of Tamiya lacquer that are in standard aircraft colours will also be a good thing to look at for larger coverage. As they do a matt black, a dark earth, and an RAF dark green, most of Bomber Command and great many of the early fighter and transport schemes are covered. I’ll bet they do an olive drab and neutral grey as well so there’s the USAAF done. I’m fortunate in my access to Hobbytech and their big paint aisle.

I will also look carefully to see what other air forces did for aerial target training. I remember reading about an experiment in the USAAF involving an armoured P-39 that was to be attacked with live ammunition – there were frangible bullets that were meant to break up on hitting it. I’m willing to bet the test pilots drank a lot.

Note on the canopy: I don’t know what people are complaining about with vac-form canopies. I found it easy to remove it from the matrix and then to fettle it in and paint it with a bow-pen. Give me more of ’em any time.