The Little World

For that matter, why any of them? What’s the factor that impels us to choose one particular plastic model over all the others there in the hobby shop – impels us strongly enough to get us to spend money buying it, and time researching and building it? I think it can be many things:

a. The kit is one we have always wanted and has just now appeared on the shelves. As we troll the shelves weekly, this is a big day for us!

b. The kit is the only one ever of the particular prototype and if we do not buy it we will be forever excluded from happiness.

c. The kit has been priced so that we can afford it.

d. The kit has been enticingly packaged.

e. We have to buy something or die of frustration, and this is the best of a bad lot.

All of which is not the reason that I plucked the Airfix Spitfire Mk XIX off the shelf. I chose it because it is a PRU aircraft and I am starting to warm to them. Slick, high, fast, and scared…and likely to be painted in some weird colour scheme to try to evade observation.

The opened box fulfilled all my desires. Note the orange arrows on the sprue shot – they are the PRU camera ports in the basic fuselage and the unique 5-bladed paddle propeller. This, and a slick grey-blue colour scheme, will make this a unique little model for the Air World. As it is also a postwar aircraft, it will make for a new hall in the museum.

Not strictly postwar – it was flying in Malaya in the 50’s when the British were still there fighting communists and Indonesians. I am going to look for more historical aircraft of the era. I am hoping there is an Airfix Canadair Sabre kit somewhere still in the shops so that I can start on an RCAF cold war squadron.

The decal sheet has provision for Swedish markings and these are also tempting, but I need to do a great deal more research before starting to explore European air forces. I am just now realising the clangers I drop dealing with the RCAF and RAAF…without gettting into the Warsaw Pact or the Flat-Packed countries.