The Little World

The Airfix company are pursuing a theme with their latest moulds of multi-engine aircraft. They are giving us far more detail than ever before and the walls of the fuselages and the wings are becoming thinner. When we see the edge of a window or an opening it is far more in-scale than the old 60’s and 70’s offerings. All to the good.

But they have been very clever and precise in devising a way for this to happen – they’ve started including wing spars in the design. These are frequently stub spars, but they still have enough span to support the wing skins and give a good cementation point near the fuselage. The stress that would otherwise tend to part the fuselage centre seam is relieved and the planes should hold together when handled much better.

I am also encouraged to see in this latest kit that they have recognised the difficulty of the exposed part – they’ve made provision for the upper turret and the landing gear struts to be cemented on after the main body work is done on the rest of the plane. No hours of worry as you try to paint over spindly structures.

By the way, here’s the new painting and gluing jig that was made from scraps. The older vee-shaped ones were collapsing while heavier aircraft were on them. This should resist most weight and I can adjust it down to quite small wingspans or short fuselage lengths while leaving space for clips and clamps..