The Little World

I’m starting to know how to play the game – at least recognising some of the new rules. It’s changed since the 1960’s…

Back then, plastic model kits gave you only a very few choices – the AMT 3-in-1 cars had extra parts that you could glue onto them to make racing cars or customs. These were mostly horrible, but no worse than some of the custom accessories that were being welded onto the real vehicles at the time. You have only to look at Rod And Custom magazine of the time to realise that people would pretty well do anything just to be different.

The model aircraft of the time, however, were pretty strait-laced. You got one version in the box with one small sheet of decals and in many cases nothing but dodgy box art and your own imagination to tell you what colours to paint it. At least Aurora had the decency to mould an outline of the insignia into the plastic to tell you where the stars or roundels went…

Nowadays a kit can contain many items from many Marks of the aircraft. They are moulded onto the sprues to allow the makers to sell multiple versions to multiple markets, with only a printed instruction sheet and a decal sheet to change between issues. They take the precaution to show which bit you don’t use on the instruction sheet…if you are going to be at all fussy about it. You get options and spare parts galore.

This was what I hoped for when I saw the MPM Douglas A-20 Havoc bomber in Metro Hobbies at Box Hill. I’d travelled out there in hopes of an A-20 Boston in RCAF markings, but that kit was probably at the Sandown Park model show that weekend. I took a punt that the Havoc box would contain extras that they use for the Boston and I could wind back the Mark to II or III. I was not disappointed.

Had I wanted to make a glass-nosed Mk II or Mk III I would have been fine – the clear sprue is ” clearly ” specific to the A-20 J/K and is rare in Canadian service. But the solid gunned nose is perfect for another plan I have in mind. Not RCAF, but associated with Western Canada nevertheless, and perfectly do-able with the parts and decals on hand. All part of a story I hope to tell at next year’s WASMEX show.

The kit is typical Czech small-run. A few photoetch and resin parts but the bulk done with clean injection moulding. Few, if any, locating pins or tabs but reasonably accurate parts that will glue and fill satisfactorily. Thank goodness the propellers are all one-piece mouldings – I hate the kits with a hub and separate blades.

This may very well be the first cab off the rank for this year’s builds.