The Little World

Mike Grant had been a pioneer where I wished to go and I was fortunate to discover an magazine article he wrote – sponsored by Airfix – that dealt with exactly the aircraft I was working on. The story was illustrated with a lot of good coloured photos and Mike had gone into the scale aspect and detailing of this kit far more than I intended to do. But it was great to see what sort of extra things he could think up to do to it out of the box. And his occasional disparaging remark ( old kit, remember ) was good warning when I came to the same place in the build.

He had the advantage that he was skilled and meticulous. I have the equal advantage that I am ruthless and easily satisfied. In the end we both got Israeli Mosquitos. Here’s one of the pages that he wrote:

Now to the result. Here is the Mosquito as prepared by Ess Bend Aviation for Stein’s Air World in Wet Dog , Alberta. It may be displayed there or sent to one of the other Air World displays in other countries. Currently there are AW museums open on several continents:

1. Little Farting Air World in Norfolk – site of a former USAAF fighter base. The gift shop sells traditional native trade goods; Hershey bars, cartons of Camel cigarettes, and nylon stockings.
2. Lakanuki Air World on Lakanuki Island in the Poi Poi archipelago. Plenty of WW2 aircraft to see and the occasional really old Japanese soldier up a tree firing at the visitors.
3. CORRIGAN AFB, Montana. Home of the USAF Navigation and Baking School. It’s really only a small hangar on the base but the curator is one of the last USAAF service personnel who participated on the air raid over Birmingham.
4. Uszhitmi AIr Show – not a full-scale Air World, but the company always manages to have a stand at this Russian Air Spectacular and puts on a display of vintage aerobatic aircraft.
5. Manangatang International Air World – the hub of air display in the southern hemisphere, Managatang has everything from oil bombers who calm troubled waters to the famous Royal Flying Dentist Service planes. You can’t miss Manangatang.
6.  Schmattarim Air Force Museum in Israel. Sunshine 27 hours a day and they have to paint the canopies with goose grease to protect them from the UV.

The Mozzie is clean and neat, with very little in the way of squadron markings. This was apparently the fad in the IDF at the time as they did not have enough aircraft to warrant squadron codes. Also, everyone knew everyone else’s business anyway, so there was no need to identify the aircraft.

We got a couple of overhead shots when Maurie moved the crane round to the front of the shop.

I was pleased to see that the paint shop had no trouble with the markings on this one – not like the IAF Spitfire a few reports ago. These stars settled down beautifully. Perhaps it is wooden wings that make the difference.