The Little World

Ninth grade – Christmas in Calgary, Alberta. The tree held a number of real surprises…a Guillows SE5A and and Aurora 1:48 Northrop Black WIdow amongst others. It was the first time I had ever seen the aircraft and I was astounded.

The Aurora kits were fun for their time but their time was a long time ago. The kit split the fuselage and wing on a horizontal plane, had very crude cockpit and wheel wells, and was a product that was best appreciated by a child. And I did appreciate it.

Now I am an adult ( AKA old child ) and I have a 1:72 Hobby Boss Black Widow to build. I am astounded that it can be sold by a full-price shop at a full price of under $ 30 AUD. It may not fly off the ground, but it flew off the shelf…

Note: The Fine Scale Modellers in their forum are dirty on the old Aurora, and probably on the successor kits from Revell or Monogram, and undoubtedly will be on this new one from Hobby Boss. In their way they are as tightly wound as the Britmodeller crowd when it comes to a shade of Sky paint form the 3rd of August , 1942 at 2:15 in the afternoon over Maidstone with the aircraft tipped to the left. Not the right. The left. Don’t talk to me about right – those people are wrong…

As it is, I am going to be defending my decision to paint this model with black paint when the time comes. If that seems gloomy…and remember that black is gloomy…there are choices in blacks. Gloss, semi-matt, and flat. The USAAF tried the thing out and found that gloss black was the most invisible when they played a searchlight on it. I am going to settle for semi-gloss Mr. Color black from a rattle can. It really is a superb paint, but don’t tell Fine Scale Modeller or Britmodeller. Their blood pressure probably couldn’t stand the thought.