The Little World

I am blessed with good fortune; a loving family, a comfortable retirement, a mind that still feels enthusiasm. I am also blessed in friendships. One of these friends read my post about trading scale model cars to make space for scale model airplanes and stepped in to make the situation ever so much worse…

In the nicest possible way. My friend Paul took a fancy to one of the collection’s cars that was the same as his old one and bought it for cash. He then remembered that he had squirrelled away a few 1:72 airplane kits decades ago and thought to bring them to me. He arrived with two giant boxes – 24 unbuilt kits in all and several more that will need rebuilding. We exchanged another car and I came home with my stash of models increased six-fold!

They are classic Airfix, Revell, Matchbox, and Frog kits that are long gone from the market. Just the sort of thing I glory in building. See what I mean by good fortune?

The Curtiss Hawk Model 75 is a Revell kit – originally out of the UK. But the bagged kit in Paul’s box was moulded in New Zealand by Lincoln Industries Ltd. under license to Revell Inc. California, USA. The trade seems to have been complex even then. I think the kit was a 70’s product, but that’s just a guess.

The card folder that seals the bag shows the plane in Finnish colours, though they are careful not to display the blue swastika that would hint it was in service allied to the Germans. The blue and white roundel would indicate 1944 onwards. The decal sheets inside provide both this scheme and the blue swastika.

The sprue trees have a fair bit of flash but few sink marks. The fuselage moulding is delicate and the rivets raised, but all in all it’s decent – certainly up to the standards of Airfix at the time. Stiffer plastic, too.

The instructions don’t broach the swastika scheme either, and the decals are pretty well knackered after 50 years. Fortunately this Hawk is destined for different feathers anyway and the decals can be laid aside.