The Little World

Don’t edge away – I’m not going to go all sentimental here.

I salute the people who discover, recover, restore, and preserve aircraft. And who then let the general public and the model engineers in to inspect them. They do us all a great service.

Because there are only so many old photos that you can collect to help you understand the thing you’re trying to build. And only some aircraft were photographed – albeit extensively. Some missed coverage when they were flying and the only way you’re going to be able to build a model of them that has any accuracy is to go to a museum example.

Of course, the museum people have the same problem that you have – but in large scale. They may have the parts to build the Hubeller Grossfanger H 45 dug up out of a field in Poland, but no idea how it fitted together – the Hubeller factory was located at the corner of Harrisstraße and Spatzallee and was the place where lost bombers unloaded for the flight home. Very little remains now because very little remained then…

The other problem is the museum staff have no idea what colour the H 45 was painted – no-one ever took a colour picture of it. Of course they can always apply to IPMS Stockholm and Britmodeller for advice, but who wants an anorak fight all day?

So a real, finished 1:1 aircraft is a gem to find. It lets us have some basis to build our own model and – even if the museum staff have been played a practical joke from IPMS, at least we are all in it together.