The Little World

I have seen this on reviews and appended to the end of kit boxes.

It warns the unwary that the designers have exceeded their dosage again and moulded up something that is near-on impossible to build.

It is even more poignant when it appears next to a completed model – making you wonder if somewhere there is the husk of a modeller lying on the floor curled up like a dead cockroach. Dying with your boots on is all very well, but face down in a paint pot is too sad for words.

The models most likely to evoke this response are generally in the Western Front group’s genre. Start out with the premise that all the real aircraft were held together with sticks and wire and all the kits are moulded with plastic as thick as spider legs, and you can see what I mean. Some of the people make models out of painted cardboard that end up looking like bricks, mortar, and steel plates. They do better with paper and glue than I can do with styrene.

The fact that liveries were fancier then is also a major reason to enjoy the aircraft. The combination of subterfuge and ostentation is positively oriental in some instances.

The only regret I have upon seeing some of these fine models is that there hasn’t been quite the flood of interest in between-the-wars aviation to the same extent. Airliners and private planes of the time could be quite spectacular and would make wonderful scale subjects if someone would mould them.