The Little World

And they never painted the underside blue.

And so starts another anorak dogfight. The two combatants have both seen pictures of the Fosdyke-Heppelberry ” Flapdoodle ” in RAF service and both are convinced that they are the recognised experts on the type. Both are unwilling to give up the title.

The pictures they have seen are various; Ministry drawings, MkI factory publicity records, popular press shots, Profiles, and War Thunder artwork. The colours, markings, and equipment they show differ entirely between images. Some are identified when on a flight line and some when upside down in a crater.

They cannot be all right, and probably are not all wrong, but the multiplicity of them and the different marks means that there was a broad spectrum of reality. Unfortunately the anoraks have narrow spectrum brains.

The only builders who have any chance of happiness are the ones who have a particular plane to build, a particular picture of it, and enough dates to prove that it really was there. The museum builders can do this too, but the anoraks will always accuse them of copying what exists now and not what existed then.

In both cases a cheerful and satisfied attitude is as much use as a hobby knife and tube of putty. Once started, a good modeller might make small alterations, but only at their own behest. Being driven by others’ expertise is usually a losing bet.