Category: History
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The Beauty Of Preserved Aircraft
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…
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Fiat BR.20 – Part Four – The One And Only
My Nationalist Chinese Air Force is growing like Top Tze. Another bomber to join the Martin B10. Talk about strategic command of the air… This Fiat BR.20 was originally sold to the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force as part of a couple of stopgap squadrons until a native-built bomber fleet could be completed. It saw…
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I’ve Been To The Movies Too, Ya Know…
Whenever I sit in on a group of experts and listen to them tell each other stories I reflect that some of these are probably being retailed with advantage. In fact a few of the tale-tellers are probably advantaging through their teeth. None more so than The People Who Weren’t There. This is because the…
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How Lousy It Really Was
And why we never knew the truth. Over the years – my years – I have learned many fascinating facts about aircraft. Some of the things I have learned are true, and some are false. The reason for the truth is clear – it is truth, and needs no justification. The reason for the lies…
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Triumph Herald – Part Five – We’ll Get To It When We Can
Just park her down the back of the shop and leave the keys in the ignition. And so the Triumph Herald arrives at Ess Bend Engineering. Stranded with a Lucas electrical system and a Coventry carburettor, she will eventually be reworked to Canadian standards. Many of her sisters will suffer the same fate in the…
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The Hobby Room
I have a hobby room that has accommodated any number of pursuits – yet I am still chasing perfection. And it is still elusive. The first use of the hobby room – the 5th bedroom in a house that has only three sleepers – was as a photographic darkroom. It was the days of film…
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Ready-Made Mistakes
Or, how to tread the primrose path in spite of the barriers. You cannot blame me, unless I am guilty. And I always am. Guilty of following orders, guilty of believing what other people tell me, guilty of valuing theatre over intellect. Not in real life, I hasten to add. When someone in vague authority…
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JS-2 Tank – Part Four – Czech This One Out…
Despite indecision about the Zvezda JS-2 kit’s deficiencies, I think it has fulfilled my vision splendidly. The idea of armour and military modelling is new to me – heretofore I just collected die-cast vehicles that suited my model airfields. I admired the efforts of expert armour modellers i saw at my club and at interstate…
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North American Bronco – A Quick Build
This North American OV-10 model has a rather chequered history – it was sold twice and gifted three times before it was built. It is just this report on my column because it was a quick build. It started life in Korea as an Academy model, made its way to Japan into someone’s stash, and…
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72 ÷ 2 = 36
And 36 ÷ 2 = 18. So you can see the logical mathematical connection between the standard small plastic model airplane scale and the cast-metal car hobby. But what is 1:36 doing in between? Not a lot, if Google is accurate. A few die-cast cars but nowhere near as many as adjacent scales. I think…
The Little World 