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More childish things


amateur
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Following on from steam-engines, I have now found myself building 1/72 scale plastic model aeroplanes, over 55 years since I last built one.

Why? Well my late father was in the RAF during WW2 and, before he died last year, had, unbeknown to me, promised our grandson that he would help him to build a model Spitfire.

Our grandson was very upset at my father's funeral because he thought that he would not now be able to have his plane.

Trawling through father's effects we found his wartime log book and in it were pasted the two photos below.

Dad had learned to fly in Canada under the BCATP scheme and the photo of the Harvard is him flying in Saskatchewan in 1943 after he had trained as a flying instructor.

After the BCAPT closed in 1944 he returned to the UK and continued training potential fighter pilots, so managed to obtain his only flight in a Spitfire Vb in April 1945 for "familiarisation". He never forgot it.

So I tracked down a model Harvard (actually a Texan, the US version) and a Spitfire Vb and they are now being built to match the photos.

The obsession has now bitten with a vengeance, because from the log-book I found that he had also flown the De Havilland 82c Tiger Moth, Boeing Stearman, Fairchild Cornell, Avro Anson, Miles Magister, Airspeed Oxford and the Wellington II. Models of which I have managed to track down.

We are going to be busy!

Harvard2859.jpg

Spitfire.jpg

Edited by amateur
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1 hour ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Interesting that the Spitfire is either No 53 Operational Training Unit or No 600 Squadron.

53 OTU, used to convert trainees to Spitfires from Harvards. Dad borrowed it for an hour - the only time that he flew a fighter.

His job was to train students in aerobatics, night-flying and cross-country.

At the end of the war he also gave refresher training to newly released POWs, including one W/Cdr Bob Stanford Tuck. Father remarked ruefully that Tuck could still fly rings around him, despite having been in a camp for 3 years!

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Cracking job! 
I have recently been working for a very nice man who used to develop air to ground missile launching systems for a company which now escapes me. 
He showed me into his ‘study’ where he makes model aeroplanes ; to say it was packed would be an understatement! He then showed me into a shed in the garden in which he said was over 300 models! I didn’t have time to count them but it was certainly an impressive collection. All his book shelves are filled with books of military aircraft. Interesting old boy. 

Edited by Scully
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My local model shop is like that, stuffed full of old stock Airfix and Revell kits and lots of completed aircraft. The proprietor (similar age to me) had bought up old stock over the years and now reckons he's got enough to see him out.

I've not been in a model shop like that in over 55 years!

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Also when grandson gets fed up of them they make cracking targets at about 10 yards free hand with a Webley pistol.

Myself and my sons "a while ago" used to spend hours building them only to shoot them to bits at the bottom of the garden.

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Hopefully he will look after these in memory of his much-loved Great-Grandpa. 

I have helped him build a Bf-109, a Spitfire XIV and an  FW190, which he can shoot up if he wants. We will see!

Edited by amateur
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I have been building this 11' 6" Thermalist glider for weeks now. 

I dreamed of doing so when I was twelve years old as it was the biggest one in the APS plans handbook.

If any PW member would like to own it,install the R/C and fly it PM me 

I am in N Yorks.

Thermalist 16.jpg

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2 hours ago, kennett said:

I have plans to build a M-10 Achilles as driven by my Grandad from France to the Kiel canal. I was hoping to build a diorama of one of his stories. 

I had to Google that to find out that it was a WW2 17pdr anti-tank tracked vehicle, based on the Sherman.

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