Here’s my contribution to those questions we feel stupid to ask but ask them anyway. Have fun!
How do you pose your plane models, facing left or right?
All my models in my display cabinet faces left. Most profile drawings illustrations, and photos of aircrafts I’ve seen show them facing left.
(Consequently?) most nose arts are applied on the left side of aircrafts. Exceptions of course are when nose arts are applied on both sides of the a/c and in the very few cases they were applied on the right side as in the B-24 Dragon and his Tail and the P-39 Pantie Bandit.
Why is this so? Is it because when we read or count we start from the left or maybe it has something to do with the orientation of the traffic left-hand-drive
Ahhh worthless information, I love it.
Way back when there was only one horse power, i.e. horses. You could not get on them from the right side, horses hate that. So you mounted up from the left. Tradition continues as pilots mount up from the left side, (except for some helicopter crews and we just do it to be different.)
The fixed wing aircraft that do allow you to enter from the right, still have the pilots side on the left and as most of the pilots are the senior aviator he gets the side with his little slogan or art on it and that side is photographed more.
As for me, I show the side with the best finish, putting the “bad” side to the wall like an old Christmas tree!!
I love being a nonconformist. Mine are arrainged with some facing left, some facing right, some facing center and some with full profile. My ceiling airforce is a full blown dogfight with a gentle swirl in a counterclockwise rotation but even it has the few odd balls dashing through the center of the action or going for the full-on frontal shot.
Mine are facing left which may be right because if they faced right they would look right also, Now you guys have done it… I am becoming OCD…
Seriously though… I model WW2 aircraft and I have found most pilots had their scoreboards or personal markings on Left side… So I display them pointed left .
Interesting - When I think about it, they should face to the right, because I group most of my models by type (e.g. fighters, helicopters) with earliest on one side and the most recent on the other, since charts and graphs generally have time increasing to the right, and they should face the future.
But I face them to the left because I like them that way…
I build mostly WWII fighters and display all of my AC facing left, mainly for the reasons cited by Don. If I faced them right, a lot of the distinctive personal markings, especially on US AC, would be hidden. Bombers often had their personal markings on the right side however.
Mine are somtimes face the left and sometimes face the right, I like it this way. I have found that somtimes facing one forward and the other one facing me it’s butt looks nice…
Yep tails are also somtimes nice to look at…
anyway I think you right about when we “think” left,(or right in my case, I write in hebrew and we wright from right to left so…)
Nice thought to bring into mind! thanks.
I always display my models facing to the right. This is something that I caught on too years ago. They just look better that way. Here’s something else, I always starting my decaling on…you guessed it, the right.
BTW…I’m right handed, but my son is left handed if that counts for anything.
