seated pilot figures

Does anyone else remember the good old days of modeling when you could afford to buy a model airplane?. Yes, the body panels may have too wide or deep but, hey we were young what did it mattered. What mattered to me was could the model do what it was advertised. I loved Monogram!. The folding wings on their kits like the Helldiver,Wildcat and Corsair. The best parts were the pilot figures sitting in the cockpit . I can’t remember how many missions I flew with them. Now alas no one puts pilot figures in kits. Now I have to ask if anyone knows of a place to find sitting ( fliing) pilots.

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My Tamiya Tomcat came with two very nice pilot figures.

I checked Ebay,there are some,I would also Google “seated pilot figures” in whatever scale you need.Not as many as armor or infantry,but still a few.

Yes.

I must have been a better modeler then, because I could build a model between school and dinnertime.

I loved the Monogram OS2U.

The good old days.

I have just been thinking of my early days of modeling. I started in 1960 or so. I barley used any paint, plastic color was close enough for me. I just loved the pilot figures, put them in everything, even the entire crew of a 1/72 B-17 or a B-24. That was back when they were .35 cents or so.

It’s an interesting discussion. I really like the pilots in the plane. But what do you do when you buy a beautiful resin ejection seat… I wrestle with this with my builds. Sit a great pilot in the plane and cover a great injection seat or go with an empty cockpit and show the detail of a nice ejection seat. I do like having the choice though. I would like to see more kits with pilot figures.

Airfix usually has a pilot figure, the 1/48 scale pilots are very nice.

The reason that early kits included a pilot figure is that the kits did not include a very detailed cockpit. I am sure the mold for the pilot was the same for all the kits, and the pilot mostly hid the lack of detail of the pilot.

I also occasionally like to model an aircraft in flight, so I too would like to see aftermarket pilots available, several in each scale, since pilots wore different looking gear- expecially helmets, in different eras. And a civil pilot in each scale- gear did not change much. In fact, cloth helmet okay for both in open cockpit era.

I have a few 1/48 scale after market resin pilot figures, and I have an old kit of modern ground equipment that I think has standing and seated pilots. It might take me bit to find them, but I’ll look.

There is a company called Aerobonus that makes many seated pilot figures at a resobanble price. You can find the line at Scale Hobbyist.