Why is the golden era of aviation so ignored by the modelling community?I love doing warplanes too but aviation is so much more than that.Barnstorming,airshows,flying the mail,first airplane rides etc…Maybe I am just an out of touch senior citizen but it pains me that this wonderful era is so over looked.What do you think is the reason for this ? Cheers John.
That’s a really good point. Testor/Hawk’s little 1/48 '30s racer model are nice, but old kits. Williams Brothers has some Golden Age kits, but they’re not for beginners! I’d love to see a line of new kits in, say, 1/32, of the Travel Aire Mystery, Supermarine racer, Beach Staggerwing, Lockheed Vega, etc.
Hmmm… I just picked up Doolittle’s record breaking GeeBee in 72nd from Testors and it’s going to be a lot of work to fix. They engraved all of the paint/number lines among other things… maybe if they made better kits people would build more of them. I know I would.
I think there should indeed be more model subjects from this period of aviation history out there.
I’d love to see some mainstream kits of Sikorsky and Dornier flying boats myself.
I dunno… I’m quite adverse to doing the rigging. Though, i always wanted to do a barnstorming Jenny… [:)]
You have to remember that the Testor’s kits are from the original Hawk molds, and those kits are over 50 years old! They were state of the model art back then, with no aftermarket sets of any kind available. The engraving you describe was standard for virtually all plastic model airplanes of that era.
I built a couple of the Williams kits, and they turned out pretty nice and I didn’t think they were too tough (I’m not a great modeller by any means). The Caudron was fairly simple to put together and I also liked the Wedell-Williams, though painting that one was tough to match the cream color very well. I agree though, those Golden Age air racers are cool. I’d like to get a nice 1/48 scale model of the Supermarine Schneider Cup winner, but so far I’ve only been able to find 1/72 scale.
The manufacturers have typically looked at subjects that they think will sell. Had a nice conversation with John Andrews about this many years back and he felt just as many of us do. Just a matter of $$$, often times. (Speaking of JA, anyone remember the Golden Eagle Society?)
Although, nowadays, alotta manufacturers seem to be releasing more esoteric stuff, so perhaps there is hope for the appearance of some Golden Age models in the future. I sure would like to see some new air racers in 48th and I’d really love to see a Martin M130 or Boeing 314 in that scale as well. (Although I’d settle for little scale!)
Fade to Black…
I’d love to see the early mail planes, and not just the U.S. one either. For instance, the French flew Bruget (sp?) mail planes to Africa in the '20s.
Regards,
This era seems to be a hard sell.Even the WW1 site is pretty much devoid of anything dealing with the golden era. Cheers! John.
same arguement can be said for any civilian plane small market means no $$$
Absolutely spot on John!
Give us something different! I wish my modeling budget would allow for the all resin kits or limited run kits that may be available for these subjects. Even if I did have the $ my skills are just not there, yet. I would like to get a nice early Junkers airliner myself…something about that corrugted metal!
Revell has a 1/72 Junkers G-24 kit. I think it’s an old VEW Plasticard kit but it’s nice enough.You can often find them cheap at swap meets.
My brother in law has build one: check http://m.1asphost.com/svankreijl/svankreijl/index.html
I know this thread seems to revolve around Golden Age civilian kits, but I am shocked the Golden Age military has been ignored too. How can there not be a single kit of the Martin B-10, other than the virtually unbuildable Williams Bros. kit? Why no Keystone or Barling bombers? What about Consolidated and Hall flying boats/seaplanes? B-7, B-9? Boeing 299/YB-17?
I find this period of flight fascinating, since there were very few rules, so many different ideas took shape. Classic Airframes do make a whole bunch of Golden Age military planes and Revell just released the Spirit of St Louis.
For my [2c]
I would say the main problem is the lack of “Hollwood Exposure”, which tends to allow for the glamorization of the war-era heros, but for some reason, except for recent Howard Hughes movie, generally doesn’t bother with other aircraft subjects. I would guess this is due to the penchant for “hard-core action”, etc.
And to further the problem, the “War Veteran” market helps drive this, i.e., only preferring the types they drove themselves or their grandaddy’s glamor-heap.
There is another modelling website that mainly consists of veterans, and man do they whine and complain when a “Hollyweird” feature isn’t “just so” (like “they got the wrong versiion of the Sherman tank in that one”, etc.).[%-)]
Tom T [C):-)]
Well, thats the danger of being an ‘expert’ in any field when watching a movie. Doctors complain about medical scenes, Computer people complain about computer scenes, and history buffs or veterans complain about military hardware.
you forgot love story type movies, women complain “oh men are never like that”[:D]
But then you don’t see those who are amongst the highest paid professionals helping finance the production in the first place. [%-)]
Kinda like the story of the “Little Red Hen”, you know, “Who will help me kneed the bread…” [;)]
The world is full of “Monday morning quarterbacks”.
Tom T [C):-)]