What was your first plastic kit?

[chrishanley]

Me109 maybe

Sorry, wrong war.

[smallchild139]

Was the kit the Cessna from the Cessna/Mig 21 dogfight double. That had lots of transparency in it.

Mark

[Raider4]

Was the kit the Cessna from the Cessna/Mig 21 dogfight double.

That's . . . a bit of an odd couple. Think the dogfight would be slightly one-sided.

[toxicpixie]

I dunno, that West German kid flew his Cessna right into Red Square without alerting Soviet Air Defence. It might not be so one sided as you'd think

[Nirnman]

It being more years ago than I can be certain of remembering accurately I think my first or nearly the first was a one-sixth scale Chinese mandarin figure produced buY Airfix (I think/he was one of a series of figures that include henry VII, Queen Elizabeth, a Lifeguard, a Yeoman of the Guard and Anne Boleyn.

[Smoking gun]

Unlike the multi-national step by step pictures with arrows and symbols of today, the early instructions had an exploded view of all the parts and a numbered sequence of descriptions.
For example, and this is a direct quote from an Airfix kit, circa 1966.
1. Locate and cement window transparencies (1-4) from inside port and starboard fuselage halves (5,6) applying cement to window surrounds only.
Huge points for anyone who can guess the kit... Clue, it was a Dogfight Double.
As you can imagine the instructions were quite a challenge for a young lad, so needs must and I therefore learnt to read by making Airfix models...
  

I learnt of technical language and improved my vocabulary by following the Airfix instructions, the cars and locomotive kits were full of, to a young boy, strange new words.

Martin

[FierceKitty]

I'm still rather pleased to remember working out for myself what the "male" and "female" sections were that needed fastening together. Long before sex meant anything but reproductive biology to my innocent little mind.

[smallchild139]

That was a real set.  Bizarre but true...

[fsn]

[toxicpixie]

Nice inversion of the power dichotomy in Vietnam there

[chrishanley]

Bit of a one sided dog fight. Was the Cessna armed?

[fsn]

IIRC, the Cessna had rockets, but I think they were more for signalling than anything else. 

[howayman]

I've read this thread and the sad thing is i can not remember my first plastic kit.
The first figures were US 7th cavalry, Airfix of course. But plastic kit just escapes me.
 I must be getting old.   

[ianrs54]

I must be getting old.   

Tell me bout it....

[fsn]

I remember my brother made the Airfix Napoleon.

Only problem was, he put the legs on backwards.