What was your first plastic kit?

[Terry37]

FierceKitty, if you are referring to the ground officer, the story is this. He thought Fred, dad's crew chief, had written a letter to higher ups about him, which evidently caused him some issue? Truth be told, the ground officer and Fred had a chat at wars end, and when confronted with the accusation Fred told him he'd never written any such letter, and wherever he got that idea it was quite wrong. Of course by then all the damage had been done....except that although Fred had the points to go home, the ground officer had already processed the papers to have Fred assigned to one of the P-61 squadons! So, Fred ended up serving from Operation Torch until after May 8th, 1945. He served in Africa, Corsica, and Italy. Fred lived up into his 80's and was very active in the Bomb Wing reunions up until the very last one.

I have many stories as I attended several of the reunions and got to know the men who served with my father, and they were always happy to share stories with me. Until the day my father died, he never talked much about the war, as it always bothered him that he had dropped bombs killing people.


Early in Peggy Lou's history. Fred is left, talking to Mal Rygh, the first pilot and the one who named her. he named her after his girl back home, but ended up not marrying her after the war. I would need to look up the name of the asst. crew chief on the ladder, but he is painting another bomb for a mission on the nose. Note that only the name appears on the starboard side, and not the nose art, which was only on the port side.


Here she is a Wright-Pat after the war shortly before she crashed. The crash should never have happened and was due to pilot error. A Major and a Lieutenant were flying her around the base to get in their flight time one evening in September when a sudden thunder storm came up. They were ordered to land, which was fine. The error was that although both pilots were IFR trained, they kept flying using VFR and flew her into the ground! Fortunately the plane did not catch fire, but broke into many, many pieces. The only way to know which plane it was from the photos of the crash is because part of the fuselage with the serial was intact.


Peggy Lou on a mission. Would have to look up 09 to tell you who she is.


This is the most used picture of her. Dropping frag bombs on German AA batteries. A lead section would fly ahead of the main group to do this to hopefully lessen the amount of FLAK. The plane on her starboard is 02, Pistol Pack'n Mama, Dan Bowling's plane, but on this mission was being flown by Norm Doe.


My father's final resting place, with my son and granddaughter. He was buried with full military honors.

Sorry, did not mean to hijack the thread.

Terry

[FierceKitty]

I was referring to the one who appeared to dislike the female form.

[Steve J]

Fascinating reading Terry and great you have been able to find out so much information.

[Ithoriel]

Sorry, did not mean to hijack the thread.

Wouldn't count that as a hijack. Fascinating stuff.

[paulr]

I was referring to the one who appeared to dislike the female form.

Different times, different norms FK It was probably also about where the form was...

Wouldn't count that as a hijack. Fascinating stuff.

Seconded, good to hear that you have it all written down, too many of these stories get lost over time

Also great to see your granddaughter is following in your father's footsteps

[grahambeyrout]

If Wikipedia is to be believed I bought an example of the first Airfix kit sold in Woolworth, namely the Golden Hind. It seems I have secured a place in history

[Aksu]

Airfix 1/72 Fairey Firefly Mk V.
Assembled it with me dad and wad disappointed when it did not have decent gliding abilities when thrown. I must have been five.
Cheers,
Aksu

[toxicpixie]

Aksu, I bet *everyone* here tried that with at least one kit!

I think mine was a Mustang, which certainly did not have it's real world performance, being akin to a lawn dart.

[Raider4]

I think mine was a Mustang, which certainly did not have it's real world performance, being akin to a lawn dart.

I had an F104 Starfighter which behaved like a lawn dart. Which mirrored reality quite well, from what I can gather.

[jimduncanuk]

I had an F104 Starfighter which behaved like a lawn dart. Which mirrored reality quite well, from what I can gather.

I was at an air museum in the States a few years ago. One of the exhibits was an F104 Starfighter.

'Some folks called it a lawn dart' the elderly guide said.

'I've heard it called a widow maker' I said.

He got a bit grumpy thereafter.

[Aksu]

My aerodynamic experiments did not result in tragedy as I had used thick yellow house paint to finish the model. Virtually indestructible it was.
I have seen some marginal improvements on my models after transitioning to Vallejo acrylics.
Aksu

[toxicpixie]

I have a soft spot for the old house painted figures and models

Had a TIE Fighter one I did in gloss metallic drain pipe paint I think.

Boy did it stink, you could reach orbit with a "weeeeeeeeee" off it

Jim, that's about right - I think the Bundeswer Luftwaffe certainly called it the Widowmaker, they had a terrible time with it

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

The downward firing ejector seat was a great help !

[toxicpixie]

You'd wonder how and why anyone bought them, let alone so many, but a/ the performance was exceptional, and b/ don't mention the massive bribery and corruption scandals.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

The massive bribery and corruption scandals !!!

It was also used as a strike aircraft at low level,  when designed as a high altitude point defence interceptor  - good call 

[toxicpixie]

"Hey this looks pretty good, but it's got some competition, and we don't need a point defense interceptor"

*Lockheed rep slides briefcase of cash to buying officer*

*Airforce buys two hundred of them as fighterbombers*

[chrishanley]

A couple of points to add in this thread. In the fledgling post war Luftwaffe, the F104 Starfighter was simply the wrong aircraft for the task. The sales team at Lockheed, with the aid of a substantial bung, sold this supersonic high altitude interceptor as an all weather ground attack fighter/bomber. It is doubtful if any post war aircraft was more unsuitable for the task it was used for.
Meanwhile, back to my first plastic kit...
Mine was a 1/32nd scale Airfix Renault Dauphine bought by my Grandmother, anything with guns would have been far too violent...
I know I made a complete mess of making it, got glue on my trousers and got told off. Fortunately my Grandfather was a wonderful kindly man with great patients and lots of encouragement. Every time they came to visit he would insist on seeing my latest creation.
From then on I was mad keen on making "Airfix" models, but the problem was the instructions. 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...

 

[paulr]

Me109 maybe

[Aksu]

In these ikea times you have to admire the youngsters of old! Of course it probably does good for the old grey brain cells to decipher verbal instructions. I've also heard that early Meccano instructions had intentional mistakes in them to make the child learn problem solving. You just couldn't build the model if you slavishly followed the guidance.
Cheers,
Aksu
PS never built a Starfighter, but for what it's worth I've always thoughg it is one beautiful plane.

[FierceKitty]

I found the verbal instructions very helpful, in fact.