As a young boy growing up in the 80s I remember dad building me model aircraft to hang from my bedroom ceiling with fishing line.

My first memory is of a matchbox Apache kit which was one of 2 kits I had built for me, these were built by dad over successive nights after I'd gone to bed so never saw any progress or even knew he was building them until i was presented with them.

As grandad was a Ground Technician for V Force dad spent the first 13 years of his life living on RAF bases in the UK and Malta, grandad served in the Far East and India as well but the family never travelled there. This influenced most of the models adorning my ceiling, usually all ones that grandad had worked on, these were mainly jet planes including
Victor, Vulcan, Vampire, Spitfire (for the Merlin engine) Meteor, Canberra and a B29 Superfortress which we have a photograph of my grandad and his ground crew stood in front of in the 50s.

I remember buying an Italeri BAE Harrier, and pleading with dad to build it for me, it had moving jet ducts to allow VTOL but it wasnt a GR3, the Harriers I knew and had fly over our house virtually every day so was disappointing really.

As I got into my very early teens I got a few kits for various gifts and for birthdays and christmases, all gone at like a bull in a china shop, badly built, rushed and with horrific paint jobs and badly applied decals. I attempted to build most small kits, Spitfires, Hurricanes, BAE Hawk with unthinned humbrol enamel, so thick no panel lines were left visible, Short Sunderland, Halifax bomber and a Mosquito are some of the most memorable. All ruined really by not taking my time, I think dad just gave up trying to get me to paint stuff still on the sprue and leaving sections overnight before doing more. The last kit I remember him building me was a RN SAR yellow Sea King, I still to this day have huge admiration for these fantastic machines and it's a crying shame their life is all but over. This had spinning rotors and a sliding side door, that sat on my bookshelf as it was too good to hide on the ceiling.

It was 2014 before I looked at an Airfix kit again, we still have 4 family members serving in the RAAF and 1 in Australian Secret Service. One cousin was a navigator on Nimrods and took 2 tours of Gulf 2 and 3 tours of Afghanistan before retiring to an easier life. Kev was heavily involved in the MOD upgrading of the Nimrod from MR2 to MRA4 and was in Kinloss on active service until the day the project was scrapped.

2014 I purchased an Airfix Nimrod kit and a set of Eduard brass detailing kit in order to make the very best MR2 I possibly could, she still hasn't been painted her hemp colour she needs to be.

One kit dad always wanted but during our time building them wasnt readily available was the Matchbox Victor, dad knew these in their B2 form as they were based at RAF Gaydon where grandad was stationed, as a kid between the ages of 8 and 13 growing up with those beautiful beasts tearing up the runway, dad was very lucky!!! He was at school with the 3 families who lost their dads when one crashed into woods at Combrook on its descent in fog to the runway, and good mates with one in particular.

One war that I have always been extremely interested in was The Falklands, over a year before I was born but one that aircraft I was bought up on, Vulcans, Victors and Harriers all played huge roles in the success supporting our wonderful boys on the ground, our family has always been RAF but we have huge admiration for all services and never believe one is superior to the other. It's something I have had more then a passing interest in and one that I will always read something about to try and educate myself further on the topic.

The Nimrod is to be painted Hemp and wear markings for the Falklands campaign, with the now Revell manufactured Victor K2 readily available at a mere £20 six of these now adorn the to build list (1 is in paint) this gave me the great idea to replicate the extremely crowded apron of Ascension Island of which the air strikes on the Falklands would not of been possible. So the list of kits to be built is quite extravagant, including
2x Nimrods
6x Victors
2x Vulcans
3x Harrier GR3
1x SeaKing
1x Chinook HC.1
3x Phantom F4s
1x C-130 Herc

And because they were so vital 3 Sea Harriers

The thing is even with 2 layouts under construction like everyone you need time away to find the love and desire to get bits pushed on, so while I'm waiting for bits for Clifton Wood I pick up a kit and do a bit and leave it for a few months before anything else happens.

The thing that still blows me away is the size of these things, I'm used to scrabbling around with tiny little N gauge then you pick this up and everything's massive, I'm hoping that the few skills I've learnt from N gauge allows me to produce some detailed aircraft for my small diorama of Ascension, I think it needs half the barn to get it all together 

oh yes....
parts in a plastic bag, with a printed header/instruction sheet, 2/- of my pocket money on each model.

IIRC the instructions didn't refer to part 23 and part 15, but part 23 [and what it actually was] etc, so you learned a bit as well.

can't remember my first kit, but probably Spit or Hurri.

tube glue, and tins of paint also out of my pocket money, but can't remember how much.

happy days

Absolutely not. My Father worked in the Wolverton Carriage & Wagon works so from knee high to a grasshopper I was interested in railways. Kits didn't do it for me in the slightest as they didn't move. When they did, e.g. being thrown/dropped they tended not to last long.

I used to walk up the road on a Saturday morning to the local model shop and buy those model aircraft Airfix kits , at first I did not paint them. I also made ships cars anything really, that is what started me off modeling, good memories.

Nope,got given 1 or 2  and tried to build them,but found they wouldn't fly when launched from my bedroom  window,around the same time i discovered a bread bag dosn't make a good parachute for action man. Mechano and lego were my main modeling toys.

As a very young lad in the mid 60s I remember my dad assembled an extensive Triang railway layout (For me? hmmm, that's open to debate!)  and he built all the Airfix lineside kits.  As a young teen I went through the phase of making  a few aircraft kits and hanging them from the ceiling but I wouldn't say they were a major part of my growing up, I was always more interested in model railways and went through a couple of OO layouts before downsizing to N.

anyone remember Keil-Kraft aircraft kits ?

balsa / tissue, dope [hey man open the window] and rubber band power ?

@class37025 yep, dad built a couple of them and a glider, never saw any of them fly though, I had a spirit of St Louis and it crashed, somewhat deliberately and we took great pleasure in making sure it couldnt be repaired 

Quote from: class37025 on June 15, 2020, 05:23:02 PM
balsa / tissue, dope [hey man open the window] and rubber band power ?

I certainly remember making rubber-powered balsa aircraft kits. They usually self-destructed when I wound up the rubber band 

Started with railways and planes about the same time.

Clockwork 0-4-0 North British shunter in red (Triang), then Playcraft HO set and then the Triang Holiday Express September 1965. (age 5 with Scarlet Fever that Christmas with layout on a white cotton sheet on the floor).

Dad made a Frog Airspeed Oxford (his wartime memories) and then we started doing both. I still have a Matchbox F2A Lightning painted in RAF Germany colours (my memories) and an Airfix Chipmunk T10 trainer (my aerobatic memories), plus a few others in a box in the attic.

Dad was a draughtsman at Portsmouth Aviation for 52 years in all, from an apprentice in the war until he was 65. He cycled to work every day, in a time when it was fashionable, even desirable, to have a car, and when he retired the firm gave him a new bike.

I did the cycling thing when it was not fashionable either, and cycled all around Wales to raise money for the BHF while I awaited my A level results in 1978. Raised over £1000 which wasn't a bad deal in those days and without Just Giving.

Got into N in 1970 when I was 10, and have been doing N for 50 years. Slightly better as a modeller now than I was then, but not by much!

Bob

I remember making FROG aircraft kits in the 70's. The pictures on the front of the box always looked better than those on the airfix kits so that's what I spent my pocket money on.

Quotemaking rubber-powered balsa aircraft kits

That's just reminded me of those styrofoam planes youd get for pennys.Assembly was pushing the wing through the body,elastic band  from the prop to a cut out on the body,wind up the band ,release and throw.

Yes, I started with Airfix kits, bought at the local toy shop.

Mainly aircraft to start with, glue everywhere, frosted canopies and decals applied, but no paint.

Probably had a go at almost every range that Airfix produced, from the 1:24 Spitfire, through 1:72 planes, cars, Napoleonic soldiers, and tanks.

I mainly collected the HO/OO plastic figures of soldiers, and again had the Romans stuff, through the Napoleonic stuff, US Civil war and WW1 and WW2 figures.

My relatively wealthy Aunty fed my addiction, and I got quite a few of the diorama's as well like the Roman Fort and the gun emplacement, and maybe some others.

Eventually I concentrated on AFV's. That's also when I realised that there were other manufacturers.

Matchbox kits were great because you got a bit of a battle ground to display the vehicles on, and use in wargames. I also used to build Hasegawa stuff to go alongside the Airfix and Matchbox kits even though they were visibly bigger. Plus some Bandai 1:48 tanks and Tamiya 1:35 stuff as well.

I also used to buy the Airfix magazine.

Over the many years since I went to Uni, it has all been lost or thrown away, not necessarily by me!

John P

didn't Playcraft morph into Jouef, or was it the 'toy' arm of Jouef.

in the day the detail on Jouef compared to Hornby and Triang was amazing.

Quote from: class37025 on June 15, 2020, 05:23:02 PM
balsa / tissue, dope [hey man open the window] and rubber band power ?

Ooh, the colours, man