Aviation Collectables

There are literally thousands of individual items that constitute an Aviation collectable,from aircraft instruments to a full size aircraft,they all come under this category,however there are lots of more manageable smaller items that when gathered together can form the basis of a really fascinating group of artifacts,what is more interesting is that once you commence collecting the desire to find out about your collection will grow,then research takes place and you quickly spot the gaps that need filling within your collection as you gain more knowledge ! with the internet came the best tool for any collector namely the ability to exchange notes and even duplicates of the items you have,so welcome to the truly fascinating world of Aviation Collectables,and above all I sincerely hope that the photographs will give you the necessary inspiration to start a collection yourself.

The story of scale aircraft modelling can be traced right back to when it first started,here we have a few items from my collection that will serve to explain more about how it first started-

Although the contents of this set look well worn which they are,the kit of a Skybirds Westland Lysander is very rare,Skybirds were the inspiration of J.J.Halliday who introduced a range of models which went under the name of 'Givejoy' these were later marketed as the famous 'Skybirds' model kits.The kits had wooden carved and spindled parts,metal struts and fittings such as lead undercarriage spats in the case of the Lysander kit which was introduced around 1942,quite a late example of a Skybird and the only one in my collection.

Note that the plans were a blueprint,incidently the drawings were done by James.Hay.Stevens who as a schoolboy, Halliday realised his talents and paid him to produce the excellent plans,at the same time Stevens was having his drawings published in a pulp magazine called 'Air Stories' which had a special section at the rear for model makers,to go with the drawings was a complete article on how to build each model,this was further enhanced with beautifully executed pen and ink drawings,James.Hay.Stevens was later to become a respected author and aviation consultant in his own right doing articles on French aviation in the fifties and later owning his own fleet of vintage aircraft which included a DH.84 Dragon,Moth Minor,Leopard Moth,Percival Proctor and a Coupe version of the Tiger Moth,these aircraft were operated by a company called 'Chrisair' from Sywell airfield.Mr Stevens sadly passed away on 3rd March 1973 after a unique career in aviation.

Skybirds also ran a thriving network of clubs scattered the length and breadth of the British Isles,the voicepiece for the club was in the back of the Aeromodeller magazine,the pages being supplied for free until new management stepped in and imposed a charge for same,this was not taken too kindly and as a result the clubs and Skybirds suffered gradually going into oblivion.

The thing which Skybirds did was to pre shape the parts which appealed to many people,you could even purchase models built up and painted for a considerable price above that of the basic sets which were beautifully strung into flat cardboard boxes like the one shown above.

Here are the wooden blanks for the Westland Lysander marketed as a Skybirds kit,note the pre shaped parts with holes drilled where the cockpit area is,the parts required finishing offf and painting but  the pre shaping was a big breakthrough in model kit production.

SKYBIRDS KITS

DH Puss Moth

Hawker Fury

Blackburn Segrave

Sopwith Camel

Lockheed Vega

Fokker DVII

Comper Swift

Nieuport Scout

Sopwith Schneider

Fokker Dr-1

DH4

Lockheed Orion

Westland Wallace

Cierva Autogiro 24

LVG CV

Armstrong-Whitworth XV

Atalanta

DH Gipsy III Moth (or Moth Major)

Percival Gull

Macchi MC72

Handley Page Heyford

SE-5

Airspeed Courier

Fairey Gordon

Fairey Seal

DH 88 Comet

DH Leopard Moth

Albatros DIII

Gloster Gauntlet

Avro Tutor

Dewoitine D500

BE2c

DH 89 Rapide

Hawker Hart

Lockheed Electra

Supermarine Seagull V (Walrus)

Heston Phoenix

Percival Mew Gull (Junior Series)

BA Eagle

Fairey Hendon

Bristol Fighter

Fairey Battle

Blackburn Shark

Caudron C450 (Junior Series)

Heinkel He70A

Percival Vega Gull

Bristol 138A

Aeronca-Jap (Junior Series)

SPAD SVII

Grumman F2F

Supermarine Spitfire I

RE-8

Westland Lysander

Bristol Blenheim

Hannoveraner

Hawker Hurricane

Sturdy (Flying Model No 1)

Curtiss P36A

Blackburn Skua

Gloster Gladiator

Miles Master

Speedy (Flying Model No 2)

A W Siskin IIIA

Fairey Seafox

FE-8

Airspeed Oxford

DH 94 Moth Minor

Marane Saulnier MS 406C1

Messerschmitt Me109

Handley Page Hampden

Dornier Do17

Hawker Henley

Boulton Paul Defiant

Lockheed Lightning

Curtiss Tomahawk

Bristol Long-nose Blenheim

Douglas Havoc

Messerschmitt Me110

Messerschmitt Me109F

MIG-3 (1-61) (postwar)

Hawker Tempest V (postwar)

Gloster Meteor (postwar)

Supermarine Spitfire XIV (postwar)

By direct contrast here is a selection of wartime wooden solid kits,note the wooden parts roughly cut to shape on a bandsaw,paint and glue were included together with in this case pot ( clay ) engine nacelles,stamped tinb propellers and turned wooden wheels,until plastic kits came onto the scene this is how you built your models,the basics were provided but you added the finishing touches.

The B-17 Flying Fortress is an Airyda kit and the Dornier 215 & short nosed Bristol Blenheim are made by a company called Airyda,We are looking here at a piece of aeromodelling history.

To go with the kits were produced a whole vast range of small parts to add to your models,here you can see a selection of such items,they include pressed tin cowlings with amazing crispness,pot cowlings,turned wooden cowls,pot wheels,tinplate stamped three & four bladede propellers,tail wheel forks,undercarriage legs,and tiny pilots busts to enhance your solid kits,just like today a whole new industry was created and for the scratch builder who made his models from plans he was well catered for.

Solids were still in vogue after world war 2,and during this period several kit manufacturers sprang up making post war jets as solids,one such company was Veron Truescale,this company produced an interesting range of solid kits with basic wooden blanks,plastic wheels and moulded celluloid canopies,once again a degree of skill was needed to make anything of these models with plenty of use of a sheet of sandpaper !

To the middle right is a model which came via a transition,it is a Monogram balsa kit with plastic moulded accessories,this was to be part of the transition period in scale modelling with manufacturers taking the plunge into changing technology.

This insignificent looking model of a Bell 47G helicopter holds more importance than it first appears,this kit made by Kleeware was the first injection moulded plastic model aircraft kit made in the UK even before Airfix kits became an household name,the kit was in fact made from moulds brought over from America.

So this extremely rare model which survives today is an important part of scale modelling history.

During the nineteen fifties a small factory based at Haldane Place,London called Airfix,was making plastic utensils and buckets for F.W.Woolworths,one day a company called Massey Ferguson contracted Airfix to make small scale models of their famous little grey tractors to give away as gifts for publicity purposes,Airfix responded with a super little kit which was to be their very first venture into kit production,shortly afterwards they made a 1=72nd scale kit of a Supermarine Spitfire moulded in pale blue plastic with abnormally thin wings and not representing any particular mark of the machine,this was quickly followed by a Gloster Gladiator,Supermarine S.6B,DH.88 Comet Racer,Sopwith Pup and a Westland Sikorsky S-55 helicopter then some galleon kits,the models were a knockout and sold in their millions at branches of F.W.Woolworths who had a special counter for this product,every weekend thousands of schoolboys would flock to Woolworths clutching 2/- two old shillings for the smaller kits,3/- for the twins,and later 7/6 seven shillings and sixpence for the Lancaster,it is said that if you had invested heavily in Airfix at that time then you would have probably been very wealthy later on,in fact the company went from strength to strength producing an amazing range of model kits which quickly became an household name lilke 'Kodak' and 'Meccano'

As these words are written Airfix are part of a large company but still producing kits abroad,promising a kit for the TSR.2 during 2005.

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                                                                                          SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you lived in a small house but wanted to still enjoy your hobby ? with the trends these days towards large scale models and kits you would need a barn to accomodate them ! as scales get larger to accomodate all of that lovely detail there is another solution towards building up a collection,still impressive enough to enjoy but well within the constraints of a small area,with a little care and thought it can be done,the home of small scale modelling and collecting is in China where space really is at a premium,many people live in small flats with little space to build and display their models,it is this country that started the tiny small scale model revolution which has its followers worldwide.Now you may be led into thinking that these small models lack any detail,well think again,here are examples of vending machine replicas sold in China,the detail is exquisite even down to tiny undercarriage legs and better canopies than in some of the larger kits,they are in themselves miniature works of art well worthy of seeking out-

These pictures are larger than the models themselves,the minute undercarriage assemblies are fully detailed,the decals would put some of the larger kits to shame,this is real milliput modelling.

Upper view of these tiny jets,all three would happily fit into a cigar box with room to spare.

The word toys is a mis-nomer as the detail is first class.

So there is something to look out for in the vending industry,for anyone who travels abroad something to keep your eyes open for.But we dont even need to look that far for tiny scale models,a perusal of any kit dealers list reveals some gems amongst them,here are three that I found and built up,a Bede Microjet,a Bede BD-5 Prop,and the delightful little Pitts Special-

Then we have the collectors market which caters for different tastes and sizes of model,just to show you how impressive such a collection looks take a look here,these models are not only fun to seek out but make into a miniature collection in themselves,yes small really is beautiful-

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Mexican Aviation and its inspiration by Charles Lindbergh.

The banquet at the army tent camp at Laguna Salada, a dry lake used for aircraft testing, was over by 10 p.m., but the musical entertainment was just starting. So when General Abelardo Rodríguez abruptly ordered him to bed, Roberto Fierro Villalobos, the guest of honor, turned in reluctantly. Four hours later he was up and making a final walk-around of a high-wing monoplane with Baja California painted on its silver fabric-covered fuselage. Then, taking a last gulp of coffee and exchanging abrazos with fellow fliers and the general, also governor of Mexico's territory of Baja California, he climbed into the open cockpit, checked the instruments and advanced the throttle. The 223-hp roar of a Wright J-5C Whirlwind shattered the nocturnal silence. Moving ponderously with its 1,750-pound load of gasoline, the airplane--often referred to as BC-2--lumbered 750 meters across the salt flats, slowly gaining speed, then heaved itself aloft and disappeared into the starry black sky. General Rodríguez telegraphed Mexico City that Major P.A. (piloto aviador) Fierro had taken off from Mexicali at 2:05 a.m. PST, May 30, 1928, en route to Mexico City nonstop.

Fierro throttled the engine back to its 12-gallon-per-hour cruising power at altitude over the Colorado River delta. Then, over the Gulf of California, the engine began to cough. In the excitement of takeoff, Fierro had forgotten to switch from the reserve to the main fuel supply. He twisted the valves and desperately worked the emergency pump. When the engine was running smoothly once again, he mused, "The flight [was almost] over at the start, and as for me, most likely the sea would have swallowed me up."

Using dead reckoning, Fierro followed the route Captain Emilio Carranza, his friendly rival, had blazed five days earlier. Carranza had flown from San Diego in México-Excelsior, a special Ryan B-1 Brougham like the one presented to Charles A. Lindbergh when he donated his Ryan NYP, Spirit of St. Louis, to the Smithsonian Institution. And in August, in a venture funded by Mexico City's daily Excelsior through public subscription, Carranza would fly it nonstop to Washington, D.C., returning the courtesy of Lindbergh's immensely popular Mexico City goodwill flight of December 1927. Since Carranza's pioneering Mexico City-Ciudad Juárez nonstop flight in September, the Mexican and American press had been calling the modest 22-year-old great-nephew of Mexico's first constitutional president "the Mexican Lindbergh."

Roberto Fierro and Emilio Carranza were following the example of Charles Lindbergh, whose landmark New York-Paris flight the year before had sparked a worldwide record-flight frenzy. After meeting Lindbergh as one of his five Mexican army aides-de-camp during his December visit, Fierro wrote, "Lindbergh's arrival gave us the confidence to pursue our dreams of conquering spaces, at home and abroad."

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MATCHBOX DIECAST  AIRCRAFT

Boxed sets discovered during January 2007

Three boxed sets showing the variety of new Matchbox castings and colours.

MATCHBOX 1975 WILD WIND

A very attractive gull winged aeroplane representative of a racing machine.

Pale green and white with paper stickers on wings with race number on tail,silver plastic radial engine and black propeller.