Airfix

[scautomoton]

I suspect their thinking is parents will buy it for children to glue together and throw around the room that evening. 10yr old Me didn't know a good kit from a bad one.

Why don't they just get their kids to set the models on fire with a WD40 flamethrower and then shoot them with their air pistols, like we did?

Oh, wait...

I mean, you survived, so there can't be any harm in the same upbringing for today's children.

[NARSES2]

Very boring choices anyway and, I certainly question the DH-88 Comet being included.
Honestly, that kit is a year older than me and, it hasn't aged nearly as well! 😂.

If anything is likely to put people off Airfix.........!

I quite enjoyed the Comet a few years ago, probably on here somewhere.

Mind you it is younger than me 

[Weaver]

The Land Rover was conceived as a farmer's vehicle, Gazelles have always been common on civil registers - the first production Gazelle was civil and half of the first 100 produced were civil, the Red Arrows don't perform with weapons and that Aston Martin kit, which dates to 2023, has never had anything to do with Bond.

Just noticed that Airfix did in fact, produce a James Bond Aston martin DB5, but it was in 1/24th scale and was only made for a few years in the late 1960s after the movie came out.

The 1/76th Land Rover they're selling through Lidl is the ex-JB mould, which was always of a military version, although I don't know landies well enough to say whether it was any uniquely military features. I can't see any (radio aerial bases would the obvious one). The trailer it's towing is definitely British military pattern, but I'd imagine that many of those have found their way into civilian hands by now.

Airfix have always sold the Landrover and the Gazelle as military items until now, so it is fair to say that the Lidl packaging represents a departure, however as you point out, it's not an ahistoric one. There might well be some difference in "aerialology" between military and civilian Gazelles, but again, I don't know.

[PR19_Kit]

Just noticed that Airfix did in fact, produce a James Bond Aston martin DB5, but it was in 1/24th scale and was only made for a few years in the late 1960s after the movie came out.

That was the one with all the bells and whistles, retractable machine guns behind the indicators, a retractable armoured shield behind the rear window, stick out tyre shredders in each wheel hub, and the piece de resistance was the ejecting passenger seat! 

I'm not sure if MPC made it first and then licenced it to Airfix or the other way round,  but both companies sold it.

[Weaver]

Just noticed that Airfix did in fact, produce a James Bond Aston martin DB5, but it was in 1/24th scale and was only made for a few years in the late 1960s after the movie came out.

That was the one with all the bells and whistles, retractable machine guns behind the indicators, a retractable armoured shield behind the rear window, stick out tyre shredders in each wheel hub, and the piece de resistance was the ejecting passenger seat! 

I'm not sure if MPC made it first and then licenced it to Airfix or the other way round,  but both companies sold it.

Scalemates show it as Airfix first, in 1966, 1967 and 1968. The one they released in 2001 was a different tool, from Doyusha.

[PR19_Kit]

Yeah, 66 was about right. I built one for my mate Derek's shop window, took AGES

[Leading Observer]

I suspect their thinking is parents will buy it for children to glue together and throw around the room that evening. 10yr old Me didn't know a good kit from a bad one.

Why don't they just get their kids to set the models on fire with a WD40 flamethrower and then shoot them with their air pistols, like we did?

Oh, wait...

Haven't we all built the old Revell Trawler, loaded it with Firework bangers, lit the fuse and launched it out onto the local duck pond?

No? Just me then...

[Rheged]

I suspect their thinking is parents will buy it for children to glue together and throw around the room that evening. 10yr old Me didn't know a good kit from a bad one.

Why don't they just get their kids to set the models on fire with a WD40 flamethrower and then shoot them with their air pistols, like we did?

Oh, wait...

Haven't we all built the old Revell Trawler, loaded it with Firework bangers, lit the fuse and launched it out onto the local duck pond?

No? Just me then...

In my case, an Airfix HMS Hood, in about 1964

[jcf]

Revell PT-109, homemade "firecracker", .22LR, gasoline a and a convenient slough.

[Weaver]

Just went and got a Lidl Gazelle, because they're always a good thing to have in the stash for whiffing and I used one for the Tophe tribute asymetric floatplane build. The colour scheme is a bit of a mystery.

The kit has one colour option: an aircraft with UK military pattern aerials, but an overall gloss French Blue (Hu14) scheme, an orange fenestron (hub, blades and duct), and registration letters G-AFGA.

As far as I can see, the only aircraft on the UK civil register to have ever carried G-AFGA was a Miles Sparrowhawk.

There are/were a couple of blue Gazelles with military pattern aerials on the UK register, but they're G-CTFS and G-DFKI. They also doesn't have orange fenestrons. Here's G-CTFS:




I have found pictures of a Blue Gazelle with an orange fenestron (but not military pattern aerials), but a picture from a dealer's site, the aircraft shows no registration letters, and it's in South Africa. This _might_ be G-DFKI, since that's listed as transferred to South Africa in 2024. However if it is, it's had it's military aerials and upswept exhaust removed since then, and also been fitted with black skids with aerofoil strut covers, rather than the military pattern tubular ones.

Here's the site: https://aviationx.co.za/helicopters/turbine-helicopters/1981-aerospatiale-sa342l-gazelle/

Here's one of the pics:




Dark blue Gazelles seem quite popular around the world, probably due to the Blue Thunder connection, but these are the only ones that combine elements of the Airfix scheme. If I had to guss, I'd say the South African one took the Airfix designer's fancy, but he then put a ficticious (for a Gazelle) registration on it for reasons unknown.