1:72 Albatross, Tomahawk & Gladiator (sort of)

[dr_gn]

Son & daughter wanted to have a go at model aircraft, so I pickd up an Academy Tomahawk for £3 at Telford, plus I got a couple of Albatross and Sopwith Pup models from Airfix f.o.c. for them to try.

It went pretty well considering: my son (7) managed to cut out most of the parts and sand them to some degree. He just needed help with the glue. Daughter (5) was limited to cutting and a bit of sanding. Not a bad effort, but the Airfix Albatross is not an ideal first model...I ended up doing most of the actual assembly with her, especially the wings:







Here they are assembled:



Painting was a different matter; son had no issues in producing some decent camo, at least on the wings, and daughter, well, OK:



Here they are finished, the Gladiator was rescued form the parts bin and cobbled together from bits and pieces:



They enjoyed it (and so did I), despite around two hours of apparently very deep concentration in almost complete silence...

[dr_gn]

I could see my dad and myself 40 years ago when I watched them. Completely content with simply building and painting something however they wanted.

How did I end up now spending weeks at a time pratting about with one simple model?

ETA, That Airfix Albatross isn't a bad model considering it's basically from 1957. I was looking at a 'Build and Convert" magazine, and with a bit of work it looks superb. Same with the Pup. Now where's that scalpel...

Edited by dr_gn on Wednesday 26th November 22:21

[dr_gn]

PH5121 said:

That is great to see.

My kids are the same age and I cannot remember how old I was when I built my first kit. I think I will get them some for Christmas so we can have a go over the holidays.

I was surprised to find that the Airfix paints weren't too bad for what they were (i.e. free, and presumably for kids), especially considering the negative comments on the stuff included in their starter packs. With a drop of retarder and a bit of thinning, two coats gave a passable result, with the exception of the brown, which was strange translucent globby stuff that we couldn't get to cover very well. I gave them some Vallejo brown instead.

[dr_gn]

Morf said:

I love the camo in the Tomahawk - I presume the approach is "hiding in plain sight"!

Strange, but despite making a decent effort with the wings, the boy would have none of it when I suggested doing the fuselage the same. Same with the roundels on the tailplanes. Whatever.