Chocks away! Airfix’s Spitfire takes to the skies again.
 

Lovely article in the Grauniad:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...he-skies-again

Nothing to do with the price of fish but we were having a debate this morning on how to pronounce Grauniad.

As I was looking on the net for various conflicting answers, I discovered that people cannot even agree on how to pronounce the word ‘Guardian’.

Warning. Vaguely on-topic. Funny, slightly baffling article, India Four Two.
Yesterday at an antiques stall I found a plastic kit model of a Zero fighter, which I very nearly bought.

I always thought Grauniad was just a Private Eye joke, but I see it's a dig at the frequent typos in the Guardian, back in the days of hot type.

I was stunned by the prices! When I first started buying 1/72 Airfix kits in the stapled plastic bags at Woolies, I think the price was 1/11d (9.6p).

As a kid growing up in Darwin Australia I glued together one of them Spitfires. Proudly showed it to an old timer living next door and got told why did I waste my time making one of them crappy things. Apparently during WW2 there were some Spitfires defending Darwin from air attack and the they proved to be fairly useless..:ooh:

My later reading on the subject showed them Spitfires weren’t that bad, certainly kept the bombers up high and aimless, though they certainly proved that 20mm cannons and ‘big wings’ at high altitude were not the ‘answer’.

I remember Grauniad as the title used by Spike Milligan in his 1960s/'70s tv shows
Not only Airfiix made 1/72 Spitfires; I had several of different makes eg Frog, Revell (not sure but I think Monogram may have made one too) plus Airfiix made at least two different marks.

The kit in question is a 1/24 scale model.

This is a brand-new kit of the Spitfire 9. The original 1/24 kit was a Battle of Britain Mk 1 which came out in the early 1970's. The new kit is a CAD kit, with amazing detail.
Is it worth the price? That's up to the modellers although Airfix will have done their research to see if the market is there. In fact I think they did a survey to ask modellers
what they wanted, and this one came out on top.

Just for the people who might read the Grauniad. 1/72 means that one inch (or centimetre) on the model is equal to 72 such units on the real thing.
Sorry Grandma......

When discussing a Spitfire I would have thought one only talks in inch’s. No poofy French terms are to be used..;)

I was never aware that the cost of an Airfix kit was calculated by the scale of the kit times the cost of a real one...

What an utterly outrageous price! It might be reasonable at a tenth of that!

It builds into a kit that is 40cm long by 47cm wide (or 15.75 inches by 18.5 inches) and has 433 pieces. It will take weeks to build properly. Compared to many other companies this kit is an absolute bargain. Have a look at the website. Airfix is here.
A Spitfire Mk1a in 72nd scale is £8.99. Remember the 1:24 scale kit is 27 times bigger. (by volume)

Having occasionally bought plastic model kits, for something that size (and presumable very good detail), a price around 100 pounds is about right (I have a whole shelf of 1/12 scale Mercury capsule kits - they went for about $60 each - and they are quite a bit smaller). I'm seeing that Spit kit for sale on this side of the pond for about $120 (it shows a retail of $160 but nobody who knows what they are doing pays retail when buying on-line). My favorite on-line hobby store for plastic models says $114, but it's not in stock.

Well, a 2/- Airfix kit of the late '50s works out at £1.84 in today's prices....??

It does look pretty good, size and quality-wise, and what’s £100 nowadays? Two meals out, or ten pints of beer? Give me the model anytime.

Then don't buy it! :ugh:

The 2 bob Airfix in bags was preceded by pre and post war Frog kits of varying prices, then in the early '60s Frog started issuing a new range of kits for half a crown, then the Labour government came to power and the cost of Airfixs' suddenly became 2s3d and so on.

TSR-2, P1154, and then this; was there no limit to their mismanagement of the Nation's aerospace sector?

£95 quid for a new tool 1/24th scale model is pretty reasonable in the grand scheme of things.
What will £95 buy you these days?

Almost a tyre for the car.
Nearly a tank of diesel.
Six male haircuts.
Four litres of Jack Daniels.
One quarter of a decent seat at the O2 to see Queen.
40 pints at a Weatherspoon
Two tickets to a Duxford air show.
8 bottles of decent (ish) wine.

I think the Spit is not bad value at all.

Hard to believe some comments here regarding cost (or "pricepoint" as BS-ridden management types say). Airfix is currently on a roll with a superlative Anson in 1/48 scale (at £40-odd) and the 1/24 Typhoon pretty much saved their bacon I recall.

To the point. A 1/24 scale Spitfire at less than £100 is extremely good value. You can easily spend twice that on a 1/32 scale kit. The days of six kits for tuppence and enough left for the bus ride home never existed. Airfix will do very well from this and allied to their new type of plastic (which allows for crisper detail), it looks like it will be an instant classic and will serve them well for a long time.

It's also worth noting that Kotare's long-awaited (and likely superlative) Spitfire kit is going to cost more than the Airfix kit, despite being to smaller 1/32 scale.

Anyway I'm off back to my 1/24 race car kits. They cost £150+ but I'm happy with that. Because if I don't like it I don't buy. But I wouldn't whinge about it.

As a builder of model (wooden) boat kits, if I could get one anyway worth having for that price, I would be very happy indeed.
A second point, having listened to the politics shows for the last week, is that £100 for the Spitfire kit is going to seem cheap a year or two from now!

I saw a programme on TV about Hornby Airfix Scalextrix etc. They said the traditional Spitfire kits produced in the 1960s had about 60 parts. Now they only have thirty or so as the average modern kid does not have the patience to build in the way that kids in the 1960s did and modern kids want quicker results. I remember the fun of building and trying to get the prop and the wheels to turn and trying to avoid getting glue on the canopy. I am not talking about this new 1/24th kit but the standard 1/72 kit that now has some pieces that click together and do not have to be glued.

Will those of you who build this kit be showing pix of the finished project ?

Airfix kits are currently on offer from Aldi. See this page from Aldi's current sales leaflet.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fba4cc14d4.jpg

Some people here need to get a grip - inflation people - twenty quid in 1975 is GBP161 today. IIRC 1/24th Scale cost about 15 - 20 odd quid when I was a kid (and was a once a year present at best). This idea of 'pocket money kits' is a bit deluded - what scale, what quality, what year...? Some of the cheap kits in Series 1 in the early Seventies were very basic with poor fit and little detail - not much like the kits of today.
'Pocket Money' kits is often a claim from people who don't realise how affluent they or their close relatives were.

Whereas a brand new MGB cost £1312 in 1973 - but you can't buy anything remotely like it for £13033 today! Similarly, a house which cost £36000 in 1983 cannot be bought today for £111824.

Inflationary price increases aren't always that straightforward!

In the 1950s one kit maker (can't remember which) offered 1/72 kits of the Bristol Britannia and the DC-7 for 17/6 (seventeen shillings and sixpence), equivalent to approx £20 in today's devalued currency. Way beyond the pocket of most modellers in those days. IIRC these kits both included BOAC decals.

It was FROG and in 1/96th scale. As well as the DC-7C and Britannia, he other BOAC models they did at the time in the same scale were the Comet 4 and Boeing 707.

17/6 in 1955 would be £18.18 today....

Or if you want to relive your childhood... £125 - £150!

https://www.kingkit.co.uk/product/fr...britannia-boac
https://www.kingkit.co.uk/product/fr...dc-7c-airliner
https://www.kingkit.co.uk/product/fr...met-4-jetliner
https://www.kingkit.co.uk/product/fr...ers-super-vc10

They haven't got the 707 but they do have a Caravelle. I recall my local bits'n'bobs shop sold Frog 1/72 kits rebadged as Novo for really silly money during a clearance sale when I was about 10, 20p each or something. I bought a few... wish I still had them unmade!

I remember the Frog Vulcan B1 and Victor B1 bombers in 1/96th but not the Valiant which I somehow never bought and I don't recall the airliners at all.
I also remember Chris Trace on Blue Peter with a 1/72 Gannet kit which he fitted with an electric motor for RTP; he actually got it to work!

I think the Novo kits were on sale in about 1972; I was training at Glasgow at the time and I remember one of my companions discovering a shop there which sold them.
Somewhere in my loft I have an unmade Airfix Chipmunk and Sea King and an unmade Italeri Airspeed Horsa in 1/72nd.

Absolutely. I only ever received the 1/24th kits as Christmas presents. I got the 109 and Spitfire. They must have been expensive.

Be happy to but as the lead time on my stash is about 100 years don't hold your breath.

Also remember that plastic model building is much less common than it was in the 1950-60s. When I was a kid, almost all the other boys I knew built them, and seemingly every store sold plastic model kits (even the local drug store) - now days you seldom see them in anything other than a dedicated hobby shop (and at least around here, those are few and far between :{). Most of today's kids are far more interested in video games and the like than they are in building something with their hands. So despite the soaring population, the market for plastic model kits is much smaller - with young kids a small portion of that smaller market. Much of the interest now days is among adults - who are also looking for much better quality and detail than the 10-year-old who bought a simple to assemble kit 60 years ago.
More expensive to create and produce - with a smaller potential market means Airfix, etc. need to charge more for the end product to make a profit.

When Tri-ang went broke in the early 70s a good number of the FROG moulds were sold to Russia and marketed as Novo.

I've still got a couple of boxed DH Hornets I paid 30p each for, the price stickers are still on the boxes.
Later they were more common in plastic bags with poor instructions and equally poor or missing decals. I think there are a few of those stashed away in a cupboard too.

That's a very good point - when I first made kits the main aim was to build something I could use in pretend dog fights and other battles - hardly any detail lasted more than a few combats - they were very much toys.

The stuff now is often quite incredible in detail before people do after market stuff

I was much cheered when I asked my 14 year old grandson what he wanted for Christmas and he replied he'd like some money for a kit he's buying. I thought perhaps he'd seen the Spitfire but oh no it's an add-on for his (non-aviation) video gaming. Still at least he's building/assembling something, which is good news.

PLASMO

Anyone with an interest in plastic modelling at it's very best should have a look at the work of PLASMO on You Tube. This guy does time lapse video of his builds and has a cheery commentary explaining what he is doing, it's The Potters Wheel for the 21st century, enjoyable to watch and his final results are outstanding.

For those put off by the price of the kit but like Spitfires Airfix produce a 1,000 piece jigsaw of one for just £13.99.

Frog Kits
 

I indeed remember some Frog kits because they made quite a good 1/72 Hurricane which actually had a retracting u/cart. It looked better on a stand rather than its wheels due to the inability of the system to go forward during the deployment. Nowadays some keen chaps would mod the kit so it looked ok wheels down, but I seem to remember the overall quality was good and it came in a box rather than a plastic bag (all mid 60's) may even had a sliding hood. Decades later Airfix produce an excellent large scale Hurricane which had good detail.

The guy on PLASMO has some extraordinary detail and craftsmanship.

or to put it another way, the pilot standing next to the Spitfire would be just over an inch tall (with a moustache about 3/16 of an inch wide)

. . . and had it been a Bf109, then the pilot would have been a little under an inch tall