A Sad Day

Today has been a bad day in the British aviation world: not only the loss of Colin MacRae in a helicopter accident but also a fatality at the Shoreham Air Show where a Hurricane crashed during a mock dogfight.

I used to live in a small place called Sompting, just up the road, and spent many a happy hour at Shoreham Airport watching the comings and goings. Naturally I considered going today and am so thankful that I didn't. Seeing the photos of where the crash occurred, less than a mile or so from where I lived, makes the tragedy all the more real.

Flight has always fascinated me and, at school, W H Allen's Warplanes of the World was my bible. I used to make many a model in my youth and, as kids do, was in a great hurry to make them and then hang them from the bedroom ceiling on fishing line. As I got bored with them , I would invent more and more ways of destroying them, trying, in my immature mind, to recreate air battles and not giving a thought to the suffering thus caused in the real conflicts.

A year or so ago, I decided to attempt another model. I spent ages Googling the latest and best kit manufacturers, read up on the myriad techniques and realised that model aircraft making was a serious business. I scoured eBay for recommended tools and materials and spent far too much money but finally, I was ready to take the plunge and start my first model in 30 years.

I had bought several kits ranging from 11/32 scale to 1/48 and selected a Republic P-47M Thunderbolt as my first attempt. I knew I had got the bug when it took me a week of painstaking work to assemble and paint the cockpit area but I found it relaxing, rewarding and incredibly satisfying. With a large cupboard full of tools, materials, paint and other odds and sods, I really felt that I had no excuse to fail. Sanding down, filling and preparing took a further 3 weeks and then I was ready for painting.

There was no way that I was going to spoil my labours with brushes so it was another investment: this time in a spray brush and compressor and then on to the final stages. They were torrid times and I stripped the plane several times until I got it right. Ammonia is the best way to remove the paint and several times I had to evacuate the room as the fumes proved too much. In the end though, I was satisfied and the results are here for you to judge that first attempt.

click to enlarge

I was going to talk more about flights I've had, my first helicopter ride, all sorts of things. Somehow though, it just doesn't seem right tonight and, as you can probably glean from what I've written thus far, my heart isn't in it. Apologies, but somehow my words don't seem important at the moment.

© BertieBassett Enterprises Inc. 2007