'Airfix Project'

In all honesty this little project started by accident. While I was in the process of the 2026 30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge (insert link here) I was doing a series of beach paintings. One of them showed an old SRN4 cross channel hovercraft taking on board passengers at Pegwell Bay, Margate.

1 - SRN4 Hovercraft at Pegwell Bay

The one I painted had the Hoverlloyd livery and it suddenly struck me what it reminded me of. The Roy Cross artwork on the box lid of the Airfix model of the same. It isn’t a copy of the box art, I hasten to add, and if you put the two of them alongside each other you’d see mine for what it is, the work of an enthusiastic amateur, and no better than that.

When I was a kid, from about the age of 7 up to when I did my O Levels I was quite an avid Airfix modeller. I was also happy enough to make kits from Tamiya, Revell or Frog, but Airfix were my favourite. Over the years I spent a great deal of money buying Airfix models from Brayley’s model shop (well, it was only a great deal of money proportionately. I didn’t get a lot of pocket money, and even supplemented by paper round money and milk round money it really didn’t go that far. But what I did get, I spent a lot of on Airfix.) But for all that, there were a number of kits I never bought for reasons of cost, or whatever. The SRN4 is a good example of this.

I knew that Airfix changed hands over the years but didn’t know they still existed until about 5 years ago. Intrigued, I bought an Aston Martin DB5 starter kit. And I just didn’t get on with it. The glue and the paint it came with were not the best, that’s true, but I just didn’t enjoy it any more. So even though I could now afford to buy the modern SRN4 kit – and others that I missed out on that I would have liked to build, I don’t want to now.

However, a seed had been duly planted. One of the things that made Airfix kits more appealing to me than their competitors’ was always the art on the box lid. So why not make paintings of the subjects of the kits that ‘got away’, that I never built back in the day, but I wish that I had? I already had the SRN4 painting. And straight after the SRN4 I had made this direct watercolour painting of a type B bus.

2) Type B London Bus

 

This was the first really successful motorised bus, certainly to be used on the streets of London. It was a larger kit than I used to buy. The type B had not long come into service before ethe outbreak of World War 1 and many were requisitioned to take troops to the front during the war. Airfix also made a kit of the troop transport version, but I was always more interested in the London version.

3 – Short Skyvan

Another larger kit. This rather ungainly looking transport plane was used by a number of different airlines for short haul duties. The Airfix box lid showed it in the livery of Olympic Airlines, and I did see a couple of these in that livery when I first went island hopping among the Greek islands in 1982. I really enjoyed painting this one for the happy memories it brough back of good times. I never flew on one, I hasten to add. I used ferries.

4 – Fairey Rotodyne 

Was it a helicopter? Was it an autogyro? Was it an airplane? Well, actually it was none of these. The official description of it is that it was a compound gyroplane, and it was just one example of a number of what-might’ve-beens of post war British Civil Aviation.

The rotors were powered by tip jets – literally jets on the tips of the rotors – which would be used during take off and landing. During level flight the rotors ran free, like the rotors of an autogyro, and the machine was powered by the engines mounted on the stubby wings.

On paper, this certainly looked like a good idea and the one prototype that was built performed well in trials which began in 1957. But there were concerns about the noise generated by the rotors and firm orders from commercial airlines failed to materialise. The project had been funded by the British Government and they ended this in 1962. The prototype was dismantled, although pieces of it are on display in the helicopter museum.

I painted this using my new Daler-Rowney watercolour set.

5 – Bristol Superfreighter

The Superfreighter itself was first made in 1953 and it was used essentially for cross channel air services. Sir Freddie Laker, the budget airline pioneer, got his start in the aviation industry with his airline Channel Air Bridge which used Superfreighters at first, before using larger Carvairs, a plane made essentially from a converted Douglas DC4.

I’m not really sure what might have prompted Airfix to model this plane, but I’m pretty glad that they did.

6 – Ford Trimotor

 

Funny how many of the ones that got away with me were civil aircraft. This is the Ford Trimotor. Henry Ford bought an airplane manufacturer and this was the result. It looks very similar to the Fokker Trimotor, but the Ford plane’s fuselage was metal, while the Fokker’s was plywood. There were almost 200 of these Ford planes made, a significant number, but Henry Ford lost interest in aviation and ceased production in 1933. Nonetheless over 100 airlines used the plane at one time or another, and they continued in use even after the second world war for some time.

7) Bristol Belvedere

This is something a a companion piece to the Fairey Rotodyne. A helicopter that Airfix made a model of that I never actually bought or made was this, the Bristol Belvedere.

It was Britain’s only tandem rotor helicopter. 26 of them were built and they were solely used by the Royal Air Force. They entered service in 1961 and were finally retired in 1969. There are actually three preserved Belvedere’s with the nose section of another on display at the Helicopter Museum in Weston Super Mare

8) The Boeing 314 Clipper

Designed and built in the 1930s, the Boeing 314 Clipper was certified for civil aviation use in 1939. It was designed for carrying passengers across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and in 1943 became the first aircraft to carry a sitting American president, when FDR flew in one to a conference in Casablanca in Morocco. 12 of these in total were made, 9 of which were operated by Pan American Airlines. BOAC did operate one for a time. The last was retired from service in 1951.

It’s been a very busy weekend with my oldest grandson Ollie becoming a teenager yesterday. We took him and his first cousins Alfie and Elena to the Meados Wildlife Park, then we picked up his other cousins Tobi and Amelia then took them to the cinema to see Minions and Monsters. Then we had a sleepover for all 5 of them. I’m exhausted. But not too exhausted to paint another Airfixer after they went home. Here it is

9) Supermarine Walrus

It’s another flying boat. This was designed by R.J.Miatchell. He and the Supermarine company would become much better remembered for another plane he designed and they built, the Supermarine Spitfire. The Walrus was first flown in 1933. They would come to be operated by the Fleet Air Arm, the Australian and New Zealand Air Forces, and the Royal Air Force.

They were used in anti-submarine operations, and search and rescue missions too. Over 700 were made and several are preserved in Museums around the world. I’d say that it’s nowhere near as well known now as the glamourous Spitfires and Hurricanes, or even Britain’s most iconic world war II flying boat, the Short Sunderland, but the sterling service it put in during the second world war must have been what made Airfix decide to create the first kit of it in 1957.