Some years ago I was in a toyshop buying Christmas presents for young relations. While I was scanning the shelves I noticed an Airfix Gift Set in a large box marked down to the absurdly low price of 10 quid. (I think it had started off at around £30 and even that may have been somewhat below the list price.) For a tenner you were getting FOUR plastic aircraft kits in 1/72 scale. most of them interesting and unusual subjects, with acrylic paints, glue and brushes thrown in . That's an absurd £2.50 per kit, or - if you attribute value to the paints and brushes - about £2 a kit. This was value too good to pass by. So I bought the set, even though I had no obvious use for any of the kits, and hadn't touched an aircraft kit since I was a boy.

And there it sat, as a box under other boxes, in the study....

The Gift Set in question, produced in collaboration with the Imperial War Museum, is titled VC Icons and features aircraft flown by 5 RAF VC winners in 1940-1. The four kits are for a Hawker Hurricane Mk1, a Fairey Battle Mk1 (was there ever a Mk2 ?? ), a Handley Page Hampden, and a Bristol Blenheim Mk IV.  When I came up with the scheme for an inter-war military narrow gauge railway on some islands in the North Sea (see here )  it seemed a nice idea to have an aircraft on final descent hanging over the layout: there is deemed to be an RAF station just behind the backscene , and aviation fuel and armaments will be brought up from the port by train.

In the context of a boxed diorama OO9 layout 4'3" long any 1/72 aircraft suspended from the lid had better be as small as possible, and the smallest aircraft for which I have a kit is the Hurricane Mk1. (I also have a Revell Mk1 Spitfire kit , which the Daily Telegraph were offering as a promotion a few years back, claimable free from ModelZone on presentation of a voucher. But a Spitfire is bigger than a Hurricane, and Spitfires did not become operational till 1939)

However this is not an account of a Hurricane build....

I hadn't built an aircraft kit since I was about 11, and I don't think those I stuck together as a young lad ever achieved the dignity of paint. I'm not an aviation enthusiast: I've visited Duxford twice in the last 5 years, and flown as an airline passenger a few times over the years, and that's it; although coming from Lincolnshire I'm well aware of the RAF's presence.  It seems only sensible to build something else as a learning exercise to get my head around 1/72 aircraft kits properly, before I venture on building the Hurricane kit.

I want to make a decent job of that one, and some preliminary online explorations have already revealed that RAF markings and colour schemes changed several times between the summer of 1938 and the Battle of Britain. I will certainly need a replacement decal sheet for the Hurricane, and the aircraft as finished will almost certainly pin the layout to the period between the start of the Munich Crisis and the outbreak of war. Whether any other modifications or upgrade parts would be required I don't currently know.

Arthur Ward's "Boys Book of Airfix" (a serious company history, despite the title) has a listing of Airfix kit introductions in the back. From this it appears that the Hurricane kit dates from 1979; the other three kits in my set date from 1968.

Having cleared the old broken computer desk from the study and installed three bookshelves I have a little room to breath. The OO9 layout moves from theoretical concept to possibility; although in practice it would foul and force out the new minimal computer trolley  back into what is a narrow room. Not sure if I want to do that... . The right hand bookshelf in the living room could do with a middle ornament with more presence on its top. Though I think a two-engine aircraft may be too much.

So the test-build kit will be the Fairey Battle. As a single engine aircraft it should be a simpler kit, but it's a bit big for the prospective layout and an aircraft with a very long canopy really isn't suitable for suspending from a length of fishing line: there's no convenient fuselage to act as an anchor point. If it lacks sufficient presence as a  bookshelf ornament, I could attempt a  very simple diorama to be stored in one of two hatboxes I seem to be hoarding - it should be small enough

This is apparently a notoriously inaccurate old kit . It's faults are outlined here: Airfix Fairey Battle rework  That documents a pretty heavy rework. As a learning exercise I intend building it as supplied, according to the instructions and see how neat a job I can do. Any aspirations to upgrade kits are best kept for better basic raw material where a decent result is in fact possible, once I have some idea what I am doing. Using the worst kit in the box as sacrificial training material makes sense

As noted I've no background in aviation modelling. My sole practical reference is a section in Christopher Payne's Encyclopedia of Modelling Techniques, which is veering towards a coffee-table book. This is something but still... Deep breath

I claim no real knowledge of the prototype, but rapid internet checking reveals that the Fairey Battle was designed in response to a 1933 Air Ministry specification for a monoplane to replace the RAF's existing biplane light bombers. A prototype flew in March 1936. It was the first RAF aircraft to be powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin. It was certainly a lot better than the biplanes it was to replace but even this early there were concerns that it's range and bomb load were inadequete for it to be effective in a war with Germany. However the RAF needed to expand, the Battle was a monoplane and could be put into mass production immediately, and so it became a priority. 2,201 production aircraft were built between June 1937 and September 1940

The Battle was effectively obsolete within a year of entering service. It was slow (240 mph maximum speed - the Spitfire could manage 370 mph), and it's defensive armameny consisted of one machine gun in the wing and a gunner with a machine gun poking out of the back canopy. They were sitting ducks for fighters. 160 Battles were sent to France in 1939 to support the BEF. When the Battle of France began there was carnage: in six weeks the RAF lost almost 200 Battles in France. For want of anything better the Fairey Battle remained in service on anti-shipping raids until mid October 1940, and that basically was the end. The RAF operated no more single engine "light bombers" in World War 2: tactical support  /ground attack was left to fighter-bombers - varients of fighter aircraft compromised to take bombs and rockets. Wikipedia  here

I had hoped for a nice simple start to construction. But the first thing  to be done is to assemble the cockpit: and that means figure-painting the pilot and gunner. Ouch. Since some sources recommend painting smaller parts on the sprue I went beyond the crew figures. For model railway work I would use enamels, but this set comes with a bag containing a large number of small pots of acrylic and two brushes , so I used them. The point carry the colour number on the lid - there is no list and the painting scheme diagrams omit detail, but I have a Humbrol colour card booklet which allows  identification

And here we are so far. Undersurfaces painted in Revell matt black (as I had a pot on the bench) , Humbrol cockpit green for the cockpit, figures in a mix of Games Workshop Macragge blue, Vallejo tierra oscua (flying coats) Tamiya red brown, Humbrol Flesh, and Railmatch warning panel yellow....