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Greetings!

'A gaping silken dragon,/Puffed by the wind, suffices us for God./We, not the City, are the Empire's soul:/A rotten tree lives only in its rind.'

Tuesday 26 March 2013

Something different...

... the PSC carriers are on the last leg, just some more paint on the crew, then unit markings, fading and wear and tear, and they will be ready to join a wide variety of (mismatched) carriers of one manufacture and another in my British, Empire and Commonwealth Forces kit for the Western desert. But while the paint is drying on the carriers, I thought I'd try something that is, for me, new:


Pre-war German glider, which, according to the instructions was the first to sport spoilers.


I'm not sure, but I have the sense that the 1930s, then immediately post-war, was the golden age for gliding. I knew an RAF Flight-Sergeant whose father had served with the Polish air force in 1939, and then with the RAF. He had first taken to the air in a Polish government scheme whereby, apparently, all Polish boys could learn to glide. If so, that is quite something, and also, perhaps, an interesting insight into Poland between the wars - sandwiched in the wrong place, but with a strongly martial ethos of its own. And, of course, the Germans, and not least, the Nazis, were pretty hot on gliding.  On a more recent and personal note, my only claim to a bit of hands on flying has been in the RAF's Grob Vigilant. It is a powered glider and takes off under its own steam (as it were). It feels somewhat odd (until one gets used to it) when the whirly thing at the front of the aircraft is switched off and it suddenly plunges... 

2 comments:

  1. I presume this is pure modelling project. Or is there a game use for this particular piece of kit.

    Good to see Sapper there to the side - I haven't read the article, but I just finished Bulldog Drummond again a few weeks ago.

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  2. Yes, my Lord Kinch; though I wouldn't say 'pure' modelling... Quite the opposite!

    I must say, I've always struggled with the Bulldog Drummond books, they are creepily sadistic I find. Yet McNeile was more three dimensional than that - he was the first person (as far as I can tell) that wrote about shell shock, for example. I think I'll stick to Biggles - just straightforwardly violent, in a healthy 'biff 'em' way.

    I trust you are feeling better, and that you celebrated Easter well, as a good Christian fellow.

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