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dale travis
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1/72 Airfix Wellington

April 11, 2023 · in Aviation · · 22 · 592

In the recent postings of the great kits here, I thought I'd share one of my presents of the past Christmas. Last October I was scanning EBAY and spotted a mint condition 1959 kit. I happened to mention to my wife how thrilled I was to see such a preserved example of this kit and told her it was the first Airfix kit I built at the ripe age of 10. It was quite an experience to me as I was used to Aurora WWI and WWII kits. This Airfix kit was a totally different animal. The number of parts had me wondering will I be able to get it built. I did get it built with a minimum of glue smudges, no paint of course, and it did quite a few bombing raids on imaginary German targets before it, as all back then did, end up broken. Well I didn't buy it as it was fairly expensive but low and behold it was one of my Christmas presents of 2022. I presently have it on display in my den/ modeling room. Will I ever build it? .At this point I'm not sure, but is sure is wonderful to see that fantastic box art and dream of when I was a kid.

Reader reactions:
10  Awesome

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22 responses

  1. What a gem, Dale! Thanks for sharing!

  2. Such an amazing Christmas gift, Dale @dtravis
    You must have been speechless when you opened up your gift.
    The boxarts we grew up with are still good looking these days.

  3. Great to see Dale - brings back memories!

  4. Wow! That's in amazing shape.

  5. To build or not to build that is the question of having a vintage kit. That how I felt about a Airfix SA-2 SAM kit That I was holding on too. I liked the way it looked in the box, I did eventually build it though.

  6. I remember this kit well, Dale. My brother’s birthday was at the beginning of December, and this kit was his birthday present. Boy, was I jealous. But guess what I got for Christmas a couple of weeks later - the Avro Lancaster, four engines, more turrets and guns than the Wellington, best Christmas ever.

    • This is a real coincidence. When I was 10 and went to the hobby store with my older brother both the Lancaster and Wellington kits were there and I really wanted the Lancaster for all the same reasons, bigger, more guns etc., but my brother grabbed the Lancaster kit before I could so I ended up with the Wellington.

  7. That box and the contents are immaculate , where has this been kept ? if it weren't for the slightly rusty staples and the little tube of glue I'd think it was some kind of re-pop it's in amazing condition, I'd build it because the older the kit is then the fresher were the mouldings , you could buy a newer kit for the decal sheet then put the newer kit and the old decals in the box for a nice shelf item. I'd love to see it built up , you're a lucky guy to get that for a present.

  8. That’s a really nice model. A great Christmas gift.

  9. Wow, nice catch! The box is in great shape too. Tough call on to have it built or not. In the past 5 years I have seen a couple built, one was on a You Tube video. They came out looking really nice.

  10. Yeah, I will never forget my first meeting with Airfix kits. Walked down the stairs to the basement of Anderson's Toy Store in the Cherry Creek Shopping Center in Denver in 1959, and there, at the bottom of the steps, was a big pegboard with all the bagged kits hanging on it. The airplanes I was reading about in William Green's books - all the same scale! Modeler heaven. This was on the shelves beside the pegboard.

    • I too had the William Green books. They were real eye openers to a world of aircraft I never knew existed. First time I saw the revolving wire rack holding all the Airfix bagged kits I indeed was in modeling heaven!

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