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Down the rabbit hole – Dornier Do217 references

Dornier Do217 Famous Airplanes of the World 145

Once again, apparently simple questions turn out not to have simple answers. Like just about everything else these days, Dornier Do217 references have a few gaps and a fair amount of ambiguous information. In various languages, including German and Japanese.

Looking for a few pictures of the real aircraft modelled by Airfix and a few odd bits of information about the Do217E turned into a real rabbit hole. I now have a small but growing collection of Do217 books, each with its own distinct pieces of the (incomplete) puzzle.

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The Veron Tru-Flite Seamew – just what I didn’t want

Veron Tru-Flite Seamew

Life is simpler and easier when you’re a child, in the sense that grownups make a lot of your choices for you. You are free from the burden of responsibility and decision making. But of course there’s a downside: you may not like the decisions someone else makes on your behalf. Like when some relative thought that a Veron Tru-Flite Seamew kit was a great gift.

According to family legend, my sister really did once say to a grown-up, “That’s just what I didn’t want” about some present or other. I was more diplomatic, or perhaps baffled by this box of wooden bits – nothing like any kit I’d ever seen before.

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Air travel pre-Ryanair – the Airfix MiG-15 in Polish markings

MiG-15bis in Polish markings

Obviously, model aeroplanes teach you stuff about aviation history – they tend to be models of old aeroplanes, after all. From its original 1958 release to the final 2008 incarnation, one option was to finish your Airfix MiG-15 in Polish markings. Presumably the model was supposed to look something like a real life aeroplane, but which one? Not a real issue for my original 2/- Airfix MiG-15, but over time I got curious (or so people told me).

What started as a 2 minute search on Google developed into yet another rabbit hole…

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What do instructions really tell us?

what instructions really tell us

Instructions are supposed to literally tell us what to do. In the UK (possibly just England, it’s hard to keep up) we were recently told that instructions are even stronger than guidance. At the very least, you expect them to be sort of helpful in some way. However, we often find that instructions tell us more about the people who wrote them than about the task at hand.

You hope that instructions will help you with some sort of difficult or confusing task. Someone has gone to the trouble of writing them out, or drawing a diagram. They have been written by experts, who you believe are trying to help you – hopefully the experts believe that too. But the only time you seem to get unambiguous instructions is when the task is so obvious you don’t need them. So instructions often turn out to be either unhelpful or unnecessary – you start out with high expectations and they let you down.

I found out about unhelpful instructions from model aeroplane kits, and then they kept turning up in adult life: car maintenance manuals, Swedish self assembly furniture, anything remotely related to software etc. And let’s not forget instructions from the government, which can be about important stuff like how to stay alive.

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Janes All The World’s Aircraft – a childhood ambition finally achieved

Janes all the worlds aircraft 65_66

As a small boy, I had several copies of the Observer’s Book of Aircraft. But what I really, really wanted was Janes All the World’s Aircraft, aka JAWA. (Not to be confused with the Czech motorcycles of the same name). Can’t recall how I learned about this magical book detailing every current aircraft in the world, but my vague sense of wonder still persists.

Along with memories of going into the charming old fashioned bookshop in Enfield Town. And a numbing sense of shock when a nice man told us the astronomical cost. The original price in 1965 was £8 8s 0d – more than £160 in today’s money. That was a lot of pocket money and was just never going to happen. All very disappointing.

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Airfix MiG-15 – a shining example of what model aeroplanes can teach us

mig-15 a shining example

The Airfix MiG-15 is a shining example in the literal sense – the finished model is a nice shiny silver colour. The actual aircraft was natural metal and in the good old days, that meant gloss silver paint. Whereas the process of building this kit could be a bit of a dull experience.

Not a bad example to start with, it’s where I started in my youth. Although that may not be a good reason to start there now. After all, the whole point was supposed to be about learning from these experiences.

Anyway, the Airfix MiG-15 offers us insights into life, evolution and other stuff too. “Evolution” doesn’t mean we’re getting into Charles Darwin territory, so please don’t be alarmed. Any actual biology lessons are elsewhere, but they might get a mention.

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Noel Edmonds versus the Wild Weasel

Not some sort of grisly fight between man and beast, because it wasn’t that sort of weasel. In fact, Noel Edmonds wasn’t involved in the actual weasel wrangling. It’s an example of when old doesn’t necessarily mean rare – the Wild Weasel was rare because it was new. To the point of not being available.

And when it finally did become available to non-celebrities, the real thing was a disappointment.

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