Lessons in life Archives - Everything I know about life I learned from model aeroplanes

February 6, 2022February 6, 2022

The sensational Aerocopter

The sensational Aerocopter claimed to be a flying toy, rather than any sort of model. Kind of like a drone from the days of black and white TV.

Arguably neither an aeroplane nor a helicopter, lift was allegedly provided by a novel oscillating/rotating wing arrangement. The operating concept involved a small child running along, towing the Aerocopter with a length of fishing line. It would then take off and “soar to 300 feet”. Presumably the child was supposed to remain on the ground.

If it really was “sensational”, those sensations were mostly frustration, disappointment and boredom. So in terms of preparation for adult life, it was a genuinely educational toy.

January 22, 2022January 26, 2022

Can’t help acting on impulse

We are constantly encouraged to buy stuff we don’t really want, ideally without thinking about it. The Airfix Red Stripe era was peak Mad Men and our young consumer was up against some serious marketing. But in those days, it wasn’t confronting us in every single waking moment.

A long-running perfume ad campaign went on about how men in particular “can’t help acting on impulse”, but the sensory cues coaxing us into impulse buying model aeroplanes were definitely visual. Overdramatic box art really came into its own – if an exotic aircraft wasn’t tempting enough on its own, all sorts of mayhem would be going on in the background.

January 9, 2022January 21, 2022

The weekend project fallacy

The idea of any model being a ‘weekend project’ in adult life really was the triumph of hope over experience. Deep down I knew what a realistic timescale looked like, but every so often reality got pushed into the back seat. Fortunately this never, ever happened on any real life aerospace projects I got involved with.

The weekend project fallacy teaches us about realism, delusion and project schedule slippage. Yet more of those pesky cognitive biases, it would seem. Daniel Kahnemann never mentioned Airfix kits in Thinking Fast and Slow but I have my suspicions.

October 28, 2021January 10, 2022

Adult life is complicated part 1: Life was a lot simpler as a child

We all discover at some point that adult life is complicated, and then it keeps getting more complicated, forever. Model aeroplanes hinted at the complexity of adult life even before I first heard Big Yellow Taxi. And if only I’d realised at the time, they had been showing me how much simpler my life was. But unfortunately this lesson only becomes clear in hindsight, once we run smack into the complications.

May 9, 2021January 10, 2022

It’s later than you think – 1: The fragility of model aeroplanes

As the song says, “enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think”. In other words, life is finite and time is short. And this doesn’t just apply to pets, and people with interesting obituaries.

Or as another song put it, “the future’s uncertain and the end is always near“. On that occasion Jim Morrison not only knew what he was talking about, he even managed to explain it coherently.

But what light can building model aeroplanes shine on our habitual denial of mortality? As it turns out, a few insights around fragility and stockpiling. Not stockpiling essentials in the face of existential threat or pointless political disruption, but something else entirely.

But let’s start with fragility, because it’s more intuitive – most of us have been told at some point, “Don’t touch that or you will break it”.

May 3, 2021January 10, 2022

Just So stories for modellers. 1: Why the model aeroplane sits on his tail

Dearly beloved, you may already know the story of why the model aeroplane sits on his tail. But just in case your memory isn’t what it used to be…

November 20, 2020September 20, 2024

The Renwal Visible Man

Although model aeroplanes don’t teach us much about biology, we get occasional insights and tenuous connections. The Renwal Visible Man is obviously not a model aeroplane, but it’s plastic, and it’s a model kit. It was intended to be educational – about human (internal) anatomy. But it actually teaches us more about unrealistic visions, frustration and disappointment. Which may be more useful.

November 2, 2020January 10, 2022

Cousin Robert and the Starfighter

“Cousin Robert and the Starfighter” has nothing to do with Robert Calvert – or any other member of Hawkwind. Nothing so complicated, because life was simpler when I was a child. And it was about ten years too early.

Before I actually got into building Airfix kits myself, my older cousin Robert built one for me. An Airfix Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, or to be precise, a CF-104G in RCAF markings.

At the time, I didn’t appreciate this valuable lesson, which illustrated how simple and straightforward my life was. Then again, I was only 6 years old and hadn’t done much work on personal growth. So I just marvelled at the appearance of this miniature futuristic aeroplane. Which still looks quite futuristic today – retrofuturistic, perhaps.

September 18, 2020September 20, 2024

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

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.

May 26, 2020January 10, 2022

What do 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.