“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.
The original Airfix Starfighter revisited
The two aircraft on the box artwork look moderately dramatic against the dark “edge of space” style sky. Challenging the elements, as no actual combat was ever involved for a CF-104. The right stuff and all that.
Once you open the box, the kit is fairly straightforward. The brief introduction doesn’t mention how challenging the European low-level environment was for the Starfighter and its pilots…
There are not many parts and it’s fairly simple to put together. It was moulded in silver coloured plastic, which was convenient at that stage in my modelling journey. Someone in a hurry could leave the natural metal areas of the model unpainted, and just paint the wings white.
Which is what my cousin Robert did. With a bit of added artistic licence – he painted the business end of each Sidewinder red. The black anti-dazzle panel would have required careful masking or a remarkably steady hand.
Then it was just apply the decals and game on.
I was most impressed.
The finished model looks quite colourful if done properly, although the ‘suggested colour scheme’ doesn’t do the original aircraft justice. The real thing had, on some occasions at least, a lot of DayGlo orange and/or a red tailplane. The radome should be pale grey rather than silver – if a radome isn’t dielectric, very bad, very expensive things happen.
In 1:1 scale, the original RCAF subject of the Airfix kit 12703 can be seen fully restored in 1966 markings at the Canadian Starfighter Museum, Winnipeg.
So as well as motorcycles (which my mum hated, dangerous or something), my cousin Robert sparked an interest in model aeroplanes. Which break easily and gather dust, so they weren’t popular either.