How my workshop turned into an aircraft factory

 or How a Walk Down Memory Lane Became an Obsession ....

.... and a source of new ideas.

Back in May my mind started to drift back to the summer of '72 when I was 12 and obsessed with buying and building FROG brand model airplane kits from the Painted Post Smoke Shop. I recall building an Intruder, Bronco, Mohawk, and maybe a Vampire, but that one might have been an Airfix kit.

Anyway, I looked around for those kits online and didn't find any, but I did find a Sabre jet from a seller in Saskatoon that looked simple and interesting, so I bought it.

Looks fast and deadly.

It appeared to be safely cocooned in its original shrink wrapping, but maybe the wool was being pulled over my eyes.

After stripping off the wrapping and getting a strong whiff of 1972 that caused flashbacks, I opened the box and all the parts still seemed sealed in their original plastic bag.

The decals, instructions, and even a note on how to request missing parts (!) were still in there, although the decals were well past their best before date.

The instructions included some handy 60s or 70s vintage model making tips.

After opening the box and breathing in all that 70s goodness I then promptly put the kit aside while I worked on the Tintin 2001 launch + control building shell!

The Sabre jet and Repair Shop wait patiently for work to stop on the lunar launch + control building.

I picked up the Sabre jet kit again during a lull in the Tintin 2001 launch + control building work and spent some spare time assembling it. I didn't do anything fancy, sophisticated, or prototypical. I just built it box-stock with a neutral gray finish as if it were some factory test model, which I guess it was :-)

Parked high atop the Canadian Press complex !

I'm not going to explain how I built it as it was just a nostalgia project, and expert model airplane builders would be horrified. 

Ready for take off from a wooden landing strip in the backyard :-)

But, it was fun to just build it. So much fun that I looked for simple 1/72 scale model airplane kits at hobby stores and online sellers in hope of replicating that fun with some other project.

One of the ultimately 3 (!) Revell Twin Otter kits I bought.

When I visit my local hobby shop I like to wander through the entire store, not just the model railway section, to see what's what. On the airplane kit shelves I saw that Revell Twin Otter kit. For some reason it struck my fancy and I bought it. I didn't read any internet reviews, or watch YouTube videos, I just went with my gut :-)

I cut out the cockpit doors so I could make a dockside scene with open doors.

Rummaging around in the box I found out it could be built with either wheels, snow skis, or floats. I thought: yeah, floats! That word 'floats' triggered all sorts of thoughts about wilderness model railway layouts French, fictional, micro and MCM-7, float planes, forest fires, railway-based forest fire fighting equipment like CN's Poseidon train, and water bombers*. Carried away on waves of new ideas I merrily dove into building a Twin Otter float plane.

The box art leaves no doubt about what this airplane was meant to do.

I worked on the Twin Otter and kept searching for FROG kits I had built way back when. I found an online seller in Lindsay, Ontario, who had both a FROG Bronco and a Pioneer2 brand Beech C-45 Expeditor (I'll get to that one), so out came my credit card again.

Primer drying on the Bronco.
All the weapons attachments have been stripped off for conversion to a float plane.

As I looked over the Bronco's parts and started in on the build I thought that with the high wing and high engines it could be converted into a float plane. It turns out the manufacturer had this idea too and built a prototype, or maybe just a mockup, that never flew. I thought, ok, and now I'm in the process of building a bronco on floats, with those floats kitbashed from a pair included in a Revell Twin Otter kit. An extra bonus to my overall thinking is that the Bronco is used by Cal Fire in California as a command and control aircraft; not on floats, but in a fire fighting role.

Wings are drying on the second Twin Otter

So right now I have several airplane projects on the go as I'm just doing whatever feels like fun to do. I bought a second Twin Otter kit because I thought just having one example on a layout / diorama would be odd. I'm currently getting ready to add its floats. I've also got two Beechcraft Expeditor C-45s waiting for me to get started on them. 

An old RCAF Beechcraft Expeditor readies for takeoff at the 2025 Gatineau airshow.

I saw an old RCAF Expeditor at the Gatineau airshow last year and was immediately entranced. It turns out after WWII many of these airplanes became bush planes and had floats installed.

As well as the Pioneer2 version of the C-45 I bought a Hobby Craft one from that seller in Saskatoon. One or both will be equipped with floats.

So, right now I'm just following a passion and enjoying the ride. Whether the destination is a layout, diorama, or nothing I'm not too concerned about that right now. 

Well, I'm near the end of this ramble and need to turn off the workshop lights for the evening. With all this talk of Saskatoon there's always one thing that comes to mind, so I'll leave you with this video favourite I've posted once before**:

Digressions:

* What about scale mismatches you might be asking? Yeah, the airplanes are in 1/72 and the railway stuff would be in 1/87. It might not sound like a big difference, but it is. I give scale serious thought as you know, and I plan to talk more about it in future posts if a layout starts to emerge from all this noodling.

**Yes, I did see The Guess Who this summer in Ottawa. And yes, age is catching up with Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman, but they can still play with a vengeance and put on a great show. LeBreton Flats was packed cheek-to-jowl with fans old and young. The Sheepdogs opened for them, so it was a fantastic event for Ottawa's 200th anniversary celebrations.