Hay all
I don't know if anyone saw this on BBC2 last night? it is a new show hosted by james may of top gear fame about toys from his youth and th first episode was all about airfix kit. he involed a clas of 13 year olds in building airfix kits with the end result being a project to build a 1/1 scale spitfire kit.

[url=[/url] http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nnm3d/James_Mays_Toy_Stories_Airfix/

hi,yeah i watched it,pretty good viewing.

I saw it pretty good but very indulgent on his part. He never mentioned any other company than Airfix. My main memory of Airfix kits is intense frustration at ill fitting parts. If you want to recreate the 70s then thats fine but not if you want to get kids interested in modelling. My daughter (7) watched it with me and I promised to buy her a model to practice on - not Airfix though

Unfortunately we Yanks get this message:
"Currently BBC iPlayer TV programmes are available to play in the UK only"

I guess we'll have to wait for the pirates to post them on U-tube.

It is on you tube now i just tried it if you search for james mays toy stories it should be there?

Thank you.

hi i agree with pat in the most part ,that he did only mention airfix and that the kits could be frustrating .however in defence of james if he was like me we had very little money when i was a kid and the only kits i could afford were airfix ones.the tamiya ones i seem to remember were a lot more expensive,having said that my memory is like the rest of me not what it was.still generally speaking i thought it was great that any programme which encouraged kids into modelling ought to be praised.

Hi folks

I have very fond memories of building many airfix and matchbox kits at the earliest stages of my modelling career. To my mind, there was never very much between the level of detail or fit of parts between these makers.

The interesting thing that I think some might forget is that as basic kits, the end product was only as good as the skill level you had anyway. Better modellers would make stunning models from these so called basic and ill fitting kits.

If providing these basic, cheeper kits, with none of the high end detailing frets of resin, white and PE parts that need microscopes and robot assisted build technology to put the kit together, and a second mortgage to buy, gets kids starting off on the hobby, then I for one say,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Good On Ya James May for only mentioning Airfix!!!!!!!!!!!

I have loads of Airfix kits I still have to build for the first and also umteanth time.

LONG LIVE AIRFIX

Nige

fantastic programme and spot on , when i first started modelling it was on airfix bagged red stripe kits
the only real sway away from airfix was frog or matchbox , but 99.9 % of us the same age as james may our first kit was airfix
in the sixties there was very little sellection or serious competition from other companies , frog ironicaly was owned by triang ( now hornby ) so although frog was a main rival it was never going to be a main contender as their primary business was model railways

tamiya was baught by or for older modellers as mentioned it was quite pricey but well detailed if you were realy lucky at christmass like me once
you got a 1/35 tamiya tank i got the tamiya tiger 1 and a stug once

sure there were others like revell , frog , etc etc but at that time airfix was a major uk brand at a time after the war where folks were still very patriotic

i had a friend ( died recently ) that was in a japanese p.o.w. camp and he would not have anything japanese in his house he never made his peace and went to the grave like that

so the only real home products were frog and airfix as a lot back then would not entertain japanese or german .... fact

the thing was with airfix you learned to model , as their marketing is spot on they have to tread a fine line between what is easyish for a begginer and ok for an accomplished modeller

they never prettend to be the full blown dogs bo**ocks , but to be fair even at their worst 1/48 tornado f3 they are far from unusable for an accomplished modeller

at the end of the day you have to remember who kits are aimed at most manufacturers aim at profficent modellers airfix do a superb job by aiming at begginers and accomplished at the same time !!!