P is for Pull-back Powered Plastic Propeller 'Plane!

Hereafter and henceforth otherwise known as 'My little gay spitplane'

I never did a tag for all these pull-back / push-and-go / flywheel / reverse-spring / self-winding / friction / kinetic motor-equipped toys and it's too late to start one really (there is a tag for wind-ups; 'clockwork'), but there are lots of toys out there with one of several different mechanisms not requiring batteries or a power-lead, and this is one of the newer smaller, yea-verily; even 'itty-bitty' units.

Another Charity shop purchase from the last two weeks, as I have to walk through town every day for Internet at the moment, I tend to do them all a couple of times a week and it's a bit like a car-boot sale where everything is new or clean . . . or both!

This is by Kandy Toys - that West Country lot who have started to feature quite often here at Small Scale World, being another importer of rack-toy generics, novelty toys and 'beach-wear'.

Given that it was probably only a pound, it's quite good really . . . a quick look and you think "A cut-above the usual rack-toy crud", but actually you then realise there is no underside to the wings and under the decoration is a pretty crude moulding.

The attached card insert suggests something vaguely equating to a . . . Hurristang? Pukaracane? Heh-heh! Your guess is as good as mine; and there's what look to be shots of something else on the reverse of the backing-card, looking  a little more like a Hurricane, so there was probably a selection, like the old balsawood, ramin or styro-foam gliders (which are timeless and still found everywhere - one day we'll look at them too!)

However; once you put it together it doesn't look to shabby, definitely carries the lines of a Spitfire well and provided you look down on it from above, you can't see the daft undercarriage or lack of reverse-wing detail. The nose is a bit Mustang and - while I'm no expert - the five-blade propeller is a late war thing, by which time the distinctive pointed, wing-tips had been clipped flat - I think?

I also wonder - if you filled the hollow-underside with card and a little expanding foam, or some sanded-down expanded polystyrene sheet, could you get it to glide . . . with a catapult; I think you might?

The daft thing is someone, somewhere in the Far East went to some effort to ensure the two wing roundel stickers lined-up with the camouflage stencil, only for the person applying them to put them back-to-front on the opposite wings! Speaking of the wing-roundels, they are none-too-accurate either.

But, for, say; garden war-gamers, a box of these would be a cheap way of getting a couple of squadrons airborne, and they are robust enough to take the sort of punishment they might face on the vicar's lawn! The screwdriver did its job admirably, driving the single screw home into the soft ethylene, but I then tried using it to unscrew a die-cast SPG and shredded the soft mild-steel tip, so it's in the recycling bin for Friday with the two blister-trays!

G for Gay, my little spitplane!

Then a couple of few days latter this was spotted in another charity shop for the princely sum of 50p, well; it would be rude not to!

Still in the catalogue as CS90620 Hawker Hurricane, carrying fuselage-code UP ● A and part of the S [for] Showcase line "For the younger collector" (they've got me pegged, clearly!), it's what Corgi euphemistically refer to as FTB size, that is 'Fit The Box'! In this case it equates to about 1:100.

However mine is to a higher standard than the standard S range example and is actually from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Collection boxed set (CC99399), a third version is available in the BoB Fighter Collection (CS90691) with fuselage-code A ● LK with a Spitfire and Messerschmitt, and I'm sure other variations have been issued!

I bet A) it's more than 50p in the high street (although probably not much more!) and B) with no paint-chips; mine's a minter!