Brian Berke, roving reporter in NY, sent me these a month or so ago, and they got put on hold because of Rack Toy Month (and everything else he'd sent the blog), and the fact that I needed to play a bit of catch-up with the queue, but it's a fascinating thing, which nearly 'happened', and was performing well in tests, when it was pulled, purely due to advancements in Allied glider capacity/abilities.
The R. Malcom & Co's., M. L. 10/42 'Hafner' Rotachute-Rotabuggy, Flying Jeep, it's a Jeep . . . wot flu!
Basically Brian seems to have used a stiff paper or card, over a plastic frame, and when I was a modeller, I often used tissue paper for vehicle tilts/canopies - after a couple of coats of Humbrol they became quite robust, if you use a stiffer paper - a bit of Basildon Bond or something - you're laughing, it's as good as plastic sheet. Also, some people now wash the paper with super-glue to get even more plastic-like rigidity.
Strangely I have a memory of seeing this in the Airborne Forces Museum, at Browning Barracks in Aldershot as a kid, but if the only one (at Middle Wallop) is a 1980's mock-up, I must be imagining it, because I'm thinking of '71/72? There was a long series of cabinets along the window side of the museum as you entered, which contained models made by the modelling club of Depot Para', and it's likely there was a model of this there maybe? But I have a - presumably false - memory of one, out on the parade ground with the air-portable Land Rover on Hercules pallet, and the similarly bound Humber Hornet with Malkara missiles, which were parked near the main-road past the barracks.
Fiddler's Green, a name we've seen here before, also offer an all card model:
It looks more like a mini-moke, but it's a bit of fun. And, to be honest, their page (scroll down) is better than Wikipedia's for imagery and history! And it didn't fail, it wasn't unsuccessful, it was working, when it was pulled, because it was easier to land a jeep with its gun, from a glider, without a big hollow tail attached!
Funny how people get all excited about things like the German Maus, a monumental waste of time, money and material, while we were towing people down the runway in these! I hope all that window area was plexiglass, not real glass, you wouldn't want to fly hot into a war-zone with all that glass, 12-inches from your face?
Many thanks to Brian for the shots of this fascinating scratch-build.
