MAC Forum

Has anyone seen any of these ? yes during World War 1 aircraft recognition models existed,but in what form ? these have got to be rare as hens teeth,were they silhouette or full form models,and what materials ? if anyone has a picture or two tat would be a real bonus.
Barry.

Barry, I too have asked the same question, the only thing that was used that I have found was printed illustrations. Never heard of models being used in a formal way with a government purchasing program.

BTW I also wondered if there were any helicopter ID Models used. The German Hansa sets in 1/200 had some. The Australian ID program had at least one H-19 in 1/72. I don't know of any others.

grwebster wrote:BTW I also wondered if there were any helicopter ID Models used. The German Hansa sets in 1/200 had some. The Australian ID program had at least one H-19 in 1/72. I don't know of any others.

The West German ID set from the late '80s has two helicopters made of resin in 1:60th scale: Mi-8 and Mi-24


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Darn, Chris, I have that set and totally forgot it has those helicopters in side.
Actually I have two sets so if any one wants to buy one pm me.

I agree with GR on WWI models. In all my research, I have only seen reference to photos and illustrations. If models were produced, who would have made them and out of what material. If mass produced, they likely would have been made by a company or government organization. I have never seen any reference to any companies doing this. Possible that some trench art models were made, but they would, indeed, be as rare as hen's teeth.

If you scroll down to the Collect Air link at the bottom of this page and do the same thing once you get to that site, you will see some examples of WWI visual ID sketches. Sorry, there don't seem to be any models.

ID models of aircraft during WWI would have been very doubtful. They would almost certainly have to have been wooden and fragility alone would have precluded much distribution or field use. Some wooden models were used as instructional devices (eg, air combat maneuvering) but those would probably have been local productions. I recall photos of a couple in use. One dogfighting and one attacking a representation of a balloon. Those could have been taken much later, of course. Aircraft and tanks were real novelties during WWI.
The Great War models that are well documented are the admirable Admiralty ship models used as ID's and in sand table exercises. The water table was still underground at the time . Sorry!

Ron

There are a variety of World War I recognition training models of ships. Some were made by Bassett-Lowke in England, and some were made by Boucher in the US. There were probably other manufacturers, as well. However, I have never seen a plane model, probably because the biplanes of the era were too fragile to reproduce in a small, portable scale. Just my thoughts ...............
-- Bryan

I just bought a Bristol Sycamore id model - at least that's what the seller calls it!

That last helicopter ID is from the Hansa, West German ID boxed sets in 1/200 scale, some of the aircraft were metal, some hollow resin, and some similar to plaster. There were 4 sets.
There are several other helicopters in the sets, including a UH-1 Huey
here are some loose ones.