RPS-Modified Rigby Spitfire

[PacificWind]

Nice vintage Spitfire, Don.
Although it looks pretty simple, there's something charming in this model.

[JohnO]

Don,
Nice to see the reference to Wallace Rigby. We perhaps have had a similar introduction to paper modeling.My mother bought me a book of WWII Paper Airplanes sometime during the War '44 or '45 when I was 5 or 6. They were die cut and had illustrations on how to build (I couldn't read much then anyway) but I did struggle with them. Remember using toothpicks to strengthen or reinforce them and also stuffing tissue paper in the wings and fuselage. These were my first models and I never forgot his name. I also built the Train and Submarines from later books in my early teens.
I was able to get a digital reprint book of the Aircraft about 15 years ago but believe it is no longer available. Ray Roberts with the Paper Airplane Museum in Maui once told me he had an original but I never got to see it.

John O

[Don Boose]

Many thanks for all these kind and encouraging comments!

Special thanks to Don for all those great Rigby upgrades and especially for this special Spitfire. I’ve had the great pleasure of sitting next to Don at paper modelling events and talking with him as we worked on paper models. It was on one of those occasions that Miles Linnaberry noticed my vision problem. I was trying to build the FG Dustoff Huey for my Vietnam 50 collection and couldn’t get the tail boom to come out right. Miles gave it a dekko and said, “Don, you’re supposed to score ON the line, not a half millimeter to the left of it.”

Ray – And that’s why I have yet to complete the 90th TFS Hun that you so kindly sent me a year ago. I have a box of failed fuselages and wings. Some day . . .

It was great to hear from Joe, Kevin, Doug (Go Cubs!), DWest, wireandpaper, and Vinalssergio155.

Always good to hear from you, Kacper. I’ve learned a lot about Pacific War aviation history since you began focusing on that era.

John – Sounds like you and I had similar experiences, being about the same age. However, you seem to have been ahead of me in terms of actually building models. I think I have a CD somewhere that I got from Chip Fyn that included a lot of Rigby models, including ships and automobiles. Now, if I can only find it!

Younger son, Don3, daughter-in-law Judy, and the two adult grandsons are here now, so I probably won’t get any model building for a week or so, but then I will dig into the other RPS-upgraded Rigbys, including a pre-war yellow-wing Vought Corsair! (Some more nostalgia. During the war, while my Dad was in the Pacific, my mother and I lived in a duplex in Pittsburgh. The wife of a test pilot, Bob Jacox, lived on the first floor. I don’t know if he was a Navy or civilian test pilot, or where he flew from, but one day he flew low over our house and wagged the wings of his Vought Corsair – the first airplane I could actually identify. He also gave me a stack of Air Trails magazines that disappeared in our post-war move to Baltimore. Made a big impression on me and began my love affair with airplanes and aviation history.)

Don

[Wyvern]

Great build, Colonel!

Wyvern