Cetacean of the day

Unlike a narwhal, it didn't have a kick-ass facial horn and it wasn't technically a real cetacean, but on the plus side, the "Walfisch" (whale), as the LFG Roland CII was known, could fly and I'm featuring a pic because it just looked way cool.

As a schoolboy with a moderate Airfix habit, I remember noticing that during the World War One, the Huns got to fly some of the coolest planes. Biggles' Sopwith Camel was OK, but some of the sleekest, cleanest and coolest-looking planes sported a black cross, not a cockade: the Taube, which looked like something out of a story by Jules Verne, or H G Wells, the shark-like Alabtros, the Fokker Triplane, the Fokker DVII, all seemed aesthetically a cut above the workmanlike British designs. Even the colour schemes looked more exciting - ace German pilots like the Red Baron were allowed to have their machines painted in outrageously bright colour schemes. Even the standard-issue paint jobs applied to German planes were more attractive than the almost ubiquitous dull khaki applied to the British ones. This clip from a recent CGI-heavy German film about the Red Baron gives a flavour of what I'm talking about.

The contrast was brought home to me one day in Wooolworths, where I saw one of the Airfix two-aeroplane kits marketed as "dogfight doubles", featuring a Roland "Walfisch" and a British RE8. The RE8 on the box lid was boxy, angular and ugly with a wonky, squared-off nose, interplane struts and exhaust pipes sticking out all over the place at awkward angles, all held together with a spiders' web of rigging wires. A very British, inelegant, serviceable bodge. The Walfisch, though, was a thing of beauty, smooth, rakish and purposeful. You can judge for yourself, as I've found a picture of the old Airfix box art here (the picture's not very big, but you get the idea). I think I spent my pocket money on something else that day, so never bagged my own Walfisch; shortly thereafter I discovered science fiction and shortly after that, girls, so there was an end to my Airfix kittery - or al least a pause. The Walfisch isn't in Airfix's current range, but if they ever re-issue that kit, my son may find one suspended from his bedroom ceiling, whether he likes it or not. James May has a lot to answer for.