Was your first WIF a Wif

[Dork the kit slayer]

During the Telford "do" on Sunday,the assembled gathering got into short discussion about when we
first started Wifing,the the question arose "was it a true wif various parts from different kits or an accidental wif ie :you read the instructions wrong or painted the model
in some deranged scheme etc.
I think mine was in the later category ( a Wellington in silver,arctic red and ww2 German crosses......................I know, I know but lets not go there )
One bagpipe busking haggis waffler  and all round Wiffing good egg (  Jim, who prefers to remain anonymous ) remembers doing a" true" WIF  back in the days
when the Scots painted their faces blue (1960s ) when he was still at school.

What about you guys? When did you do your first "true Wif" and how did your first accidental come about.....................Come on dish the dirt.


ps. anyone still got theirs?

[AeroplaneDriver]

The first thing I recall as a whif, was an intentional one...it would have been around 1982, when I was 11 or 12....Airfix/MPC F-15 painted solid white, with RAF markings.

[Army of One]

When I was younger....lots younger.....I used to read Warlord comic's.......a distant memory now.......I seem to remember a story with a small band of chaps and some WW1/WW2 aircraft doing battle against a modern airforce....no....not getting confused with Iron Eagle...so I got my own airforce....all matchbox 1/72...2xF9 panthers,an F4u and an F6 (sure it was m'box) all painted black.....with a skull and crossbones on the tails and some numbers on the nose...those the only markings....numbers from kits and skull n x bones hand painted.....oh....all aces aircraft as I flew them all and shot down many bad a/c....in my world...!!!

[JayBee]

One bagpipe busking haggis waffler  and all round Wiffing good egg (  Jim, who prefers to remain anonymous ) remembers doing a" true" WIF  back in the days
when the Scots painted their faces blue (1960s ) when he was still at school.

It used parts from an Airfix Swordfish (White plastic) and an Airfix Auster Antarctic (Yellow plastic) to give the Fleet Air Arm the monoplane, float equipped, enclosed canopy, torpedo bomber that they really needed. The colourscheme was, youve guessed it, white /yellow. I hadn't heard of paints then.

JimB

[philp]

I am sure most of my early builds could qualify as whiffs just by the colors used (Pactra Sky Blue was under pretty much everything and Testors has a lovely shade of bright green that I know ended up on at least one Bf-109). 

The first time I did something not by the kit was at age 15 when a friend and I got together one day and looked at the bits in our parts boxes.  Remember a small Pyro sailing vessel contributed an empty hull and a Revell 48th B-25B kit added the stabilizer across the hull for the wing.  The cockpit interior went on top of that and the nose .50 was mounted between the seats firing to the rear.  Think one of the tails was stuck down inside the hull and the bombs were split sideways so one half was glued to the hull on the Port side and the other to Starboard.  Can't remember if the silly thing got paint and decals or not.

My first true Whiff was planned (Israeli S92) from the start and not done until I was in my 40's.

[SPINNERS]

My first ever model was the 1/72 scale Frog Spitfire VA and I did the best I could but a short while later I tackled the magnificent Airfix Phantom - the one that can make an A, B, C, D, E and a J. I started out making a B but stuck the longer nose cone of the E on it (but without the undernose gun) and liked it so much that I kept in on. It looked awesome!

[lenny100]

my first wif was way back in 1980 when i turned a 1/48 scale f-15 over filled the wheel well and the cockpit with plaster and fitted a 1/72 scale starfighter front end on the nose, then painted it green with  poster paint as a thunderbird aircraft, the stuck in up on the roof were it stayed until i move out of my parents house in 1986

[The Wooksta!]

Mine was a Bf 109TL in the Yak 15 style, cobbled together from various Bf 109 bits in the spares box with an engine from a dead Me 262B.

But I'd been building various Luftwaffe 46 types before that - Revell boxed Lindberg He 100s and He 162s well before that.

[McColm]

My first whiff was the Airfix RA-5C, changing the recon bird into a fighter aircraft. Replacing the canoe fairing with a drop tank and adding air-to-air missiles on the four underwing pylons. The coluor scheme was battleship grey.  I painted over the rear cockpit, making this a single seater and added RAF decals.
This took pride of place in my bedroom until my mum decided to do the dusting. Hence the drop tank snapped off and the Airfix plastic stand added.

[ChrisF]

A 1:350 (I think) B-52G... Modified with bits from the bits box to include a concorde nose V tail and extra ordanace under the wings... Painted overall Matt Black.

Guessed it yet ? Yup Dale Browns "Old Dog"   

I was maybe 16ish... and im 31 now but yes i still have it on the top shelf in my modelling area...

[PR19_Kit]

I've mentioned my start in this business elsewhere, but it'll stand repeating.

I used to do reviews for Scale Models Magazine in the 70s and one that came my way was the Matchbox F-104. My take on it was that if I was building an F-104 I WOULDN'T start with that kit, but the management at SMM wouldn't go with that verdict (in those days you had to play up the advertisers, maybe they still do?) so I decided to spruce it up a bit, and produced the F-104K seen below. It carries Red Top missiles from a Lightning F6, it has a dorsal avionics pack from hald an over wing tank from the same Lightning, and a fin top ECM fairing from styrene strip. The IFR probe is also from the Lightning kit, but bent a little. 

Not only do I still have it, it's been seen on the SIG stands even as recently as this summer!

As for the first intentional Whiff, that would have been my in-line two seat Lightning F8, also seen below. That's not the one that gave it's all for the F-104K of course. The F8 has an extended nose, courtesy of the canibalised one, a Mirage IIID canopy, a taller fin with an ECM pod added, increased leading edge camber and larger under fuselage strakes, together with an updated missle fit of four Skyflashes. The radome is different too, but I can't remember where that came from, sorry.

I still have that one too. 

[puddingwrestler]

My first was the San Tortan Air Force CAC Thundercat MK.II, which you will find posted to this very forum.
Of course, I did an almost infinite amount of SF stuff before that.

[chrisonord]

My first wiff was done when I was about 8 years old or there abouts. I used to play soldiers against my friend from round the corner, and he started  his ww2 fighter planes against my tanks and soldiers, so I dug out a 1/72nd scale grumman wildcat that got "dusted" by my Mum, glued it back together wheels up, painted it in every camo colour paint I had all airfix enamels too, and proceeded to stick what ever real or imagined weaponry I had under the wings, some of with were cut down 1/48th scale sidewinders, cut in half and stuck on by their tail fins to the wings. These were highly effective anti tank cannons and made this little flying battle ship the scourge of my mates german army
Chris. 

[John Howling Mouse]

I never really followed the instructions for paint scheme and decals so I guess I was always Whiffing.  But the first purposeful Whif I made by putting together dissimilar bits was probably this F/A-6 Jalisco:









Or it might have been this XF-88 delta-winged version of an F-86, I can't remember which came first.





Both are 1:72.

[NARSES2]

As a kid modelling in the 50/60's most of my models were unintentional wifs. I used to stick every armament option possible on the aircraft (they would have had to walk to the target  ) and stick whichever of the transfers i liked on whichever finish I prefered.

My first intentional wif was an Airfix Fw 190 D-9 with a mustang prop and drop tanks, stretched sprue antenna and a light grey/ darker grey sqiggle camo as a nightfighter. I was probably 11 or 12

Chris