I was struck by an epiphany the other day. Not hard enough to do any damage, but the experience did leave me with a strong sense that something was amiss in the world of toys. Yes, this concerned me. It still does.
My quest was a simple one — or at least it should have been. In search of a visual aid to use in a video I was doing about flying taildraggers, I popped out to a local big box store that’s owned by a massive international chain. My intent was to pick up a toy airplane. That’s all. It would take 10 minutes I thought. I’d be in, out, and on my way in no time.
How hard could it be to find and buy a toy airplane after all?
When I was a kid, I treasured what I can only imagine was one of the first true aerospace-related toys. It was a plastic Mercury capsule, complete with astronaut and parachute. I, along with my best friend and neighbor Mike, spent many a happy hour throwing that capsule as high into the air as we could. We’d then scramble to recover it, repack the flimsy red and white plastic parachute, then launch it skyward again.
What could be more fun than that?
Truthfully, there were lots of aeronautical toys around my house when I was a kid. And I wasn’t the only one who got a kick out of them.
About half a mile north of my house, on a side street, my friend Jim went to sleep every night with a virtual squadron of aviation’s finest accomplishments hanging over his adorable little blonde head. Model airplanes of every size, scale, and type floated magically just below his bedroom ceiling. They were held in place by a thin strand of fishing line secured to the plaster by a tack. As often as he could he’d build another model, then hang it up to admire as he drifted off to sleep.
Oh, but that wasn’t the half of it.
To this day my mother cherishes a photo album filled with family pictures from the days of my youth. Inside that proud collection there is a picture of my 4-year-old brother, grinning from ear to ear as he holds a large scale Revell model of a fighter jet. What is particularly endearing to my mom about this photo is the irony of my brother’s obvious joy, coupled with the fact that he is holding the airplane upside down. Not on purpose, either. He wasn’t mimicking inverted flight. He was just out of his mind excited about the new toy he’d gotten and literally couldn’t tell up from down for a minute or two.
We all loved airplanes and spacecraft when I was a kid. I assumed that was still the case. But the big box store opened my eyes even as its buyers crushed my heart.
I walked through aisle after aisle, scanning the shelves like a hawk, flanked by toys of every conceivable shape, size, and color on either side of me. Yet, to my amazement, there wasn’t a single airplane to be had. Not one. Not a Cessna or Piper. Not a Boeing or Airbus. Not only was there no reasonably accurate replica of an actual flying machine there wasn’t even a futuristic envisioning of what aircraft of the 22nd or 23rd Century might look like.
The shelves were bereft of aeronautical imaginings. How could this be?
Certainly, there must still be companies that make model airplanes. There must be at least some demand for toy airplanes.
Am I to believe that little boys and girls no longer daydream of adventure while imagining the excitement of being a jet fighter pilot screaming along at top speed, or of steering a crop duster over the fields just outside of town, or of touching down on a sandbar on some isolated river at the controls of their trusty backcountry flier in a frantic search for lost Inca gold?
That just can’t be. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.
It may seem like small potatoes to some of us, but if you remember back to your younger years, it was often toys that guided us to our ultimate destiny. For example, my brother eventually tired of the fighter jet and became infatuated with the stethoscope Santa brought a few years later. He’s a veterinarian now. There very well may be a connection there.
And me? Well, I became a pilot and a full-blown aviation nut. At least in part because of that plastic Mercury capsule with the little plastic astronaut and the flimsy plastic parachute (plastics really were a huge thing in the 1960s). But as memorable as that toy was, that’s not really where it all started for me.
The first toy airplane that affected my life is one I never even saw. It was on a shelf at Mrs. Alison’s house in Daytona Beach, Florida. This was back in 1942. A pot metal P-40 that a little boy played with as his mother passed the time playing cards with her neighbor, Mrs. Alison, during the hot summer afternoons.
The little boy played with that toy so much and so hard he eventually broke it. Which is a shame because Mrs. Alison’s P-40 was a gift from her son, John. A decorated fighter pilot who flew Warhawks in China, a replacement pilot for the venerable Flying Tigers, John Alison’s photo hangs in the lobby of the Spartanburg, South Carolina FBO today. He was kind of a big deal.
John and the little boy never met. Not in person anyway. John Alison’s signature hangs today in the grown-up boy’s house, however. It is on a certificate from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, recognizing a world record the boy, then a man, set while flying around the world over the poles in a Pan American Boeing 747SP.
The boy also grew up to become my father, Captain Stewart W. Beckett Jr.
The toys had a lot to do with getting me into this business, no doubt. Maybe my dad played a role, too. But truthfully, I never threw him up in the air just to watch him float back down again. So maybe it was a bit of both, but how much of which, we’ll never know.
Either way, I sure do wish I’d have found even one airplane model or toy on those store shelves.
This article is right on! My son recently passed his certification to become a flight instructor and I wanted a small model plane simply as a cake topper. Walked up down many aisles of the toy section. Not one plane to be found in the midst of toy cars in all shapes and sizes. It was because of a model F-15 fighter jet, I gave him at the age of 5 that Jonathan began his life long dream to become a pilot. Even though his eyes are on passenger planes, his love for flying began with a toy model plane . Where are all the toy planes now, if not in the toy section of toys??
Wow!!!
Great article Mr. Beckett. It is so true our children don’t get the toys that spark the imagination through playing. My love of flight and all that is connected to aviation was inspired by two factors. First was where I lived, the South Bronx, New York City. I was on the top floor of a five story walk-up. The building location was on the final approach for LaGuardia airport. The great propeller aircraft of the 1950s and 60s leading into the Jet age were an inspiration for me. I then found the world of plastic model and toy planes of all sizes. These also inspired my hopes and dreams of what I wanted to be a pilot.
The pilot end did not come along because of various reasons, but I got to teach about that wonderful world of flight as a teacher at the High School level and though NASA’s educational programs. I can’t say how many young people I actually influenced to enter the world of aviation,but I know I did. Today my grandchildren know all about airplanes and space. So I’m still trying to spread the word. I also search high and low for those toys that my grand-kids can inspire their imagination to some day fly.Real touch and feel toys are important to the development of our future.
Jamie, thanks for the memories! I am like WK said now the old guy at 76. But recall many blissful and happy memories of as Budd said “firebabies and .35 foxes”, and Bob’s comment about Cox .049’s brought back sounds, smells and more memories! And like Jamie my bedroom ceiling was full of plastic-built airplanes! Like Jamie I needed a small model airplane like a Cessna 172 to carry in my flight bag to demonstrate flight maneuvers to my six CAP cadet flight students. But like Jamie, none were found and any of the retail toy outlets? Where did they go and why? Like David said “no toys – no imagination”. The only place I could find a suitable durable small scale model of the Cessna 172 was at Sporty’s Pilot shop onlin. A great little all metal scale model of the Cessna 172, nice paint, and details, but shocked at the price of $49.00! So, they do exist, but can we afford them? Great article Jamie and loved all of the comments too!
Chuck Stone, CFI
Retired AA Captain
This is why local hobby stores are so important and I’m lucky enough to still have one in my town. They sell lots of airplanes, rockets, trains and cars, static models and RC models as well, and still run an in-store slot car track like back in the day. Support your local hobby store whenever possible!
Where would all we long-time pilots be if it weren’t for model airplanes? In my case it was .049s in Walker Firebabies and onto dozens of .35 Foxes and such in control-line stunt birds. All of which I still have and wish I had an area where I could fly them.
Agreed – Where there are no toys – there is no imagination! Of course you could have done it on Amazon or equal – but…A kid doesn’t search for that – he/she goes through the toy aisles – or at least used to – and might encounter a model plane. Usually not…
As for John Alison – I met him several times – quite a guy!
I always loved plastic model airplanes… selecting buying, building, displaying/playing destroying… and repeat.
For Christmas 1962 I asked only for model airplanes… and got ~15… stacked-they were 3/2’s my height, at that time. I remember a few… [straight-back] C-182, 707 or DC-8?, F-106, F-105, C-47, T-33, T-38, P-51, P-47, P-39, P-38… and a butt-ugly T-37 [how could the Air Force buy such a thing to replace the T-33!?]… OH yeah… and some balsa/paper rubber-band flyers.
In the late 1960s and thru the 1970s I heled dad build his Thorp T-18 and went to college for Aero engineering and on for a short stint in the Army.
In the 1980s I went to work for USAF civil service… At Kelly AFB… and in short order I became lead engineer for a succession of USAF O/T/A models… T-41, O-2A, OV-10… supported the T-38 and the F-106 when called-on. Then I was defaulted* to the T-37 and A-37 lead… and quickly understood the elegantly simplistic engineering of these tough-but-ugly LITTLE jets! [* the elderly lead-engineer passed-away suddenly and I was shoved to the head of the line].DANG that was a hectic/fun learning-time
And it all started, really, when I worked my way thru that stack of ‘Christmas’ models… then playing with them… that set my future in-motion… I didn’t just want to fly airplanes… I wanted to immerse myself in them… and so-I-have to this very day!
I am now the old guy ‘I used-to go-to’ for advice/assistance/insight’.
The 6000 lb dog whistle T-37 didn’t replace the T-33, the T-33 was replaced by the T-38. I know a number of Air Force pilots that flew their first jet aircraft in pilot training in the T-37 and then completed the advance portion in the T-33.
I spent 3 1/2 years instructing in the T-37. Everyone was excited to transition to the T-38 after 5 months, but when you ask them which aircraft was more fun to fly, they loved the acro in the T-37 (maybe not the spin).
We imagined becoming pilots, and we did. Now with virtual reality and drones, there’s no room left for imagination. Whether or not this is in an epiphany, after watching my grandchildren play video games, I’ve realized they will never be pilots.
I wouldn’t be so sure. I grew up playing video games, and there was a Star Wars fighter game that I’d say contributed as much as anything else to my desire to fly planes. Not everyone’s inspiration comes from the same place.
You’re are, in my point of view, completely right, Mr. Steve.
When I was a kid, it was the Cox .049 powered control line airplanes. They had Cessna, Piper, and all kinds of WWII warbirds. They were a blast to fly and I still have a few scars from “hand propping accidents”.
Same here. My first CL model was the PT-19. But I think I spent as much time flipping the prop to try to start the .049 as I did flying the plane.
And a few scars on my fingers to prove it. LOL!
This article is right on! My son recently passed his Certification to become a flight instructor and I wanted a small model plane simple as a cake topper. Walked up down many aisles of the toy section. Not one plane to be found in the midst of toy cars in all shapes and sizes. It was because of a model F-15 fighter plane, I gave him at THR age of 5 Jonathan began his dream to be a pilot. Even though his live is for passenger planes it still began with a toy model plane . Where are all the toy planes now. If not in the toy section of toys??