Airliner Models

For most of the past century, beautiful models of airliners have been made to promote their airlines' services in travel agents and their own shops. The models also illustrate the evolution of airliner design over these decades: the wood and fabric biplanes of the 1920s, the broad adoption of all-metal airliners in the 1930s, the first jet airliners of the 1950s, the first wide-body airliners of the 1970s and the pioneering small steps in supersonic air travel are all covered. The increasingly colourful exterior schemes adopted by the airlines, to ensure recognition by aspiring passengers, provide an interesting subtext. For model collectors, the airliner type, makers name, scale, approximate age and the materials used are detailed for each model illustrated. A short history of significant model-making companies is covered. With the onset of online bookings and the closure of airline offices and travel agents, the use of models is fast vanishing forever. The focus of this book is to preserve this fascinating era when models were a significant marketing tool, and to ensure that these models, at least in photographic form, survive as a record for future generations.

This is a book to read, to leaf through with pleasure, to leave out in full sight of friends and visitors and to come back to. In future, airliner models are likely to be commissioned for the niche uses of marketing and specialised trade shows but the heyday of models like those featured here, often works of art requiring so many hours of labour from true craftsmen, are long past, and Airliner Models is a fitting tribute to them.

Anthony J Lawler was born in South Africa in 1939,later moving to Salisbury, Rhodesia. He had already developed a keen interest in aviation, but in 1952 when the world's first jet airliner, the Comet 1 flew over the city on a proving flight, his interest was really ignited. He wrote to the BOAC office in Johannesburg asking for a model, and to his great joy he was sent his first professionally made airliner model. In the next seven years he regularly visited all the local airline offices and managed to build a small collection of models. Upon graduation in aeronautical engineering from Bristol University, he joined Hawker Siddeley, in the sales department responsible for marketing the Trident airliner. In 1971 he was seconded to Airbus Industrie to assist in sales of the first wide body twin-jet airliner, the A300, and the last twenty years of his career was spent in the USA managing sales campaigns for the Airbus airliners. Since retiring in 2004 he has actively pursued his model collecting and travelling. He is keen to preserve the history of these early models, and has spent eight years assembling the information and photographs to complete this book.