Recognition Models: Scale Miniatures WW II

August 31, 2018 9:26 PM

kids were asked to create 500,000 scale aircraft models Following the 1941 aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics put out a call to action, aimed not at recruiting adult volunteers or teen enlistees but schoolchildren. For training purposes, models were especially important — per the U.S. Army-Navy Journal of Recognition, it was critical that observers be able to see an “object as a whole” and be “able, through constant practice, to recognize that object (plane, tank, ship, etc…) from any angle.”
posted by MovableBookLady (7 comments total)

There have been updates, including the Drone Survival Guide
posted by eustatic at 5:34 AM on September 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

And of course it began with WWI.
posted by doctornemo at 5:45 AM on September 1, 2018

I think my father made some of these when he was a kid.
posted by doctornemo at 5:45 AM on September 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

It s an art project, of course, but there are model kits for some drones
posted by eustatic at 6:16 AM on September 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

I didn’t realize this is what people used before the giant Janes guides came out. In the 90s we’d rely on heavily photocopied handouts to be able to practice recognition of air and armourmed fighting vehicles, the simple outlines would be good but real skill came from being able to tell the vehicles from the backgrounds in images that had be recopied dozens of times.
posted by furtive at 7:10 AM on September 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

In the 60s it was not uncommon to see old military aircraft. I was impressed by my father's ability to identify them. He said in Yugoslavia, where US planes frequently bombed near his town, they gave out flashcards of the different planes.
posted by acrasis at 8:16 AM on September 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

I think my father made some of these when he was a kid.
posted by doctornemo at 8:45 AM on September 1

Likewise. My dad was 8 when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and he had a lifelong enthusiasm for model-building, especially WW2 aircraft.
posted by McCoy Pauley at 9:22 AM on September 1, 2018