Berkeley The Buccaneer 48 - For R/C or Free Flight

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Berkeley The Buccaneer 48 - For R/C or Free Flight plastic model kit

Berkeley The Buccaneer 48 - For R/C or Free Flight

Wood Model Kit,   Box Condition: VG

Older Berkeley kit of one of the classics in early gas free-flight. The box claims this is 'America's First Gasoline Model Airplane Construction Kit'. It certainly was not the first gasoline powered model to fly, but it very may well have been the first marketed kit. The large Buccaneer was designed for class A and B gas engines. Kit features printed wooden parts, semi-finished wooden blocks, formed landing gear, silkspan covering, full size detailed plans and streamline wheels. The model has not been started. The parts are either in factory sealed bag(s) or inventoried 100% complete with all parts and instructions. Berkeley is a very famous manufacturer of flying model kits from the Golden Age of flying aviation, about 1932-1954. Founded in 1933 by William Effinger, the company was quite progressive in producing quality kits - it was likely the Berkeley 'Buccaneer' was the first gas powered model in kit form. In the later 1930s, Effinger acquired the services of a very talented Henry Struck. Struck went on to design numerous award-winning kits under the Berkeley name. Berkeley weathered the post WWII recession and emerged as a major kit producer in the late 1940 and 1950s. These were great years for Berkeley and they produced some incredible and large kits. The company went bankrupt in about 1960 however. Fox engines (Duke Fox) bought the company and released the kits alongside his own FOX models and engines. This arrangement did not last, and in the early 1960s the Berkeley name disappeared from hobby shop shelves.

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