Berkeley Privateer Flying Boat - 36 Inch Wingspan Flying Aircraft

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Berkeley Privateer Flying Boat - 36 Inch Wingspan Flying Aircraft plastic model kit

Berkeley Privateer Flying Boat - 36 Inch Wingspan Flying Aircraft

Wood Model Kit,   Box Condition: Exc++

Originally designed as a gas powered model for free flight or control line, or can be converted to electric power and modern RC (radio control) gear. Big 36 inch wingspan. Kit features precision cut wood parts, die cut windshield, shaped and notched leading and trailing edges, NACA 'Long Planing Hull' design, all sheet balsa fuselage, self-draining hull and sponsons, metal motor mount and nacelle, full sized plans and more. 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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