OUR HISTORY Aviattic was founded in 2013 by Richard Andrews.
"My interest in World War One aviation started as a very young boy in the early nineteen-sixties. Airshows around North London, where I was brought up, were a regular event for us as a family and, with the end of the war only twenty years previous, being close to flying aircraft from that and previous conflicts filled me with awe and excitement.
Visits to Old Warden aerodrome, in Bedfordshire, particularly thrilled me as the beautiful biplanes and monoplanes that were still airworthy and flew there seemed, even to my young mind, to embody the frailty of life and vulnerability of a young man put in a life and death situation - air combat in WW1, heroism, sacrifice, the stupidity of war, my connection to those young men…"it could have been me".
The 1966 film, ’the Blue Max’, seen on a wet holiday afternoon in a village cinema in deepest Wales, confirmed that my obsession was here to stay, and the available model kits of the time were all built, time and time again, with help from my dear father who was to pass away soon afterwards. Summers flew by in a haze of polystyrene cement fumes, cut fingers and Humbrol paint.
Maintaining a passion for the subject during my teenage years, through the ’too cool for school’ period, the discovery of girls, being in a band in London in the eighties and several moves across the country, the hobby has always given me a ‘happy place’ to visit during difficult times.
Sitting at the modelling bench or researching a project now takes me straight back to tentatively gluing struts on to a hastily-built biplane model, desperate to paint, decal and finish it, with my father quietly and proudly overseeing proceedings.
Many years later, through worldwide events making my thirty year antique restoration business no longer viable, I was forced to evaluate my life. As my accountant advised me, “you can’t make any less money…is there anything else you’d like to do?!”, understanding my refusal to have a ‘proper job' or career.
I tentatively suggested getting involved in the hobby world of model-making, after picking up a modelling magazine which featured an advert for the new line of Eduard 1/48 WW1 kits. But how?
I had started to acquire, as a legitimate part of my antique business, various WW1 aviation artefacts. They appeared at antique fairs, outdoor shows across the country and even on eBay. A local auction house held twice-yearly auctions of militaria and, once I had studied an object and documented it, they were sold and the money then spent tracking down something else of interest.
Dozens of WW1 propellers, many square feet of aircraft fabric (including many samples of the German ’Tarnstoff’ printed linen), cockpit instruments, undercarriage legs, war-souvenirs were all sourced and sold - most ending up in film director, WW1 aviation collector and entrepreneur Peter Jackson’s collection in New Zealand.
Putting this acquired knowledge to good use, I started experimenting with the reproduction of German camouflage-printed fabrics in decal form as no company, including Jackson’s new model company, Wingnut Wings, had adequately represented them. The first decal sheets were very well received and, with friend Harry Green, Aviattic set about designing hundreds of products and eventually state-of-the-art multi-media kits which, despite many copyists, are considered the best in the world.
I now manage a growing worldwide team of gifted amateurs and professionals alike, all united in a passion for these aircraft and the men who flew and serviced them - and a desire to strive for excellence in scale modelling.
If you think you have a skill to contribute to the team please let me know!
As I approach my mid-sixties and look back over a varied, happy, creative life, Aviattic and my mission to popularise and encourage Great War aviation history and modelling continues to move forward. Very satisfactorily starting to a close the circle of a life dedicated to it."
Richard Andrews
Stroud, The Cotswolds, UK