National Airfix Aeronautical Model Engineering Competition 2026
This year is our 20th year of the competition, and we are back at the Singapore Air Force Musuem after their renovation (we went to the Singapore Discovery Centre last year because of the renovation). We are back to where we started in 2006.
The Air Force Musuem had a face lift last year with more family friendly playground and caricature aircraft (F5 and UH-1H) for children.
The lifts were not working due to some intermittent faults, so we all become fitter claiming 3 stories.
This year’s ’make and take’ allows adults to try our Frog 1:48 RSAF Hawker Hunter FGA9, besides the traditional Airfix 1:72 Spitfire and Folland Gnat. This is special as there is an RSAF Hawker Hunter at the musuem and our markings are the RSAF’s.
As usual, there are lovely display models from Suresh Nathan’s 1:32 WWII aircraft dioramas, and Lee Stringer’s Me262 builds and science fiction models.
Henry Low’s group of 48 hours modellers display their achievements. This is important to remind people that this a hobby to build and complete, and not get stuck with trying to add too much details. For Henry Low’s contribution to the modelling society, Suresh Nathan awarded him the Tony James prize.
We are seeing more diorama entries as the standard of modelling, especially from the InterSchool categories (age 17 and under). We also see an increase in their display of creative models.
After judging, where we saw the biggest improvements from the InterSchool category - Ethan Lim with this Airfix Vosper MYB, Bob Chengqian Yu’s with this 1:72 Lockheed Martin F-35B, Roman Jegarajah with his Airfix 1:48 Westland Lysander over the sea diorama.
Some of the aircraft to highlight are Andrea Strobl’s 1:72 HS 126 desert diorama, and Yee Soon Tuck’s perfect 1:72 Saab Viggen.
The open category’s models showed great improvements from last year, with John Andrew’s Airfix 1:32 Crusader and Lester Poh’s 1:32 Panzer III diorama, Kevin Luo’s Airfix 1:32 Dessert Fork’s Sdkfz 250/3 Greif, and Paul Gallagher’s Airfix 1:35 Ferret Scout.
During our prize giving, we also gave respect of 1 minutes’ silence for the passing of fellow modeller George Gauron. RIP.
We now look forward to 2027’s competition.