Harry Woodman's "Scale Model Aircraft in Plastic Card" is still the definitive guide for scratchbuilders. Conceived thirty years ago many new materials and techniques have since been developed; old established manufacturers have gone west and new ones emerged; kits long out of production are back on the shelves under different labels while new kits abound. Thanks in no small measure to the author's pioneering influence a whole raft of cottage industries now provide accessories and even complete kits in exotic materials. Nevertheless, in the absence of a longed for reprint I hope modellers will find something of interest in this online version.

The author has long been an inspiration to a great many modelers and I am further indebted to him for his permission to proceed with this project. Thanks also to the WWI Modelers Mailing List for providing the initial spur and continued encouragement. I am especially grateful to list member Tom Werner Hansen for his invaluable practical assistance and to non-member Dave Smith for the loan of additional material.

In bringing 'Scale Model Aircraft in Plastic Card' to the web I have tried to be faithful to the book. The text is preserved but page layout has been changed to meet the demands of web navigation. As the book was mainly a guide to scratchbuilding most of the illustrations fell naturally into that section (chapter 3) and where large parts of the book not concerned with the main thrust are not illustrated some of these original illustrations are relocated within context. Where images unsuitable for reproduction have been replaced with similar images from other sources, or I have taken the liberty of importing additional images, this is noted.