May 2004 - Joe:
Try this for your survey of model kits. It is the terrible (by today's standards) Lindbergh A4D-1/A-4A. I built it in 1965 after knowing I was going to VSF-1, hence the Sidewinders. The missiles are plastic sprue with cardboard fins. The fuel probe a stick with tape at the end. The erroneous hinged wing-flaps on the kit were filled in with card and tape. Note how they have warped and peeled over the years. The decals were all I had. Natch, they have yellowed over the years. The rudder paint scheme pure imagination.
How the model survived more than a dozen moves is a wonder. At VA-125 I was given one of the solid models from Douglas. It went on display and this model was put into the fancy foam-filled box the factory model came in. Years went by and the Douglas model warped in the sun and heat until it had wings like a Corsair of old. I gave it to my kids who played with it to destruction. The Lindbergh kit survived in its box.
Footnote:
Back in 1964 while in training at Meridian, Emory Brown (later CO of VF-84 in F-14s) a fellow model building student, built this kit and made the tailhook from heavy wire. He cleverly rigged the A-4 on a cord stretched across his BOQ room. When the door tripped the release the model "flew" down the wire and "trapped" on rubber band and string arresting wires on the top of his bureau.