Fantastic Plastic - X-Planes & Prototypes - 1940s

X-Planes & Prototypes - 1940s

They say necessity is the mother of invention. If so, then in the 1940s, the United States, Great Britain, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany certainly had a need to invent. Engaged in an epic struggle for control of nothing less than the fate of humankind, the Allies and Axis powers produced a dizzying array of innovative, radical and very often ridiculous-looking aircraft designs intended to achieve military air superiority.

Although the Second World War ended in 1945, the race for aerial supremacy did not. No sooner were Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan defeated than the United States and Soviet Union entered the "Cold War," a period of intense political and technological one-upsmanship that prompted, among other things, the rapid development of new and increasingly more sophisticated combat aircraft. This was the decade that saw the first jets. The first rocket-powered interceptors. The breaking of the sound barrier. And the first use of the term "X-Plane."

More than a half-century later, the 1940s remains one of the most popular decades for plastic model manufacturers and their customers eager to recapture the romance and daring of this unique decade.