These cool model plane kits from the 1950s turned kitchen tables into miniature air bases

Model planes have been part of American childhood for more than a century, but the version most people picture today, snap-together plastic kits in a box with colorful art, only dates back to the 1950s. Before that, building an airplane meant carving balsa wood and stretching tissue paper over a frame, a skill that took real patience to master.

The hobby took off alongside aviation itself. Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 transatlantic flight sparked what modelers of the era called being “air-minded,” and companies rushed to meet the demand. Comet Model Airplane and Supply Co, founded in the 1930s, became known for its “Dime Scale” kits, inexpensive balsa sets that let Depression-era kids build a plane for the price of a movie ticket.

World War II gave the hobby a different purpose entirely. The military needed spotters who could identify enemy aircraft on sight, so students across the country built solid wood scale models, often painted flat black, as training aids for the war effort. Balsa itself became scarce during the war since the same lightweight wood was needed for military production, which forced manufacturers to improvise with substitute materials for a few years.

The real turning point came in 1953, when a California toy company called Revell released its first plastic model, a battleship, followed quickly by three plastic airplane kits molded in simple one piece boxes. Monogram, founded in Chicago back in 1945 as a maker of wooden ship and plane kits, answered with its own “Plastikits” line, and the race between the two companies was on. Plastic solved a real problem, since it molded fine detail straight into the parts and didn’t require the carving skill that balsa demanded.

The late 1950s became what collectors now call the golden age of box art, with painters like John Steel turning kit lids into small pieces of art in their own right. Revell’s kits from this stretch, sold at dime stores including Woolworth’s, leaned hard into the atomic age mood of the moment, offering guided missile cruisers, jet fighters that had set speed records, and helicopters modeled after real air sea rescue missions. Through the 1960s and 70s the two companies kept the momentum going with themed series like Jet Command and Warbirds, expanding into military vehicles and eventually cars and hot rods as builders aged along with their interests.

The hobby never disappeared, but it did shrink as kids found other ways to spend their afternoons and hobby shops closed their doors one by one. Revell and Monogram passed through a string of owners over the decades, including Mattel and Hallmark, before eventually landing under one roof, and the two once fierce competitors now share factory space and swap molds. Model planes today live on mostly as an adult pursuit, kept alive by collectors and lifelong builders who still enjoy the process the kids of the 1950s discovered with a tube of glue and a kitchen table.

The vintage ads collected here show off the kind of box art and period detail that made these kits so appealing at the time, from the Woolworth’s price tags to the artwork on the guided missile ship sets. It’s a fun look back at how a generation of kids got hooked on building their own little air force.