So much for a quick build. Children, work, and developing a basement delayed this simple (but nice) model by years.

Developed in 1955 as a low-cost fighter, the sub-sonic and simple Folland Gnat quickly became popular with the Royal Air Force as well as the Indian, Finnish and Yugoslavian Air Forces.

If there was ever contest to find the cutest jet, I’d cast my vote for the Gnat. It’s just so tiny no other word describes it. In a time when jets were getting bigger, faster and louder the Gnat was barely any larger than its Tiger Moth and Chipmunk predecessors. In fact, the Gnat was so cute they appeared in the 1991 movie, Hot Shots, wearing bogus US military markings and titles for THE NAVY.

In 2012 Airfix released a new tool Gnat T.1 in 1/72nd scale. Not to be confused with their previous Gnat kit, which apparently dates to around 1974, this new kit features nicely recessed panel lines, an acceptable cockpit and details on both the wheels and wheel wells. The soft, light grey plastic cuts nicely with a knife but is hard enough to stand up to some aggressive sanding. The best part of this kit however is its price - $12.

With all that being said, I was never really interested in building a model of the Gnat – even a cheap one - at least not until I saw the markings Airfix was including in this kit. There’s just something about lots of fluorescent orange that gets me excited.

Since this was my first “new” Airfix kit, and since I wanted to start splashing bright colours on it as quick as possible, I opted for a simple out of the box build.

Airfix has included in these kits are one-piece landing gear doors for those of us wanting to build their models in-flight. As someone who has this to numerous models, I can tell you that it’s nice to have a manufacturer put a little effort into making parts that fit. They’ve also included two pilot figures to occupy the seats when we do. Thank you Airfix.

Using the closed gear doors and leaving the wheel wells out of my model quickly sealed up the fuselage. I don’t know if it’s because of something I did or the fit of the parts, but the main wheel doors needed a couple touches of liquid putty.

There’s only one decal option in this kit – Central Flying School – but that’s fine with me because it has all sorts of fluorescent orange.

Painting started with gloss white, followed by Model Master Fluorescent Orange, and finally Model Master non-buffing aluminum metalizer. Future floor wax sealed the paints and kept me from scratching the silver.

This was supposed to be a quick, one-week build, and the kit is certainly simple enough for such a short build time. However, here I am several years later, and it's finally finished.

As for the model, it’s small, it’s cute, it’s covered in fluorescent orange, and it didn’t cost a fortune. It went together quickly and I had fun building it even though it was outside my usual subject range.

To display my Gnat in flight I simply super glued a length of clear acrylic rod up the tail pipe.