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By Henry Tenby, copyright 2020

As a collector of professional aircraft display models for more than thirty years, I have been an admirer of the fabulously accurate and beautiful aircraft models made by Amsterdam based Bob Dros of Bel-Air Models for a very long time.

His models are painstakingly made from solid clear perspex. This is a very difficult material to work with which results in very time consuming builds. But the models are highly realistic and feature clear windows which makes them something of a unique offering in the world of high end aircraft display models.

An introduction to Bob Dros by fellow model collector Ed Van Rooijen resulted in the amazing opportunity to visit Bob Dros at his home, library and workshop in Amsterdam, where Bob ever so kindly allowed the visit to be filmed, which is presented here as a series of seven videos. In these videos Bob Dros explains the background as to how became interested in making models of aircraft, and why he chose to work in the demanding model making medium of solid perspex.

Most of Bob’s models cover the period between World War 1 and World War 2, and focus on the transport aircraft of this area of development of the early years of the airline industry. Of course he also made models or aircraft and airliners of the post war years too. All of Bob’s models were and are special custom consignments by demanding collectors from all over the world. It typically takes a few months for a model to be built as they are all built from highly accurate plans, from scratch, and in many cases Bob has developed the plans himself using a variety of sources. His goal is to build the most accurate model possible.

Please feel free to visit Bob’s models and learn more about his perspex model building efforts at www.bel-air-models.com

I recently had the opportunity to visit with the famous Dutch model maker Bob Dros on a recent visit to Amsterdam, as arranged by my friend and fellow model collector Ed Van Rooijen. Whilst visiting with Bob he took time out to show me his amazing and near completed collection of Wiking Models.

These Wiking Models were made by a German toy company in the period of World War Two to help German troops and air force officers easily identify aircraft to separate friend from foe. These Wiking models were made of plastic, which was quite novel for the time as plastic was still in its infancy in terms of use beyond industrial applications.

After the passage of some eighty years since World War Two, these Wiking models have become quite hard to find. Over 150 of these ID models were produced and with so few coming to market, it is extremely difficult to build anything close to a complete collection. But Bob Dros has done just that, and it was no easy task, as he explains in this informative video.

Bob Dros resides in Amsterdam and has been building very detailed high quality models of aircraft in solid perspex. His models are very time consuming projects, and their price reflects their difficulty of construction. Bob’s perspex models can be viewed on his website, and we’d like to thank him for participating in this video.