Jimmy Durante was a famous Hollywood star, but his foray into aeronautics has long been forgotten.
In the early 1930's he came up with a design for a sleek, new fighter of monocoque construction with a cantilever wing featuring a pair of the scariest spatted landing gear yet conceived.
He presented his concept to the U.S. Army Air Corps, confident huge orders would be forthcoming for the new streamlined wonder.
The hide-bound Air Corps board of course rejected such an outlandishly modern and capable aircraft.
Not one to be easily deterred, Mr. Durante shopped his radical new fighter around to other countries.
He started with the larger nations and continued to work his way down to the smaller ones as his design was rejected again and again by various air arms all over the world.
Eventually he made his way to Europe and ended out in Speckovakia. You've never heard of Speckovakia? Maybe a map will help.
Still can't find it? Try this:
The minuscule land of Speckovakia, hemmed in by far larger countries for centuries, was thrilled to be able to add a modern fighter to their tiny air force. Thus the Speckovakian Durante One or Dur-1 was born.
The new aircraft was the last word in sleek. Powered by an inverted inline engine and featuring an enclosed cockpit and twin machine-gun armament, it was rumored the Dur-1 may never have to fire its guns in anger, so intimidating was its spatted undercarriage.
Production was undertaken by the nationalized Speckovakian Aircraft Factory in Speck who amazingly enough, rolled out the first service-test prototype just in time for things to heat up in Europe.
The Dur-1 was luckily posted to air defense of the Speckovakian capitol, Speck. And none too soon as the international political situation was about to boil over.
Given the fuselage number 3179 in naive hope of making folks think there were over 3,000 of the things, the Dur-1 flew rigorous patrols and soon became a common sight in the skies over Speck.
The Dur-1's only action even distantly approximating combat occurred in the spring of 1935 when it and every other Speckovakian aircraft was scrambled to intercept what seemed a mighty host of enemy attackers.
Fortunately for the tiny land of Speckovakia and its even tinier capitol Speck, the aerial invaders turned out to be less threatening than expected.
The enormous air raid on Speck turned out to be just wayward doves released by Austria celebrating the signing of the Balognia accords ("What a bunch of baloney!" according to the
Paris Matchless-American) with Italy.
This would be the Dur-1's great shining moment. Eventually, over 17 of the cutting-edge aircraft were built and went on to serve without distinction for many years until replaced by a more modern type after W.W. II.
If it was remembered at all, the Dur-1 would be noted as one of the few spatted aircraft to serve throughout W.W. II. Speckovakia was so insignificant it was ignored by all the great powers and survived the conflict unscathed.
No Dur-1's survive today. All that is left is this limited-run resin kit and the lingering question if it was really those spats that kept Speckovakia safe.
Brian da Basher
