"When you think of construction kits, you think of Airfix," he said. "All the schoolboys of the 50s, 60s and 70s remember them, being covered in glue and cutting your fingers as you assembled them.

Bruce Dickinson, the singer of the heavy metal group Iron Maiden and now a commercial airline pilot, said his interest in flying began when he started building Airfix kits. Up there in the skies ...