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As a certified member of the Society of Old Phogey Modelers, I remember some of those ancient Aurora kits quite clearly. I built that "Viking ship" several times before I got out of elementary school. I guess I have to give Aurora some credit for getting me interested in maritime history.
They're great subjects for nostalgic ramblings by people like me. As scale models, though, it's hard to take them seriously. It looks to me like the people who designed that "Viking ship" did no research whatsoever; they just put together something that kids would think looked like a Viking ship.
The hull bears little or no resemblance to any actual Norse archaeological evidence. The lines of it aren't Norse, and it has a smooth exterior surface, with either grooves or raised lines - I don't recall which - representing the edges of flush-fitted planks. I'd be willing to be corrected on this point, but to my knowledge every extant Norse vessel has a clinker-built hull (i.e., the planks overlap at the edges). Norse ships and boats have a graceful, highly distinctive shape, generated largely by the natural curves of the planks. That Aurora kit just doesn't look like that. The "dragon" ornaments at the bow and stern are pure, 1950s American cartoons; no Norseman ever carved anything that looked like that. (Imagine what that dragon's head would look like - and how much it would weigh - if it was full size.) When I was little I took great pride in painting all those delightful figures that came with the kit - including the guys with horned helmets. One of the first things one learns when reading seriously about Norse culture is that the horned helmet has nothing to do with it. The fellows in that kit would be at home in a Wagner opera, but not on the deck of a Viking ship.
Unfortunately the Vikings haven't fared at all well with ship model kit manufacturers. The Heller rendition of the Oseberg Ship is awful, with proportions and decorations that bear little resemblance to the original. The same can be said for most of the wood kits from Continental European manufacturers - though Billing makes one or two Norse craft that look believable. The best rendition of a Viking ship in kit form that I know about is the one Revell released in 1977. It's a reasonably accurate scale model of the Gokstad Ship, the largest actual Norse vessel that's survived. Unfortunately the Revell kit was only on the market for a few years, and is hard to find nowadays. (It's high on my list of kits I'd like to see reissued. What a fine subject to for a newcomer to sailing ship modeling!)
I built the Black Falcon a couple of times when I was little, but I don't remember it very clearly. What I recall most is the injection-molded "shrouds and ratlines," which my older brother and I thought at the time were pretty funny. (In reality they probably were at least as realistic as the plastic-coated thread abominations Revell was making at the time.) It was one of the very first plastic sailing ships ever released. It just might be capable of being made into a serious scale model, but I suspect scratch-building would be quicker.
In the fifties and early sixties Aurora made several other sailing ships. One that brings back pleasant memories was an American privateer schooner with the name Cosair. It was a nice, simple little model, similar in shape to the famous privateer Prince de Neufchatel. Aurora also did a Bluenose, a Chinese junk (which recently reappeared in the catalog of Revell Germany), a small (and dreadfully inaccurate) Cutty Sark, and a rather primitive Sovereign of the Seas. I'm sure there were a few more that I've forgotten.
Near the end of Aurora's existence (the late sixties, I think) it issued a small series of sailing ships that, I think, were intended to fill a gap in the market between the small and large Revell kits. The Aurora ones came in nicely-illustrated boxes and, if I remember correctly, sold for $5.00 or $6.00. The finished models were about two feet long. (The small Revell series kits were about eighteen inches long, and the bigger ones - the Cutty Sark, Constitution, Kearsarge, etc. - were about three feet long. The latter sold for $12.00 or $15.00, making them the most expensive kits in the industry.) As I remember there were four kits in that Aurora series: the Bonhomme Richard, the U.S.S. Hartford, the whaler Wanderer, and the clipper ship Sea Witch. (The latter was in fact a modified reissue of an extremely old kit originally issued by ITC. It's since reappeared under the Lindberg label. The other three, I think, were original Aurora designs.)
As I understand it those kits now fetch pretty high prices from collectors. As scale models they certainly were better than the kits from the fifties, but left a great deal to be desired. The overall shapes were about right (though the Wanderer's whaleboats looked like caricatures of the real things), but the details were pretty coarse and toy-like. Worst of all, they had thick, injection-molded plastic "sails" molded integrally with the yards. I remember building a couple of them, and being thoroughly unimpressed with the results. To make a serious scale model from one of those kits would necessitate scrapping everything from the deck up. That can be done, of course, but I can think of lots of kits that would be better applications for the necessary time and skill.
Like many other modelers of my generation I look back on the days of Aurora with a great deal of nostalgia. When I was a kid I had lots of fun building Aurora kits - and I undoubtedly learned a lot in the process. I'd enjoy getting my hands on any of those old sailing ship kits, running my fingers over the pieces, and letting the memories well up inside. But I wouldn't try to make it into a serious scale model.
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