69 years of age, Modeling since birth. Do planes, armor, or whatever hits my fancy. World War 2 is main interest but will stray back in time, never forward. Competition shooting, collecting Military rifles and reading History occupy the non-modeling time. I was a mechanic by trade, now retired and loving it. Married 41 years to a lovely long-suffering woman and have one 35-year old kid, who builds better models than me and also appears on these pages on occasion.
Retirement, decent weather, new releases of liked models and a return of model shows (incentive) have combined to fuel a higher than average yearly output for Koppos. Thaks to all who have commented and Happy Christmas and New Year to all [...]
6:40 AM, December 7, 1941. "Captain, come on the bridge!". Lieutenant William W. Outerbridge had been summoned to the bridge of the U.S.S. Ward, straight out of bed and wrapped in a Kimono. He had taken command, his first, of the [...]
There's plenty of info out there on this one, so won't go hunting and pecking too much. Just suffice to say, this one was the load carrier of the Panzer divisions for most of the war. Tamiya just came out with two "F" versions, [...]
Merriam Webster Dictionary says: ICONIC - adjective: "Widely known and acknowledged, especially for distinctive excellence". I guess few would argue that the shark-faced Curtiss P-40's of the American Volunteer Group do not fit [...]
Well the Koppos ROC Air Force has grown again. Yes, it is officially a Boeing 281, the export model P-26, of which the Chinese Government got 10. There were 12 altogether, one crashed in China and the other went to Spain, fate unknown to [...]
Sooner or later, all good fighters need an upgrade. The Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien JAAF fighter was still running around with a Diamler Benz DB 601 copy in 1944, which had gone out with the Bf109E model in 1941. The Ha-140 was the [...]
Reluctant to give up the high manueverability of the fighter biplane, the powers that be in the Regia Aeronautica accepted this design in 1939, despite the writing on the wall that monoplanes were the new wave. The British Gloster [...]
Another '30's warplane to make it into The China cauldron was this early example of transitional monoplane from the desk of Dewoitine. The all-metal D-510 was a step in the right direction but just behind the new modern. One thing going [...]
The I-153 was a development of the Biplane I-15 family of the '30's, being a variant featuring retracting landing gear and in later versions an uprated engine. The development of a rapidly outdated biplane type was due to some false [...]
Before I start, a disclaimer. This involves Russian subjects in a Russian made Movie. I have been working on these since last Year when I saw the Movie. It in no way relates to the present situation involving Russia and their actions of [...]