98 articles · 9.5K karma · 44 friends · active 2 days, 21 hours ago

I returned to modeling several years ago after a long hiatus and courtship with RC scale modeling. I'm an aircraft maintenance control supervisor recently retired from the company formerly known as Continental Airlines. Been fortunate enough to work and fly on several WWII aircraft, which are my favorite subjects, especially the lesser known ones and the ones with oddball paint jobs.

Nose Art Group build - update

I've received several questions about the March 1st start date for this build. I selected that day arbitrarily to give people some time to choose a project, but the response has been pretty good already, so if anyone participating would [...]

Judging interestNose Art group build

Ok everyone, I was sitting around watching it rain and looking at my pile of projects, all which have some great nose art to them so I decided to post and see if there would be any interest in a Nose Art Group Build. My thoughts are - any [...]

McDonnell F-15 Eagle – Academy 1/144

First build of the year, which was completely accidental. While cleaning out a cabinet in the garage, I came across this kit under a pile of old magazines. I have no idea where it came from or why I had it, but I'm a s****r for orphaned [...]

As long as we're talking about jacks....

Here's one of 747-100's on jacks for a retraction check at the Los Angeles maintenance base just before we retired the Whales in 1999. These normally weren't done outside unless the hangars were full, which was probably the case here. [...]

The year in review, 2017

It was a busy year for me, especially with family and work. Even so, I managed to get three models done, all in 1/48. The Pogo was a what if that started out to be a scale project and turned into more fun than anyone should expect to [...]

A visit to the National Museum of The Mighty 8th Air Force

My early November vacation turned out to be quite productive as far as museum visits. After visiting Pensacola, we headed north, stopping at the 8th Air Force Museum in Pooler, Georgia, just south of Savannah. The 8th was formed in [...]

A visit to the National Museum of Naval Aviation, Part 4

This is the last batch of photos from my November visit. Two pleasant surprises occurred on this one. The first was happening to be there on the day the Blue Angels were doing their practice session for their final show of the year at [...]

A visit to the National Museum of Naval Aviation, Part 3

It's very easy to get carried away in this place. There is a lot to see and it comes at you from every direction. My apologies for the quality of some of the photos. Half of the time I was looking at something else while trying to [...]

A visit to the National Museum of Naval Aviation, Part 2

Here's the second batch of photos. The aircraft on display cover the full spectrum of US naval aviation, from day one to the present. The variety and quality of the aircraft is astounding, as many of them were flown in, cleaned up and [...]

A visit to the National Museum of Naval Aviation, Part 1

I've been able to visit the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida, twice in the past month. These visits were different from previous trips in that this was the first time I've been able to go with no time constraints or [...]