1991 Desert Storm Air War. 30 Years ago today. Monogram 1/48 F-117 “High Tech” kit Toxic Avenger
Hard to believe this event happened 30 years ago... but it did. Time sure flies, and it flies by even quicker the older you get.
30 years ago today I was in the US Army recruiter's office filling out paperwork trying to get back in……………… I felt guilty because some of my closest friends were deployed in Saudi Arabia and I was not there with them.
I needed to get a waiver for dependents, since at this time in my life I was now married with little children at home. My last Armor unit was the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.
They were deployed along with the 82nd Airborne and became the very first Army units on the ground when it was still called Desert Shield.
The waiver finally came a few days after the ground war was over and our troops were headed back home. So I didn't follow through and re enlist.
Part of me thinks I should have……….. part of me thinks I did the right thing by staying home. I still have mixed emotions about that to this very day.
This is one of my builds for Chuck Villanueva's @uscusn
informal Desert Storm group build.
This is the 1/48 scale Monogram "high tech" kit. It came with a few photo etched parts included in the box. Overall it was an enjoyable build... until it came time to apply the kit supplied decals.
The Monogram decals refused to work. Nothing I did made them any better. They wrinkled... they shriveled up, they refused to lay down flat... and the one or two decals that did behave, looked horrible because they had silvered. I parked it and then our host Chuck Villanueva came to the rescue and sent me the decals you see on the plane now.
Even though this is called a Stealth fighter, it is not a fighter jet. Instead it carried bombs. I will not bore you with reposting the story behind these jets. Chuck did a fine job of that when he posted his earlier today.
If you are interested you can see how this model was built by following this link to the build journal.
Thanks Chuck for hosting this group build, and for sending me the decals.
Now I need to finish up my 3rd CAV M-1A1... it will be wearing the markings of the last tank I served in. Ours were delivered to us in a Forrest Green overall color, just like the model I am building is painted. From what I have read, they didn't get painted in the typical desert sand color until they were on the ground in Saudi Arabia.
As always, comments are encouraged. Thanks for looking and stay safe.
Nice save Louis, patience and skills equals a nice quality F-117. I'm glad the decals were able to help you. One of the issues from Monogram over the years has been their decals. And that's not just Monogram, Tamiya, Hasegawa has as well. Yeah I'm with you, 30 years has just flown by. We were on our way up to Bremerton, Washington for a demo when we got the call to RTB. (return to base). It was a Thursday morning 2 August and we were just crossing the Oregon Border when the call came in. Rather terse message, direct typical Navy no reason given just come back forthwith. That afternoon as we touched down, the plane captain and his crew told us to quickly head to the base church to meet with the rest of the squadron as they secured the aircraft no worry about any post flight checks. We had a feeling as we did hear some chatter on the net as we flew back to base seemed like it took forever, making a quick hot fuel stop at the Army Blackhawk base in San Luis Obispo where the ground crew their filled us in a bit on what has been reported in the news. On August 15th our reserve squadron was activated and would participate in Desert Shield, though when we would deploy was unknown just that all personnel were activated and on 72 hours notice. We finally got the word we were going in on 2 January 1991, we departed on the 31st in 2 C-5's with 2 aircraft and 60 personnel. Our sister squadron as well would also provide 2 aircraft and about 40 personnel as they were not as advanced as we were and stiil in training with the HH-60H. Seems like yesterday.
A superb looking 117, Louis.
Time goes by so fast, I was fullfilling militairy service when this war started.
This an amazing model of this very important plane, Louis @lgardner!
I loved the final result, looking very realistic.
It was a pleasure to follow your build thread!
I need to build one myself, too.
Well done!
Amazing how these planes still look futuristic almost 40 years after their introduction. Great job.
Nice to see one of these completed and done well.
I tried to build one of these some 14 years ago not long after I returned to the hobby, but I tried to trick it out with all the resin/PE goodies I could get my hands on thinking it would be easy.
It still ranks as my biggest modeling disaster.
Nicely done,as usual my friend! Louis, my old man would call your second thoughts, "Shoulda ,woulda, coulda". We all get them over the time we travel in this life, But the path you took in the end was the one you were meant to be on. @lgardner.
What a treat - two Goblins in one sitting! Nicely done Louis!
Great save Louis @lgardner. She looks good!
Well done Louis, it's surprising to me that they have been retired from active service. I remember my older brother, an air traffic controller at Holbert Field in Florida, that at night an A/C would come up requesting landing instructions but he couldn't see it on his scope. He knew we had something rather special in development.