119 articles · 11.3K karma · 30 friends · active 3 days, 20 hours ago

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.

The first Panzer... 1/16 scale Takom Panzer 1b

Way back when I had a book entitled "Tank" by one Kenneth Macksey. Actually it was one of the first books I ever bought with my own money (An 80 dollar paycheck). It was softcover with a combo of line drawings and photos, and it [...]

2023 the year that were

Got 7 done. That's pretty good for me, guess it shoulda been more since I quit working, but I'll take it. Only one armor in here, but I have got a bunch started so will make more mud this year. Anyways it has as always been great playing [...]

Fast, good lookin' but not much else. MiG's first fighter.

Well, actually the second. The original designation was I (Istrebeitel, fighter) 200, but a new convention using the designer's names was introduced, these being Migoyan and Gurevitch, hence, MiG. The new moniker was MiG-1, but the [...]

Quick! What was the most produced Allied fighter...

Quick! What was the most produced Allied fighter of WW2? Since this is an article on Yaks, I guess I gave the answer away already. Yep, Aleksandr Yakovlev's Yak series, about 35,700 being put together by 6 factories. Now 2000 or so were [...]

First to fight IBG Big scale PZL P-11c

Well, the first Allied fighter in European WW2 skies anyway. Contrary to some accounts, the Polish Air Force was not destroyed on the ground early, but their aircraft were dispersed to designated War alert fields, having been on a war [...]

Cabin Panzer 2023 rollout

Previously I posted an article about building on vacation, this year's project is ready for inspection. It's Tamiya's newest, a Panzer IV(70) A. That means a 70 something or other long 75mm gun on a panzer IV chassis made by the Alkett [...]

Revell Hurricane Mark IIb 1/32 scale-Jungle Fighter

Much was expected of them. 51 brand new crated Hawker Hurricane Mark IIb's had arrived by convoy at Fortress Singapore. The Brewster Buffalo fighters that had been attempting to defend Malaya and Singapore had been very roughly handled by [...]

Cabin Modeling 2023

Time for the annual trip to the cabin on gorgeous Lake George N.Y. Been bringing a Tamiya with me the last couple of years, and knocking it out sitting by the Lake in my "Free" time. This year's selection was the new Panzerjager [...]

Review: At last, a large scale TBDTrumpeter 1/32 Douglas TBD-1 Devastator

"Mythical", according to Merriam-Webster, is defined as :existing only in the imagination: fictitious, imaginary. Well, for how many years now has a Trumpeter 1/32 scale TBD Devastator been dangled in front of the modeling [...]

Year of the Rata...Chinese AF Polikarpov I-16 type 10.

The ROC Air Force grows again. This time it's Polikarpov's I-16, innovative retractable gear monoplane of the 30's. Joe Stalin was suspicious of Japanese intentions in the Far East, which included threats to Soviet territory. So seeing as [...]