123 articles · 11.9K karma · 30 friends · active 2 weeks, 1 day 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, rarely 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 42 years to a lovely long-suffering woman and have one 36 year old kid, who builds better models than me and also appears on these pages on occasion.
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 The development of a rapidly outdated biplane type was due to some false [...]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 [...]
Charles Mcgee fits the title "Superhero" much better than any comic book character. I won't get long winded, just post the AP article which sums up his story OK. And his P-51B "Kitten", named for his Wife.
Once tough, [...]
When the United States was dragged into the Big one, everybody started to yell for help from the giant U.S. manufacturing colossus. Problem was, the colossus was not quite geared up yet with sufficient weaponry to send. We did send what [...]
Well how 'bout that? I finished a model. As it says, first finished this year. I have many going, but getting them done, is another story. I have always liked the looks and color scheme of this puppy. The 7TP was Poland's heavy hitter, a [...]
Haven't done much lately so I'll bore you with an oldie from 2012. Special Hobby 1/32 Hawk 75 converted to resemble the "Hawk 75 demonstrator" that Madame Chiang Kai Shek of China bought for Claire Chennault, leader of the [...]
Finally got some Modeling Mojo, for a bad reason. Was not working during the original Covid lockdown, so I actually built some models. Amazing how much more energy one has when he is not getting up at 5:00 5 days. So I actually have a year [...]
18 year old Bill finally gets his driver license. You know, I don't even remember how I acquired model kits prior to this. When we lived in Queens (New Yawk) there was a local hardware store (Vics) that had kits. The one I think about was [...]
