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Professional psychologist, father of four, musician, modeler, lecturer. Tired.

My modeling defaults are building dioramas and WWII aircraft. Enjoy WW2 history, reading, single malt scotch whisky (without the 'e'), music, good food, bit of philosophy, and general history.

On This Day…October 14th

The photo below is of the USS Langley (CVL27) taken just off Taiwan on October 14th, 1944. The flight deck crew are seen taking cover from a Japanese aircraft (dead centre of the photo). The Langley served in the French Navy as ‘La [...]

On This Day…October 13th

October 13th 1944... Crew of a PBY Catalina rescue Sgt James Latta and Sgt Willis Morlan out of the Adriatic after being forced to bail from their B-24H Liberator after a raid on Vienna, Austria. Crew of the USS Wasp (originally named the [...]

Trip down memory lane…in a Gran Torino.

As part of the ongoing unboxing ceremony of moving onto a new house I was reacquainted with this beauty. She’s an old ‘scalextric’ 1/32 scale that I’ve had for some time and she always brings a smile to me. The iModeler at [...]

Top Three Best Movies Ever.

The ‘iModeler at the Movies’ Group Build has already been a greater success than I could have hoped. Inspired by Aleksander I have added this adjunct; what are your top three movies - ever? My hopes are that we can inspire some more [...]

‘A Higher Call’ – the very best of humanity in the very worst of times.

I think most people on iModeler will know of the story of Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler. On the return journey home from a bombing raid on Germany in December 1943, 20 year old pilot Charlie Brown nursed his critically injured B-17 [...]

The Royal Treatment

I’d never discovered Eduard’s ‘Royal Class’ collection before so wanted to share this gift that came my way for my birthday. Beautiful box , which is both a strange and geeky thing to say, but the line drawing and understated [...]

Friends, Americans, iModelers…(with apologies to Will Shakespeare).

As part of my 'Higher Call' diorama I was struggling with the process of making realistic working propellers (a real holy grail of aircraft modelers). The estimable David Thomas sent me a private message asking for my postal address and [...]

Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt!

Well, it's Friday, the sun is shining, the work is done, there's modeling to be done, and I came home to a nice new T-shirt. Go on, buy one, you know you want to.

“I’m telling you, Rudi, there’s something not right about that cam.."!

I like dioramas that tell a story, catch an important snapshot of time, or freeze the possibilities of our futures in one fleeting moment. I started this build as something of an answer to a challenge to build some armour, and that grew [...]

Parrots, Parachutes, and Pancakes.

A short Friday distraction to start the day. 73 years ago, almost to the day, Eduard Schallmoser climbed into his Me 262 (sometimes erroneously described as white 5 or 14, but was actually 'white 11') in response to incoming American B-26 [...]