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I’ve been building models since a wee boy, minus a long gap between 18 and 40, thanks to my late uncle Paul who worked for Revell in Venice, CA in the 50's - 60’s and, later, AMT models. In those days, the family Christmas tree was always loaded with kits underneath much to my delight, but it drove my mother nuts who viewed them as dust collectors, sadly enough.
I used to be a self-employed graphic artist/writer who has always been a fan of aviation art. I’ve designed logos and images for air museums all over the U.S. as well as illustrated a line of WWII warbird t-shirts that made the rounds in air museum gift shops and aviation catalogs. Many of my built models provided the inspiration for those designs.
I laid myself off a couple of years ago and decided to call it a day and enjoy life and build models for fun. My wife and I are proud parents of two adult daughters, both married to Costa Ricans (!) so we spend a fair amount of time there. Our home headquarters are in Santa Cruz, California.
DISCLAIMER: I’ve never piloted a plane but I have sat in a P-51.
The Cavalier Turbo Mustang III (Enforcer) prototype was a piston driven aircraft based on a Cavalier modified P-51D platform specifically re-designed for ground attack against guerrilla insurgencies and similar COIN operations. In 1968 [...]
My wife and I enjoyed three delightful weeks in Argentina, December 2023. While in Buenos Aires, I made a point of visiting the Museo Nacional de Aeronáutica, dedicated to the history of the Argentine Air Force aka: Fuerza Aérea [...]
In 1941 construction began on the new Santa Barbara Municipal Airport on California’s southern coastline 7 miles west of the city in the town of Goleta. The airport is almost smack dab on the beach facing the Pacific Ocean and the [...]
Jim Sullivan’s “F6F Hellcat in Action” Squadron book features a Don Greer profile of Hellcat F6F-3 “white 13” of VF-16 that flew from the USS Lexington CV-16 in December of 1943. I chose to model this particular aircraft for the [...]
I’ve had this 1/48 DML/Trimaster Ta 154 H-0 in my stash since the early 90’s. The Jerry Crandall GB finally got me off my keister to get going on this because I also had EagleCal’s Ta 152 H #133 sheet already in the decal dungeon [...]
All I can say is “wow”! What a superb air museum this place has evolved into. I’d venture to say this is the best collection west of the US Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson in Dayton, Ohio. Not surprisingly there are many [...]
Hawker Aircraft is now a century old, so for this GB celebration build I chose Hasegawa’s venerable Typhoon Mk Ib Bubbletop kit that’s been sitting on my Shelf of Doom since the late 90’s when it was issued and I just had to have [...]
I’m by no means a Star Wars fanboy or have any Star Wars doo dads in my work cave and office nor have I watched one episode of the new Mandalorian series. Along with my future wife, I did join the jubilant sidewalk party while waiting in [...]
Arriving too late at the end of WWII to see any real combat, the Hawker Tempest II proved its mettle in the Far East and Middle East circa 1948. When the British left India in 1947, the bulk of the remaining RAF Tempests left behind were [...]
The DB-7B/Boston Mk III was the exported British version of the Douglas A-20C mid-1941. So many Bostons were modified and assembled on British airfields and elsewhere that it can be difficult to pinpoint the actual airframe model just by [...]
