45 articles · 15.9K karma · 27 friends · active 8 hours ago
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.
One thing for sure, Westland’s Wyvern won’t win any beauty contests. It’s a real ungainly beast. Nor does it have the graceful curves of the mythological, two legged dragon for which it was named. But it does have a forked tail of [...]
Plenty has been written on these iModeler pages about the history of the Douglas TBD-1 Devastator. Let’s just say that this wasn’t one of Douglas’s finer achievements. All fifteen TBD’s of VT-8 were shot down during the battle of [...]
The de Havilland Hornet/Sea Hornet used wooden construction techniques pioneered by the Mosquito. The aircraft was to conduct Royal Navy Air Service long range fighter operations against Japan. The war ended before the Hornet reached [...]
I built this 1/48 Hobby Boss Brazilian EMB-314 Super Tucano about 4 years ago or so. I think this plane is a strong candidate for one of the most attractive aircraft currently in production and deserves a little attention.
The Super [...]
The internet is awash with Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate (Frank) kits in all scales and brands. Judging by the multitude of completed Hayate photos out there, it seems to me this well designed fighter is just as popular as the Zero, the only other [...]
I may as well jump in on this bandwagon honoring the 75th anniversary of VJ Day that marked the end of fighting in the PTO. Here's my tribute to Ike Kepford who was the Navy's highest scoring WWII F4U ace with 16 victories. I built this [...]
The P-51H was the last and a completely different version of the Mustang, redesigned in an effort to reduce weight and increase speed. Tom Cleaver built this Modelsvit kit back in January and has the P-51H’s history down plus some good [...]
For my second shelter in place build, I decided to go with George Welch’s P-40B Warhawk.
I presume most of you iModeler flyguys have already built squadrons of early Warhawks or Tomahawks by now and/or are familiar with the history of [...]
Here’s my first shelter-in-place build:
This P-51D (Eduard’s “Frenesi” boxing) represents the very first marking of “Big Beautiful Doll”. There were six different “Doll” schemes painted on the two Mustangs flown by Col. [...]
The Battle of Britain proved that the Hawker Hurricane Mk.I’s days as a front line fighter were numbered. Along came the improved Hurricane Mk IIA series in 1942 with the ability to use newly developed interchangeable wings. The [...]
