29 articles · 1.7K karma · 9 friends · active 1 year, 6 months ago

Retired pilot/mechanic

The Little Yellow Cub

Memories of the J-3 Cub. There was a time during my childhood the name “Piper Cub” was pretty much synonymous with the word “airplane.” In those days, a young boy might see a C-124 passing overhead whereupon he would exclaim, [...]

The Mid Valley Flying Service Hanger, Crop Care by Air

Here is another hanger diorama, this time a small, ag operator's hanger. It's O-dark-thirty and the work day is beginning. I found this Lionel hanger on eBay for a good price, so I thought I would build it up and see what it looked like. [...]

Cropduster!

The Revell Ag-Stearman The one thing that can be said about ag planes is they ain’t pretty. Leland Snow came close with his shark-nosed, turbine air tractor, but outside of that, ag planes are some of the ugliest airplanes that ever [...]

Camera Tripod

Here is a neat, 12" miniature tripod for photographing small work. What's really neat is the bracket that holds the camera without need for the screw attachment. This feature came as a surprise and is really handy when switching [...]

Balancing weighty matters

Every mechanic can tell you stories about aircraft idiosyncrasies. Stories abound about aircraft towing and jacking incidents. I have one about how I severely injured my back lifting the wing of a C-177 RG to change a tire because we did [...]

St. Thomas – A day at the Beech

Well I finally finished it, the diorama's pièce de résistance. And boy was it ever a piece of résistance. Back in Texas, we had word for projects like this – “Snakebit.” This Beech was “snakebit.” To date, this is undoubtedly [...]

Corsair in the Palms

This superb diorama is not my work, but the work of master modeler Terry Davis who graciously consented the use of these photos. To wit: "Yeah, go ahead, I have no problem with that." This is his 1/48 Tamiya F4U-1D Corsair [...]

Cleanliness is next to 1/48 godlessness

Over the years I've spent some time cleaning up hangars, so it is not without a certain irony I find my self spending time dirtying one up. My affair with filth began a few weeks ago with seagulls. I found a few that still waiting in the [...]

The Hangar

The "Bobcat" is now in the hangar along with a number of other aircraft. The Diorama is shaping up to conclusion with the Beech at the final stages and the Goose not far off. It's been a long and interesting journey to this [...]

Cessna T-50 “Bobcat” Landing Gear Retraction Test

Something is not right with the Cessna's landing gear and a couple of mechanics have put it up on jack-stands for a gear retraction test to determine the problem, probably something to do with the jack-screws being out of alignment. I [...]