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I am twice-retired. I retired as an Air Force pilot (C-141) & instructor pilot (T-37, C-141) in 1993. I spent the next 20 years teaching high school social studies & also as an adjunct instructor at a local junior college. I retired from high school teaching in 2015 & taught my last college class in the spring 2016 semester. I currently teach two adult education classes each semester for a local school district. I began modelling when I was a kid and continued until the 1980s when my flying began to make my modelling time nonexistent. This trend actually got worse when I became a teacher. Now that I have time to model again, I find myself trying to sort through the many new techniques & tools available now. Over the years I kept buying kits, but not building them because they were easier to move while still unbuilt in the box. So now I have a two-car garage completely filled with unbuilt airplanes, armor, ships, space ships, and a few cars. I am now building my way through this cache of thousands while still selectively buying new kits. I am also two-thirds complete on an HO Scale train layout and I just started a small N Scale layout. :o)

Phoney WarMorane MS.406C-1 Dora Wings 1/48

Having taught history for 20 years, it is sometimes fun to find and build a model that is appropriate for a specific time period. The La Drôle de Guerre / The Phoney War Group presented an interesting, and limited, time period for some [...]

Phoney War Bristol Blenheim Mk.IAirfix 1/48

I built this kit for the Phoney War Group (thanks, Felix @fxrob). I have been wanting to build the 1/48 Airfix kit for the Bristol Blenheim Mk.1, so a little research confirmed that the Blenheim took part in the Phoney War. In my [...]

1/48 FW-189A-1/A-2 Great Wall Hobbies

A few months ago, I built an ICM 1/72 FW-189C/V-6 and enjoyed it so much that I wanted to build a 1/48 version of the FW-189A. Shortly after, I found the 2024 Great Wall Hobbies kit for the FW-189A-1/A-2 on sale at one of the online hobby [...]

1/25 Revell Mustang Mach 1: Diamonds Are Forever

I'm not a car guy, and you can count the number of car models I have built on one hand. But I am a fan of James Bond, especially the early, Sean Connery films. I am old enough that I read all of the Ian Fleming books long before the [...]

1/72 Valom Vickers Wellesley

I have a soft spot for early war British bombers. I bought this kit many years ago and have always hesitated to build it because it is a prime example of the old school limited run kit. It kept calling me from its home on a shelf in the [...]

Added to the Display Case in 2024

It has become somewhat traditional on iModeler to finish off our modeling year with a look back at the models we have added to the display shelf. It is fun to look back because I often forget many of the kits I have completed. I seem to [...]

Unarmed Fokker Dr.1 Trainer: 1/28 Revell Fokker Dr.1 Triplane

Hi, everyone. I built this model for the "The Great War: A Tribute to Those Who Served" Group. I don't build biplanes, so my first contribution to the group was an armored car. When the ground machine was done, I thought I [...]

ICM 1/72 Fw-189C

I was looking for something I could build in parallel with the 1/28 Revell Triplane I was working on, and this model popped up on sale at one of the online hobby stores. Even though I prefer models in a larger scale, this one looked so [...]

Arma Hobby 1/72 FM-2 Wildcat

I have reached an age where the parts in 1/72 kits are both too small to see and assemble, so I don't normally stray into the smaller scale kits. I recently received this Arma Hobby 1/72 FM-2 as a gift from my friend Bernard (@lis), so I [...]

Garford-Putilov Armoured Car, 1/35 scale

First, let me say that I build airplanes, so this model was way out of my wheelhouse. When Louis (@lgardner) created this group, I thought it might be fun to jump into the group with something other than my usual airplane model. I have a [...]