85 articles · 47.4K karma · 50 friends · active 5 days, 11 hours ago

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)

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 [...]

US Navy Spitfire on D-Day: Eduard 1/48 Spitfire Mk. Vb

This build starts with a story that I read in the British magazine "Flypast". I had never heard this story, and it was so cool that I couldn't resist building a model to represent the Spitfires in the story. So, first is the [...]

USAF F-86E Record-Setter: 1/48 Italeri F-86E

This is the fourth of four F-86s that I have built for the "F-86 Sabre and FJ Fury Group". I chose the Italeri 1/48 F-86E for this build, which actually comes from the old ESCI molds from 1979. The biggest problem with this kit [...]

F-86E(M) Honduras Air Force: Airfix 1/72 F-86E(M)Sabre and Fury Group Build

This is Sabre #3 that I have built for the Sabre and Fury Group Build. I usually never build more than 1 model of a given type of airplane, and I usually never build more than one at a time, so this group build has launched me into new [...]

QF-86F Sabre Aerial Target: Airfix 1/48 F-86F-40 Sabre

Hi Everyone: This is my second F-86 that I have built for the F-86 Sabre and FJ Fury Group. I plan to do one more Sabre before I call it quits on Sabres for a while. This is also my second all-NMF Sabre. Prior to these two NMF Sabres I [...]

Hellenic Air Force F-86E(M) Sabre: 1/48 Academy F-86F Sabre

When I arrived at Williams AFB in 1976 for my first day of Air Force pilot training, I was greeted by an immaculate F-86 that was the gate guard at the time. The F-86 has been one of my most favorite planes since then. Spiros (@fiveten), [...]

Tamiya 1/72 F-16CJ50 Years of YGBSM

I don't build models of many modern planes, but Erik (@airbum) asked me if I would participate in his "F-16 at 50" group, so I jumped in with a 1/72 model I had of an F-16CJ. I really had no idea what an F-16CJ was, so it was [...]