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Growing up with three older brothers (and one younger sister), there was always one of us building some kind of aircraft, be it a scale plastic model or a free flight rubber band powered kit or a gas powered U-Control plane. The end of summer vacation was typically highlighted by the riding our bikes the the waterfront of Toronto and watching the Canadian National Exhibition Air-Show with memories of seeing my first Starfighter or B-52 or being able to (almost) see inside the cockpit of a banking Corsair flying by within the breakwater. By the time I graduated High School though, the model building took a back seat.

Having a itch to make 'something' and being a bit of a history nut and always loving the technical aspect of things, somehow I found my way back to scale modelling after being away for about 35 years.

Finding a community of scale modelers like iModeler is such a confidence booster and provides such great support for any hobby enthusiast.

I looking forward to completing a lot of kits in my old stash and some of the kits from recent purchases - somehow I have ended up in owning over 400 aircraft kits yet to be built - so I do have some work ahead of me and my newly acquired bifocals are ready.

1/72 CAF CT-133 Silver Star - 'Mako Shark'Hasegawa Kit A18

Here's another older kit, Hasegawa's Kit A18 T-33A 'Shooting Star' released in 1982 with original molding from 1969. Dressed as CAF CT-133 Silver Star 'Mako Shark' scheme, the original 'Mako 1' Shark Mouth scheme was applied to CAF [...]

1/72 Hawker Sea Fury FB 11Frog F221F

Scalemates shows this F221F bagged kit was released in 1969, with the original Frog mold from 1963 - before I was born - now that's OLD! I remember reading the the Sea fury was originally ordered as a simplified Hawker Tempest Mk II, they [...]

1/72 Westland WhirlwindAirfix 02064-0

I was able to sneak in another completion during an ongoing kitchen reno at my sons house and I also got to practice some more white masking with the Operation Starkey identification stripes. The 1978 Airfix kit did prove to be a decent [...]

1/72 Aichi D3A1 Val, Pearl Harbour GB

Finally got to complete this D3A1 Val as part of the 80th Anniversary Build of Pearl Harbour Attack, thanks to Lis (@Lis) for starting this GB. Info indicated the markings are of L.Cmdr. Egusa's Val 'BI-231' from the Carrier Soryu with the [...]

1/72 Ki-46 II Dinah EofJ GB

This is the LS kit Kit No. A-301:300 from 1980 ( Arii & MicroAce), Mitsubishi Ki-46-II Type 100 Commandant Reconnaissance Aircraft -or- simply known as Dinah. Built as part of the Empire of Japan GB, this was straight OOB build using [...]

P-47D Thunderbolt Razorback - HobbyBoss 80283 - 1/72

And another HobbyBoss 'Easy Assembly' kit with some ordnance borrowed from a Tamiya kit with some left over decals from Eagle Cals EC#56. THe decals allowed me to display Col. Frank Klibbe's P-47 D-15-RE Little Chief No. 1A which had [...]

P-39Q Airacobra 'Snooks 2nd' - HobbyBoss 80240 - 1/72

I tried another HobbyBoss 'Easy Assembly' kit and it was pretty easy and pretty quick, but has a few detail errors and/or missing items. It does provide me with an adequate Airacorbra for my case. This was good practice for the Academy [...]

2nd Build of 'The MiG' (F-5E), Italeri 1/72

Well...the Cowboys just lost in overtime on Thanksgiving, so I thought I'd make a post to cheer me up a bit. Not exactly 100% completed as the pilot has yet to be assigned - review pending. I liked the first 'Top Gun MiG' from June enough [...]

EofJ Inspired 1/72 Nakajima B6N2 Tenzan (Jill)Fujimi 72012 D-1

Inspired by the Empire of Japan GB, I started this kit sometime in the spring but quickly ran out of steam. Although the kit went together easily and has great scribed lines, I wasn't too happy with the front engine cowling mount and the [...]

Bf-109E-4/7 Trop - HobbyBoss 80261 - 1/72

As I haven't had too much time to build any kits lately, I was loosely following the Desert Air War Group and thought I'd add a quick little build using the Hobby Boss Bf 109E-4 Trop in 1/72. I did not have the time to update the progress [...]