176 articles · 66.9K karma · 201 friends · active 2 days, 10 hours ago

I'm a retired Lieutenant Fire Fighter / EMT. Prior to working as a Firefighter, I also served in Law Enforcement for several years.

In following with our long line of family military service, dating all the way back to 1776, I'm a US Army veteran (tanker). I served mostly in the M-60A1 and eventually the M1-A1 series tanks. I was a crew member in the Abrams only for a short while.

My Dad was kind of like "Lt. Dan" from the movie Forrest Gump. Fortunately dear old Dad broke our "family curse" of having members killed in every major conflict that the United States has ever had. My Dad was wounded in the Korean War, and thankfully he was not killed. Otherwise I wouldn't be here if he was. I accidentally happened some years later...

My other hobbies include restoring old "Mopar" muscle cars from the late 1960's and early '70s. I also enjoy building aircraft in 1/48 & 1/32 scale, along with 1/35 Armor. I especially like the WW2 stuff. Lately I have been gravitating towards the First World War 1/32 scale aviation kits though...

I built my first model (Revell 1/32 P-40 "Flying Tigers" version) when I was 8 years old. I currently have about 700 kits ( of which about 1/4 are built).

Hellcat theme 1/48 Hasegawa F6F-5 David McCampbell

As a continuation of the recent Hellcat themed articles, here's another one for your enjoyment tonight. This is "Minsi III", F6F-5 bureau number 70143. This is the plane in which he scored the last 23.5 kills of his 34 [...]

Revell 1/32 Spitfire MK 1, No. 54 Squadron, Pilot Officer “Al” Deere June 1940 B.O.B.

Here's a little article on the old (and I do mean old for a model) Spitfire Mk.1 that was initially released by Revell back in the year 1969 or so. This is a re- release of the kit from approximately 1990. It's kit number 4555. I built [...]

October Imodeler “Random Award”

I want to take this time and thank the staff of Imodeler. I was chosen as the lucky winner for the month of October for the random award. I had by chance joined Imodeler earlier that month. Since then I have made some new friends and [...]

1/32 Revell F4F-4 Wildcat, Lt Cdr John Thatch, VF-3 USS Yorktown, Midway June 4, 1942

Tonight's article is about a 1/32 scale Wildcat model that I built just before the Ki-43 in my previous post. It's the Revell re-boxing of the old Monogram kit, (which I think in turn was originally a Revell release back in the late 60's [...]

1/32 Hasegawa “Oscar” Ki-43 II Otsu 77th Sentai

Tonight is an article about a model that I built about 10 years ago. It's Hasegawa kit number 08053. It was a really nice kit to build. Simple and easy to construct, with enough detail to keep you happy. The only thing I didn't like was [...]

Tamiya 1/48 FW-190 F-8 of I. / SG 2 NASM aircraft

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Holiday and that you were able to spend time with family members and friends. Hopefully by now you are relaxing and enjoying the rest of the day. Speaking of friends, here is an article about the [...]

1/48 Tamiya FW-190 D-9 “Lt Oscar Romm” IV/JG 3 Sturm

Tonight's article is on a kit that I built many years ago sometime around the year 2000. It's the Tamiya model FW-190"D-9" . Oscar Romm was a Luftwaffe "Experten" who is credited with 92 kills. 82 of these were from [...]

1/48 Hobbycraft F8F Bearcat “Gulfhawk 4” Al Williams

Here tonight is another Hobbycraft Bearcat. This one is finished in the colors of Al Williams plane the "Gulfhawk 4". The Gulfhawk 4 was a civilian version of the F8F Bearcat and was called a G-58. Only two G-58's were built. [...]

Hobbycraft 1/48 Grumman F8F Bearcat Blue Angels “Beetle Bomb”

Here are some photos of my version of the "Beetle Bomb" Blue Angels plane. The original "Beetle Bomb" was a North American SNJ that was painted to resemble a Japanese Zero. Beetle Bomb was incorporated into the Blue [...]

Two models 1/48 Hasegawa Bf-109 G “Erich Hartmann”

Tonight as promised are the last two models from my "109" assembly line. These are painted as Bf-109 G's that were flown by the all time highest scoring ace in the world... ever. Erich Hartmann was credited with 352 kills. No [...]