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Interested primarily in WW II aircraft carriers in 1/700 scale, but also 1/72 aircraft, starting with carrier planes but more recently RAF and Luftwaffe as well. And hoping to get somewhere on my backlog of Star Trek kits. A scratchbuilt launch umbilical tower for my 1/200 AMT Apollo/Saturn V is my white whale.

1/72 Airfix Mosquito

This build is of an initial boxing of the old 1972 Airfix Mosquito that I picked up on a sale table. There’s a far better 2021 new tool Airfix but this is my first Mossie so thought I’d start with an easy one. I decided to finish it [...]

1/72 SBD-3 "Dauntless"Lt. Richard Best at Midway

This build is of the new Flyhawk kit, and represents the aircraft flown by Lt. Richard H. Best, commander of Bombing 6, and & ACRM(PA) J.F. Murray on the U.S.S. Enterprise (CV-6) at the Battle of Midway on 4 June 1942. On June 4, [...]

1/72 “Doolittle Raider” B-25B Mitchell

Third time's the charm. I started on a model of a B-25 Mitchell medium bomber - the plane used by the Doolittle Raiders in April 1942 - over 30 years ago, but never finished it. While at King's Hobby in Austin in the summer of 2015, I [...]

1/72 Fairey Battle Mk. 1 - Airfix

The Fairey Battle was the RAF's first monoplane light bomber built in the late 1930s. It was powered by the same Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that other British fighters - and later the U.S. P-51 Mustang - used to great success, but the [...]

Repairing the Hornet

I started this 1/700 Tamiya 1/700 U.S.S. Hornet (CV-8) in the spring of 1992 after finishing law school, and finished it the following March, complete with build info sheet. The Hornet was depicted as she appeared at the time of the [...]

1/72 TBM-3 Avenger "White 305" - VT-84, U.S.S. Bunker Hill (CV-17)February 1945

My second build of the year is a Hasegawa TBF/TBM-1C Avenger finished as "White 305" from VT-84 on the U.S.S. Bunker Hill (CV-17) during Operation JAMBOREE, the Tokyo/Honshu Raids February 1945. JAMBOREE was conceived as a [...]

C-47A - "That's All Brother"1/72 Airfix

I picked up a 1967 boxing of this 1960 Airfix 1/72 C-47 Douglas Dakota kit last month, and decided to make it my first build for 2025. I chose as my subject "That's All Brother", which led the main airborne invasion of [...]

2024 Model Builds

I completed 18 builds in 2024. They consisted of ten aircraft, two tanks, two ships, one boat, one truck, one missile, and one car. The year started with a lot of aircraft - two SBD Dauntlesses, four TBD Devastators, three IJN aircraft, [...]

Nakajima B5N2 “Kate”

I finally got the last of my three 1941 IJN aircraft across the finish line today. I built a 1989 boxing of Hasegawa's Kate as Cdr Fuchida's aircraft at Pearl Harbor, AI-301, piloted by Lt. Mitsuo Matsuzaki. Fuchida led Akagi's high [...]

1/72 Lt. Frank Luke SPAD S.XIII

I don’t even remember why I got this little SPAD - the only WW I biplane I’ve ever built was the venerable Snoopy Sopwith Camel. But after studying it online I decided I wanted to build it as Lt. Frank Luke’s aircraft when he was [...]