46 articles · 4.7K karma · 14 friends · active 12 minutes ago
I'll build anything, but primarily WWII Navy aircraft, with a particular interest in transition aircraft from just prior to the war starting - the stuff that was obsolete but went to war anyway.
The Brewster SB2A joined the Navy in 1943, but had so many deficiencies that it never served in combat. It was considered "under-powered and poorly constructed" and was only used for training by the Navy and Marines. But since [...]
Built from 1928-1935, with tube steel fuselage, wood wings with fabric covering, ailerons of corrugated aluminum. The US Navy began heavily investigating the tactic of dive bombing in the 1920s and 1930s. Of aircraft in current service at [...]
In researching the origins of US Navy/Marine dive bombing, I ran across this little gem of a story:
In early 1919, a United States Marine Corps (USMC) JN-4 was credited with executing a "dive bombing" attack during the United [...]
I suspect that most people who build model airplanes are very familiar with the famous Vought F4U Corsair fighter from WWII and Korea. Likewise, many are familiar with the A7 Corsair II which served the US Navy and later the Air National [...]
Airco DH-4B "Liberty"
The DH-4 entered service in WWI with England in 1917 and was built entirely of wood construction. After US entry into the war, several companies began building DH4s in US, with changes including the [...]
I ran across this little beauty in the hobby store and just had to have it. I recently finished (and posted the article for) the Cutty Sark clipper, and after all that tedious rigging I decided this would be a nice break. It is a [...]
A friend asked me to build a ship, so I selected this well-known Revell kit of the Cutty Sark. The Cutty Sark is possibly the most universally-known ship on the planet. It was built in 1869 to carry tea from China, and later hauled wool [...]
In doing research on the history of dive-bombing, I discovered that the venerable old Curtiss JN-4 actually did service in combat zones, specifically with the US Marines in Haiti around 1920. I was taken by the camoflage scheme and [...]
I took a break from stringing biplanes to build this wonderful kit, Revell's PV-1 Ventura. The kit was marked "Korea 2011" and went together like a dream. All the seams had a nice tight fit, so very little bodywork was needed. [...]
In a previous article, I presented my collection of 1/48 model dive-bombers that served with the Navy in WWII (SBC-3, SB2U, SBD-3, SB2C-3). In this article, I go back in time from there to the mid-1930s to present two aircraft that were [...]
