Werner Voss Fokker F.1
Done several years ago, the Roden 1/32 Fokker F.1 kit.
Yes, I worship at the Church of the Green Cowl and White Rudder. 🙂
According to my mother, the first word I said was "airplane" ("oh-pane") at around 11 months of age when a P-38 flew over the park we were in. I've had a love affair with airplanes and the people who are involved with airplanes ever since, which has become my career as an aviation historian and author.
I built my first model, a Strombecker all-wood P-80 (that dates me!) at age 6, after watching my father build other wood models for me. I quickly graduated to plastic models when I found Mr. Twist's Fix-It Shop on South Gaylord Street in Denver, with its corner shelves full of wondrous kit boxes. I built my first biplane (a Hawk Models Nieuport 17 - still available from Testors) before I was old enough to know that "biplanes are hard." With time out in the 1960s after graduating from high school for the Navy and college and "The Sixties" I returned to the hobby in 1970 and haven't left since.
I became a screenwriter in Hollywood in the 1980s, after first getting published as an aviation author in the 1970s in Air Enthusiast Quarterly. I love the fact that William Green, who wrote the first "serious aviation book" (All The World's Aircraft 1954) that I got my father to buy for me was the first person to publish me. I've flown the back seat of an F-4E Phantom for an article on the Wild Weasels in Air Force Magazine, and had 20 minutes stick time in Jim Nissen's 1918 Curtiss JN-4D Jenny back in 1979 for an article in Plane and Pilot, and been in everything in between over the past 47 years. When I worked in politics in Sacramento during the 1970s, I was a member of a club that flew Stearman N747JR (we called ourselves in as "Boeing 747 Junior") and got around 100 hours in that fun machine.
I'm one of the original members here of iModeler, and consider it the best model club on the planet.
Author of "Fabled Fifteen: The Pacific War Odyssey of Carrier Air Group 15", "Pacific Thunder: the Pacific War from Wake island to Leyte Gulf," "Tidal Wave: From Leyte Gulf to Tokyo Bay," "The Frozen Chosen: The First Marine Division and the Battle of Chosin Reservoir," "Holding The Line: the Naval Air Campaign in Korea," and "MiG Alley: The US Air Force in Korea - 1950-53" which will be released on November 26.
My most recent book, "Clean Sweep: VIII Fighter Command Against the Luftwaffe 1942-45" will be published by Osprey on May 23.
My wife of 27 years finally escaped Parkinson's on February 20 and sailed west to the unknown land beyond the sunset where she once again paints seascapes with her friends, her cats.
You can order all of them here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Thomas+McKelvey+Cleaver&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
Eduard Fokker D.VII “The Seven Swabians”
There is nothing known about the pilot. This airplane, which is only known through two photos (fortunately of the two sides, since they are different). This airplane is guessed to be an OAW-built D.VII "The Seven Swabians" is [...]
Review: Pilot Replicas 1/48 SAAB J21A-3
During the Second World War, Sweden was cut off from the ability to procure modern foreign fighter aircraft as had been done prior to 1940 to equip Flyvapnet, the Swedish Air Force. Thus, it was decided to develop a domestic design for a [...]
Tamiya 1/48 Me-262s
I wasn't particularly happy with the Tamiya Me-262 kits when they came out 12 years ago. Tamiya managed to drop the slats and drop the flaps on their Bf-109E, but they couldn't do it on their Me-262? To this day, the Monogram kit is [...]
Airfix 1/72 Hurricane I "ragwing" – early and standard
The Hawker Hurricane was the first monoplane fighter adopted by the Royal Air Force since the Bristol M.1C Scout of World War I, and was also the first fighter in RAF service capable of exceeding 300 m.p.h. The airplane was evolutionary, [...]
Special Hobby 1/48 Firefly Mk.V
During the last year of the Second World War, the Fairey Firefly F.R.I had proven itself the best British designed carrier strike aircraft used in the conflict. With the end of the war and the need to get rid of the U.S. carrier aircraft [...]
Bill Bosworth's amazing 1/32 scratchbuilt D3A-1 "Val"
Here's the most recent masterpiece from Bill Bosworth. A 1/32 scratchbuilt D3A-1 Val dive bomber. Done as one of the Vals that was shot down at Pearl Harbor.
Airplane porn!
Some shots taken in 1997-98 with the Collings Foundation's B-24, back when she was painted as "All American"
Airfix 1/48 Hurricane I (trop)
Following the success of the Battle of Britain, the RAF could allow the Hurricane to be sent to other theaters. The defense of Malta had been so important that a squadron had been diverted to that island at the height of the Battle of [...]
Tamiya 1/48 Lancaster B.III (Special) “Grand Slam”
Little needs to be said about the Lancaster, one of the truly legendary “greats” of the Second World War. A product of brilliant improvisation when the twin-engine Manchester proved underpowered and unreliable, Avro took the airplane [...]
