908 articles · 86K karma · 178 friends · active 3 hours, 55 minutes ago

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

Accurate Miniaturs B-25C/RAF Mitchell II

The North American B-25 Mitchell is one of the legendary aircraft of the Second World War. If the airplane had done nothing else but fly off the U.S.S. "Hornet" with Doolittle's Raiders to strike the Japanese homeland four and a [...]

Hasegawa 1/48 F-86E conversion

The F-86E Sabre began life as the NA-170, with initial development commencing on November 15, 1949, with a contract for 111 aircraft under the designation F-86E finalized on January 17, 1950. Externally, the F-86E was identical to the [...]

1/48 Accurate Miniatures B-25D Mitchell “Red Wrath” of the 345th Bomb Group. “Air Apaches”

I built "Red Wrath" in 2004 and rediscovered the model the other week when going through boxes that had been in storage for 10 years at the place we lived before moving here to Encino. I decided to re-photograph the model here [...]

ProModeler (Revell) 1/48 Bf-110G-4

One of the well-known "facts" regarding aviation development during the Second World War is that the Messerschmitt Bf-110 series was "a compromise in conflicting requirements, resulting in a mediocrity," with a combat [...]

Today is National Medal of Honor Day in the U.S.

Here are the citations for the Medal of Honor of people I have known or been fortunate to write about (I am currently writing about the Chosin campaign, which covers most of the USMC MoH citations, who were people I was privileged to meet [...]

This is pretty darned cool!

Rod Stewart’s Hidden Beverly Hills Railroad (link) “I pity a man who doesn’t have a hobby like this one,it’s just the most supreme relaxation,” Stewart said of the train modeling passion he’s devoted decades of his life to. [...]

Roden 1/48 Sea Gladiator

Once the Royal Navy lost control of their air arm with the consolidation of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service into the Royal Air Force in April, 1918, the service that had pioneered the naval use of aircraft and the ships [...]

Playing hookey from writing on a Thursday

"Fi-Fi," the only flying B-29 in the world (until "Doc"flies sometime this summer) is currently over at Van Nuys Airport thru Sunday. So I played hookey from writing the new book today and went over to see her. Hadn't [...]

Airfix 1/48 Spitfire XII

Now that there aren't any Spitfires on the main page I will post the kit I won last year here (random best choice award). The Airfix Spitfire XII, painted freehand with Tamiya RAF Ocean Grey, Dark Green and Sea Grey Medium, using Victory [...]

Johnny Johnson's Spitfire IXc EN398

Had not the RAF been able to bring a new Spitfire into combat in the summer of 1942 to face the Fw-190A that could outfly the Spitfire V on every point but turning circle, the war over Northern Europe would have likely taken a different [...]