Fred Jack

I saw a standard C Wing Mk XVl a few years ago at an air show in Oklahoma City. So you could get the LF XVle kit and swap wings with the Mk lXc. Get Barracuda's Rolls Royce manifold covers and have either a lX and a XVl or two lXs. They will both be accurate.

I've heard of them and saw them in Squadron sale flyers, but assumed they were revamped Roden kits, only more expensive. Maybe someone who actually has one may come on and enlighten us. I have an extra LeRhone, and you can get pretty decent resin ones and just get the cheaper Roden Nie.11 and stick in the LeRhone to make it into a 16. I believe that was the only difference.

Here's the traitor hypocrite here. I found a Tam Stang and got it for my Barracuda Millie G decals. It'll look nice next to my Spits. I don't like giving negative comments on other's models. If they weren't proud of it, they wouldn't have posted it. I once had a full size Piper 150 that I flew. I thought of repainting it with a little paint on the edge of the windows, a center black line running down the center of the fuselage, a little paint on the edge of the tires, and even large finger prints. Only I went into the Army and sold it when I got out. I never flew again, but I never quit making model planes, even in the Army.

That was cool, man, I'm showing my age, only I never talked like that then.

Just remember, every man who went to the moon were put there by young modelers as myself with no more than a high school diploma. Something that hasn't been done since. I worked at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama during Late Apollo and retired as a technician with the US Government.

The point about people having more disposable income isn't absolutely true. Some may have, those still working. As far as this not being the sixties, and the hobby is shrinking, both are true, but the shrinking hobby doesn't have to happen. How do you think I got into modeling? I could afford models from my paper route. Why not make inexpensive models for teens? I guess there are those who want to make the modeling business unapproachable for only the rich, because if it weren't for Revell, Hase etc... It would be now. If I were to have to spend more than $150 on a kit it better be OOB without after market corrections. I don't understand why other modelers don't think that. Would you buy a car that needed after market parts before it could be driven. If companies don't keep trying to make a quick profit and run, because they really could care less that the hobby lasts or not. It's up to them to do what the companies did in the 60s.

Another thing, back decades ago, Monogram released a 1/48th P-61 in both A & B in the same box with decals for both as Wingnut Wings does today with various mods of a plane. The other companies add teaser parts or blanks showing they may or may not make another version. This proves that many companies are purely in it for the money. As was shown on TV the amount of profit the Nike owners make in China, which is why our own companies moved there, I can not be convinced that HK is not making at least a hundred percent profit.

It's been over a half century from the first 1/32 plane until the release of a P-61 and people are complaining about which version is on the market, even before it has come released in other countries. Why can't everyone just be happy with what they got? Kit manufacturers read these sites. the after market guys don't really need to read them to produce mods, but if a kit company does and builds different versions, it delays other types of aircraft from coming out like a Lockheed Hudson.

As a pre teen in the late 50s, some company released models that came with a string that you spun around to make them "fly." I built a 1/72 Walrus and decided to float it in the bath tub, but it sank. However, when it sank, it didn't just crash to the bottom, it glided. So I used to glide it in both the tub and our 10' X 3' kid's pool. Finally Lindberg came out with a 1/48th motorized Stuka. My dad helped me waterproof the motor, switch and battery, then he put enough weight to counter the air pockets produced by the process. He added a little left rudder. We'd put it into the pool and let it "fly". Sometimes it hit the side, but depending on how it crashed, it sometimes took off. I flew it until the battery died. I often wonder, with electronic devices miniaturized today, someone might try putting motors and servos in their models and occasionally take them off their displays and giving them what planes were designed for.

Maybe this could be a comment of a traitor, since I'm an American Vietnam Veteran, but I like Spitfires better than Mustangs.

The problem I have is I LOVE MY OLD MONOGRAM MUSTANG. You can't bomb your Italier Sherman with a Tamiya Mustang. Besides I'm old. If I try to count the rivets and go get a coffee, I have to start over. My biggest problem is, when I finally finish, I don't know whether it's the right amount as the real thing. But every Mustang I ever built was too small. I can't even see the birds's nests in the scoop under the prop hub.

I know Richard put her picture on his plane in love and devotion, and he possibly legally owned the picture, but when he died, his wife now owned it. Instead of stopping it, she probably could have sued for royalties, having not signed a release for her photo.

It doesn't seem that long ago, to me when there were as many 1/32nd planes as there is 1/24th planes now. I guess, quantity wise, 1/32 is the new 1/48th scale, and 1/24th is the new 1/32nd scale. I find that a sign that as the majority of us old farts die off, the plastic model hobby will go with us.

Heck, I once got away with marking and painting a 109 like an Albatross D.Va, claiming the same pilot had flown both. my model club was amazed.

I got thinking, which is always dangerous, when I saw Marge, Richard Bongs P-38. Since the plane had a picture of his wife on it, and she is an actual person, shouldn't she have received money for the use of her pictures that were made for profit by modeling and decal companies?

It was a very wet time in '44 when everyone was bored when Maj E Gillair thought of the scheme and talked the crew chiefs into painting all of the Squadron that scheme. They didn't have all of the planes done when the group commander showed up. He stopped it but didn't have the completed planes stripped, just no more would be done. Gilliar wished he had copy written his scheme when Revell had released the Millie G.

I also remember when it was thought that the Millie G's rear fuselage was thought as red and that version was released in 1/72. It was then I asked Jim Marine.

I remember some kids tying a long rope to their wagons and loop the rope around the landing gear legs and hold onto the end. As the plane gain speed, they would let go of the rope, which would slide off the leg. Only once the rope got caught, and the kid had to bail. We don't know how long the wagon stayed with the plane. Maybe it even ended up a twisted pile of metal or pieces when the plane, a DC-6 landed. The kid got pretty bruised up so no one did that again.

I remember, when I was a teen, we could walk anywhere at any airport and walk around any airplane we found interesting. We just have to be careful while crossing runways. The most fun was running behind either a Connie, Super Connie, or a Strato Liner as they taxied to the runway. When they reached the runway we would brace ourselves as they powered up their 4 engines for takeoff and we would see who could remain standing the longest.

One thing that a lot of people aren't aware of is that repeated camera flashes damage fabric. If you go to the Smithsonian Air And Space Museum or The Wright Paterson Museum, fabric covered aircraft are in dimly lit displays. Many metal aircraft before the 50s had fabric control surfaces at least. Hmm, maybe I am related to Steffen.

I'm not related to Stephan, but I did send a friend request, but now that it has been mentioned and I am a Chippewa Indian, maybe I could pull out my Bowie and offer to make him my blood brother.

You young guys are so spoiled. Back in the day, there was no Internet. All models only approximated scale. If you wanted to research a German plane, the reference books were written in German, Japanese planes in Japanese. The USA and the Allies couldn't get Russian or Chinese references. All reference books were in a library and could not be checked out. To get to the library we had to walk 10 miles uphill both ways barefoot in the snow with 80 mph winds in a full blizzard with freezing rain at 40 degrees below zero because it was too cold to hitch the horses.

I'm not a micrometer user when it comes to different companies. I love my old Revell kit. I've had many issues in Trumpeter that didn't take a ruler to see, forcing me to do more than modeling to correct. It's like they make their planes 1/32, but the entire cockpits 1/35 or 1/48, forcing me to buy entire after market cockpits etc... I'd go with Revell or 21C. I really never noticed my Stuka was 1/35th? as long as it was larger than my 109s.

I'm very curious because of comments like Bit O Lace can't be used because the HK kit doesn't have the right modifications for that particular 17. How many people on this forum would even know the difference? I know I sure wouldn't.

Why not the "Belle", after all it is the most famous B-17, E, F, or G. No one can really say it's been overdone with only one 1/72nd scale, and one 1/48th scale. True in both scales, it was the only 17F modeled, but there has never been one done in 32nd. The problem I have is that my daughters don't appreciate having their kids seeing big nude women decals on my planes.