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Hey guys & gals, So I've been lurking here for longer than I'd like to admit, it took me years to even create a profile, much less comment and post. Mine is a common story, mid-40's guy who modeled into his teens and rediscovered the hobby once life becomes a little more settled. I've always had a passion for history and my dream as a kid was to be a fighter pilot (dashed by my poor eyesight). Once I realized that wasn't going to work out I ended up getting my kicks elsewhere, working professionally in snowboarding and skateboarding for almost 20 years. But that passion for history, most notably the air war in WWII, regardless of theater, was merely laying dormant. Cue to about a year ago, when life finally got out of the way enough that I managed to start pulling together some basic modeling tools so I could get myself back into the hobby. It's been slow going, as life still gets in the way more often than not, but I now have all the basic stuff I need, and then some. I even have a modest stash of about 4 kits, 2 of which are LSP's (Hasegawa P-47D and Revell P-51D-5). Sadly, I haven't gotten around to them yet, as I wanted to re-hone my skills on some cheaper, smaller kits before committing fully to "manscale". So far I've built three kits, popped my cherry with a Tamiya Mk. Vb Spit in 1/48, followed by an ancient Hasegawa P-38 in 1/72 that I found in my parents' attic after 30+ years and now this 1/48 Tamiya F4U-1A, which I built for my dad seeing as it's his favorite plane. Just wrapped this thing a couple of days ago, this whole project entailed a number of firsts for me: first time scratch-building, first time using the hairspray technique, first time black basing, first time wiring up a radial, and so it's only fitting this is my first time ever posting one of my models anywhere. Needless to say, considering the talent at hand on this site, I hope my work is up to par. So without further ado here's Big Hog, Tommy Blackburn's machine during his time as CO of Fighting-17, based on Ondonga, November 1943. Hope you guys like it, can't wait to get my grubby mitts on an LSP in the near future! More pics in the next post...