I will be 70 in Febuary (2017). I am reviving a childhood hobby of builiding plastic model airplanes (and ships). I am a lawyer (work for municode--www.municode.com for over 40 years and am an expert on local government matters.). I live in Tallahassee FL. I am resurrecting my old hobby for my sanity. My wife (who I married late in life) died in 2013 of ovarian cancer (she lived 13 years with it--with the initial diagnosis at stage three--I am proud of her as she beat the odds). Anyway, while I have stepdaughters, they are out of town. About all I have to do is work; hence the new hobby; my doctor told me I needed to get a hobby.
I am approaching this in stages. The first stage is I am building airplanes to hang from the ceililng in my office. It has the drop down ceilings and it is easy to hang a plane using fishing line. Becuse of this, I intend to not (initially) do as much detail as I might (also skill level is low). While I will put a pilot in the model, I will not do much with instrucment panels, etc.--might not even put them in.
I am about to complete a SR-71 (testors 1:48). (Back in the 1980's I bought a lot of models in anticipation of retirement.) Because I kept them in non climate controlled areas, the decals on the SR-71 fell apart when I tried to transfer them to the plane. I think this may not be important because 'at altitutude' you would not seen them. I painted the model flat black. Because my skills are not sufficient at this time to do the canopy, I painted it all black then went back and used clear nail polish on the areas that were supposed to be glass. I have seen a SR-71 in Mobile AL and know the glass is very dark.
Eventually I will build a P-3, P-39 (which my dad--who died in 2014 at age 91--was a mechanic for in W.W. II in England--they went to France on D-day +2) to honor him. I will also building a P-47 (which was the main fighter of his squadon) and a P-2 (P-2V neptune)---My dad was a flight engineer on a P-2 in the Naval Reserves (VP 741 and 743) for 30 yrs. During the Cuban missle crisis his plane flew over Cuba. (The only Neptune I can find is for the Japanese self defense forces. I will build it and get standard navy decals for it.)
I look forward to learning to be a better modeler through this forum.