The best model I ever built was a 1/72nd F-4 Blue Angels Phantom on a TV tray while watching Marshall Dillon on "Gunsmoke" in 1967. Covered in sloppy decals, an blobs of Pactra tube glue.....she was my first one. An the best part of it......I built her with my Dad. I wish I still had that bluebird. Then, I joined the U.S. Army at 17, (1978) bought a Monogram 1/32nd Stug IV at the PX, an followed this guy named Shep Pain's advice to build a diorama. For the next 13 yrs I got real good at 1/35 Panzers. Then came "Mid-life", a bad divorce, (she got the modeling workshop)
![Sad [:(]](/FSM/CS/emoticons/icon_smile_sad.gif)
and I moved to the middle of nowhere Alaska. My hobbies were hunting & fishing.......but on trips to Anchorage, I picked up copies of Fine Scale Modeler magazine. Just something to read to my dog on a -60 night. Thats when I started to get the itch again. Next came the mail orders to the Sqadron Shop. It was all downhill from there. Now it's 1/48 Luftwaffe fighters of the RVD at the tailend of WW II . So, I'm converting a Hasagawa 109 G-10 into a G-14AS for my first "fix" in 12 yrs. My plan is to build a series of memorials to those unknown fallen eagles whom history has overlooked. They must have been KIA, not Aces, & not officers. Ordinary "joes" were heros too. So I'm learning about resin & photo-etched things an new techniques. A lot has changed in the last 12 yrs. I will have questions for you Luftwaffe Experten out there. I might even have a tip or two for you guys. After all, a lot of good came out of that stringy old Pactra tube glue.