Which models that you have built have you seen in real life?

If you only count living, breathing machines not sitting in museums:

A-7D, A-10A, F-4D, F-15A, F-16A, OV-10A, Avro Vulcan B.Mk2, M60A1

The A-10 impressed me with its enormous size, raised rivets at the back end, and that gargantuan gun that had “Do not rotate-gun will fire” stenciled by the muzzle.

The Vulcan was something I never dreamed of seeing.  It was at an open house at Hickam AFB, parked away from the other US aircraft.  No one seemed interested in the Vulcan except for this one little kid with a Kodak Instamatic camera with only a dozen shots.  Actually I saw a Vulcan twice at Hickam, the first time it had a light grey underside, the second time it had the darker wraparound scheme.  Man how I wished I had my digital camera or smartphone!  But that was back in 1977 and 1982 I think.

The first time I saw an F-15, the thing that struck me was that the sway braces for the Sparrow missiles were big “C” shaped chunks of metal sticking perpendicular into the airstream.

I’ll remember the F-4’s thick, warm, velvety, oily and stinky black soot from the inside of the exhaust petals.  Dad said “don’t do that”, but I just had to run my finger through that gunk!

Back in the 70s I went to a small airshow in Maine at a transportation museum and they had a Spitfire that was owned by the pilot who flew it during the Battle of Nritian, a collectiom pf WWI aorcraft, all operational as well as a couple other aircraft.  Before that I went to the Air Force museumbefore they built the new quanset hut like buildings.  Back then most aircraft were outside where you could touch them.

Overall I have been around The A-7, A-10, the EC-121, C-47C-123, 124, 130 and several variants, 133, C-5A, C-141, B-52D and G, The century series, F-15, 16, OV-10A, H-43 Pedro, uh-1, H-3, H-53.  I have seen the F-84F, EB-66, V-1 Loon, and been inside of the XC-99.  That's only A.F. aircraft.

PBY, SBD, Mustang, B17G,  TBF...huge for a carrier plane, F4U, F4F, Oscar, FW190...both smaller than I thought.

Those and other warbirds at the Erickson collection.   All in airworthy condition.

Time in the Air Force was with 3 Phantom variants, B52G, and next door to the SR71.