I Built It Myself and A Couple of Talons

 

Long Ago and Far Away

Or that's how it seems, anyway. To wit: My own polystyrene journey began back in the mid-50s with a black "Messerschmitt Night Fighter", built by me and me alone while my dad was off on a remote 18 month tour at Chitose Air Base in northern Japan. I had no idea what I was doing when I began that model but I built it all by myself, which was how I learned that an excess of plastic cement would turn black plastic purple. It was fun, though, and I played with that thing until its ultimate destruction in the course of backyard dogfights, which is the usual fate for plastic models consigned to the slings and arrows, sometimes literally, of the average six year old kid. 

My next attempt at plastic modeling was Monogram's immortal, to my mind at least, "Lil' Nell", a sortof A-26B that, in its initial iteration, came with real rubber wheels, lots of rivets, and embossed markings to show where the decals went. I honestly hadn't learned much of anything from my adventures with that purple night fighter I'd built the year before, but once again I built a model all by myself and it was fun. And yes, it was played with unto destruction.

Time passed, and I built pretty much anything and everything I could get hold of that was made of plastic; birds, dinosaurs, cars, tanks, airplanes, space ships---anything as long as it was a polystyrene kit and I got to put it together. I built all of those things myself and they were fun, each and every one of them, and once again they were played with pending their untimely demises (that's a real word too; third person present tense, I believe), but I was finally beginning to keep some of my better efforts for display in my bedroom, where they were often accidentally destroyed by my mom during household dusting. What the heck; it gave me a chance to replace my battle losses and build more models!

A major milestone was dropped in my lap sometime during 1961 when I obtained a paperback copy of Pierre Clostermann's seminal The Big Show. There was controversy surrounding old Pierre's published exploits even at the time it was published, although I didn't know that, not that the knowledge would have bothered me, mind you, but the book was inspirational and caused me to build a couple of Aurora Spitfires and Fw190s, taking care to paint them (with a brush and using those little square bottles of glossy Testor enamel) in what I thought the proper colors and paint schemes would have looked like based on the descriptions provided in that tome. The resulting models looked nothing like the real thing, of course, but I built them by myself and they were fun. 

This ramble could go on and on were I so inclined, but for once in my admittedly wordy life I'm not going to do that, so let's accomplish something exceedingly rare in what passes for my world these days and get to The Point. On a personal level I've watched, and participated in, the evolution of scale models, primarily airplanes (and yes; that's a lot of commas in one place but it's also how I am so just get over your bad self, ok?), from preshaped wood to 3d printing. It's been quite a ride and each and every iteration of it has been fun, because I built all those things myself. Some were good, and a great many more ranged from highly mediocre to terrible, but the fun part never left the equation. 

I'm a modeler. I'm not a particularly good one, but at the end of the day I'm still a modeler, and most of my almost seventy-seven years on the planet have been blessed with the joy I've found in the hobby. I'm blessed, too, because I still have my mental faculties, although there are many who will actively dispute that, and I still possess the limited motor and hand-to-eye coordination skills that enable me to model, a special pleasure which I enjoy almost daily. The time will come, of course, when those skills, or what little remains of my mental abilities, or maybe both, will recede into the distant past and force me into polystyrene retirement. When that happens I'll give my tools to my friends and let the neighborhood kids have the built models I still possess. Who knows; maybe one of those kids will feel the magic and build a model too! Worse things could happen, right?

Anyway, I'm still building, and with no intention of stopping. I've got a Monogram Jaguar XK-120 on the bench right now to prove it, and I've shimmed that problematical hood that all the car guys say can't be made to properly fit, and it now fits, and properly, by golly! It's going to be a curbside model, so most of my effort will go into the assembly and painting of the thing, because that's the way I want to do it. It's been a lot of fun so far and I anticipate that it will continue to be fun until I call it finished, at which point I may well roll it across my modeling desk and make Sports Car Noises. Then I'll put it in one of the clear plastic display cases that Hobby Lobby sells for model cars and keep it until its eventual transfer to one of those neighborhood kids I mentioned before. I hope they'll play with it!

This is a model firehouse built for a friend's HO layout. The kit was horrible, because it was really old and the molds had seen far better days. It fought me every step of the way, but I built it myself and it was fun. 

And this isn't a firehouse! It's a Tamiya P-38J and it's a wonderful kit. Everything involved with constructing it just clicks and the model almost builds itself. The end end result is easy to achieve. I built it myself, and it was fun. 

I see a trend here. That trend works for me, and I hope it does for you as well. 

A Pointy Little Airplane

How about a couple of pictures of real airplanes for your edification and possible amazement? OK, maybe we aren't really talking about anything so cosmic as all that, but I like T-38s so here are a couple of pictures of some for you to look at. 

67-14926 was a T-38A I photographed at Laughlin back in April of 1985. She was from the 47th FTW and proudly wears their XL code on the very tip of her tail. She looks fast just sitting there, doesn't she?  Phillip Friddell

 

Randolph's 12th FTW explored some interesting camouflage patterns back during their mid-80s flirtation with that whole Tacti-Kool thing, as demonstrated on the ramp by 67-14946. I shot her on a gorgeous afternoon at Randolph's T-38 ramp back on 19 January, 1985. She's a beauty, but I personally prefer the plain white ones. Your mileage may vary.  Phillip Friddell

Here's a variation of the same scheme on a different airplane. She's sitting in Corrosion Control (read "paint shop" here) and was still smelling of fresh solvent when I shot her on 19 May, 1985. She's obviously another bird from the 12th, and was definitely a looker that day!  Phillip Friddell

The Air Force has used the serial numbers of their airplanes for the basis of special markings, or show bird presentations, for a great many years. In this photo 68-8112 has been made an ambassador for the 12th FTW and wears an appropriately painted travel pod to prove it. Note the way the "12th" has been pimped up on the tail too; there's no doubt where this beauty is from!  Phillip Friddell

NASA has been a long-time user of the Talon, and their famous blue cheat line works perfectly with the overall shape and proportions of the airplane. I shot this one on the ramp at NAS Corpus Christi back on 14 April, 1984 and still admire the way the airplane looks. Way to go, NASA!  Phillip Friddell

Let's close our photo essay with the organization that many once considered the penultimate operator of the the T-38; the Thunderbirds. This airplane was on the pre-show ramp at Laughlin on 14 April, 1985, which takes us back to the very beginning of this piece. My favorite Thunderbirds ship was, and probably always will be, the Hun, a love affair I've carried with me since I first saw them fly with the Super Sabre at Sheppard AFB back in 1958, but the T-38 sure has class, doesn't it?   Phillip Friddell

Under the Radar

I suppose I could review a book for you today but I'm just not feeling it right now so I'm not going to do it. Maybe next time.

Happy Snaps

Nope! We aren't doing one of those either. Second verse, same as the first: Maybe next time.

The Relief Tube

Let's do one of those! I honestly don't have any corrections to share with you for the simple reason that I haven't published anything in so long that the effort would be irrelevant. Instead, I'd like to thank everyone who's written in asking about the project and whether or not it was still alive. The answer to that is yes it is, by the way. Life has thrown some interesting curve balls my way over the past eighteen months or so but I've successfully fielded them all, at least so far. That doesn't mean I'm promising a regular schedule since A; I probably can't make that work regardless of how hard I try and B; a regularly adhered-to schedule just doesn't jibe with either the history or the tradition of the print version of this project! I'll try to do better, but chances are I might not. Let's call that Fair Warning and move on...

With all that said, I'd like very much to express my gratitude to a few folks who've stayed with me through thick and thin, consistently asking if I was ok and if was I ever going to publish RiS again. The answer to both those questions is yes, by the way, and hopefully with considerably more regularity than I've previously exhibited, although I'd also advise not holding your breath on that last one, things being what they are. I have a track record! Anyway, Norm Camou, Frank Emmett, Paul Boyer, Tom Gaj, Bill Spidle, Doug Barbier, Mark Nankivil, and so many more---thanks very much for your patience and enthusiasm, with a degree of emphasis on that patience part. I'll try to do better!

One final thing: You can still reach me at the following email address, which is rendered semi-unintelligible here in order to confuse and confound those miscreants who want me to buy their stuff or send the members of their recently deposed royal family money so they can go back to their former kingdoms in style and class. If you're a real person with good intentions rather than a scoundrel, feel free to write me at  replicainscaleatyahoodotcom. You'll have to decode the address and put the required symbols and punctuation in the correct places, but I'm taking it on faith that you can probably figure out how to do that. Optimistic, I am!

And that's it for today. With any luck we'll meet again soon, but be good to your neighbor in any event. It's the right thing to do.

phil