Let's Get Started

Well, here we go. I have finally launched this thing after talking about it for way too long. So now that it is actually started, what to entertain you with?

First of all, this whole blog is for my plastic model building so the subject of course will be related. However, I firmly believe that modeling is very closely tied with art and history. Through creating the artwork out of the kit, we can teach and or represent a specific time in history. The movie, Night at the Museum talks about the place being where "history comes alive." I would like to think that through model making, history can come alive.

We are going to start by taking you through the construction of a couple of F-111's as part of the Aircraft Resource Center group build. The group build starts on May 1 so starting then we will be posting progress of the research and build process.

The two 'varks to be built are an F-111B and the other an F-111F both in 1/72 scale.

The B I have been threatening to do for years. I have all the parts (minus the nose) and got run off when:
1) I got a good reference book (Naval Fighters Number Forty One - Grumman F-111B Swingwing) and found out about all the differences in the various aircraft that were produced. for example, some were about two feet longer than others and some had higher cockpits to allow for that nose angle. This model will require very specific research to complete correctly. I think I am there but continue to pound the reference material (which is the first step in any good model building).
2) I also found that there are really no good models and no good resin pieces for the conversion. As you will see, most of the model can be built out of kitbashing a couple of Hasegawa kits, but the nose is going to be a different story.

The F-111F on the other hand has a superb kit to build from in the Hasegawa 1/72 scale series. I probably wont add any resin or goodies to this one as it will be an in flight, wings back model depicting the aircraft that was shot down over Libya, April 16th, 1986 - Operation El Dorado Canyon. I will leave the story about that one later. Let me just say this though, the War on Terror did not start on 9/11/01, it started a long time before that. I will argue it was 1979 in the desert of Iran, but you be the judge.