In the Spring of 2019 I made the trip to Dayton Ohio in order to attend WrightCon and to visit the Museum of the United States Airforce. My collective 6+ hours in the museum felt incredibly rushed because there is simply too much to look at. The report of my USAF Museum visit also seems incredibly rushed because I tried to fit it all into one post. I could easily make individual posts about the airplanes that stood out. One of those ‘stand out’ airplanes was the RF-86 “Haymaker” Sabre.
What is an RF-86 Sabre?
The RF-86 is a variant created from the F-86F Sabre. This was a conversion that turned a tactical fighter into a strategic reconnaissance aircraft. The guns and gun sight were removed and camera equipment was installed in the gun bay. Due to the size of the equipment and film canisters, some large fairings had…
It came in yesterday with the Beaufighter, Tamiya masking tapes and extra-thin cement.
I don’t have to build the P-38 because just having it for now is enough for the time being. I don’t even have to open the box just reading and marvel at what’s inside.
I have now changed how I view my stash since it has grown a lot since 2019. I will now consider my stash as my collection of model airplanes.
I thought two years-ago that it was a great idea to have a to-do list of what I have in my collection, especially when Amazon was always putting on adds whenever I was opening my computer and going on the Internet.
I was hoping that I could be avoiding going on another spending spree, and planning ahead on my next builds by setting up some priorities… Well I was being wrong and I was keeping adding more model kits in my collection. This is now the updated listing of model kits with those recently bought in red.
Helicopters (3)
Monogram (3)
AH-1S (almost completed many years ago)
Bell Huey Hog (bought many years ago)
AH-64 Apache (started many years ago)
Planes (63)
ICM (3)
Ju 88 A-14 (bought on January 20, 2020 and started on December 18, 2022)
Do 17Z-2 (bought on January 21, 2020)
Ju 88 C-6 (bought on January 21, 2020)
Airfix (2)
Boulton-Paul Defiant (bought in 2018)
Battle of Britain and Hawker Hurricane Mk 1 (bought in 2018)
Eduard (12)
P-39 (bought in December 2019)
Spitfire Mk IX (bought in December 2019)
F6F Hellcat Weekend edition (bought in January 2020)
Spitfire Mk XVI Weekend edition (bought in January 2020)
Me 110 E (bought in January 2020)
Me 109 G-4 (bought in February 2020)
FW 190 D (bought in March 2020)
Me 109 E-3 (bought in March 2020)
FW 190 A-4 (bought in March 2020)
FW 190 A-8 (bought in March 2020)
Hawker Tempest Mk V (bought in June 2020)
P-51 D (bought in June 2020)
Tamiya (14)
Bristol Beaufighter Mk VI (bought many years ago)
Hawker Harrier (bought in the 1990s)
de Havilland Mosquito (bought in 2018)
P-47 M (bought in 2019)
F4U-1/2 Corsair (bought in August 2019)
F4U-1D Corsair with tug (bought in 2019)
Me 262 (bought in December 2019)
FW 190D (bought in January 2020)
IL-2 Sturmovik (bought in February 2020)
Bristol Beaufighter TFX (bought in June 2020)
P-38 F/J (bought in 2022)
P-51B
P-47D Razorback
P-38L (bought in 2022)
Revell (2)
B-29 (vintage 1950s) (a gift)
B1-B (bought many years ago)
Monogram (25)
Wright Brothers Kitty Hawk (a gift from a WWII veteran)
de Havilland Mosquito (bought many years ago)
Hawker Harrier (bought many years ago)
Hawker Typhoon (bought many years ago)
SBD Dauntless (bought many years ago)
Vought Kingfisher (bought many years ago)
A-26 B Invader (bought many years ago)
B-24 J (bought many years ago)
B-25 J (bought many years ago)
B-58 (bought many years ago)
P-38 (bought many years ago)
P-61 Black Widow (bought in August 2019)
F4 Phantom (bought many years ago)
F-8 Crusader (bought many years ago)
F-80 (bought many years ago)
F-84 (bought many years ago)
A6 Douglas Skyraider (bought many years ago)
A7 Corsair (bought many years ago)
F-100 (bought many years ago)
F-101 (bought many years ago)
F-102 (bought many years ago)
F-105 (bought many years ago)
F-106 (bought many years ago)
F-117 (bought many years ago)
Mig-29 (bought many years ago)
Hasegawa (3)
P-40 E (bought in 2018)
Douglas Dauntless (bought in 2018)
Zero Type 52 (Minicraft/Hasegawa) (bought many years ago)
Trumpeter (1)
Vickers Wellington Mk III (bought in February 2020)
Ships (4)
Trumpeter (4)
Canadian HMCS Huron 1/350 scale (bought in 2019)
German Z-30 Zerstorer 1/350 scale (bought in 2019)
USS Lexington 1/700 scale (bought in 2019)
USS Saratoga CV-3 1/700 scale (bought in 2019)
So with more model kits waiting to be built, I realize now that it’s not that important if I build them all… Just having them is.
RCAF 404 Squadron sank the T24 on August 24, 1944 using high explosive rockets.
This is the only model kit available for an Elbing class Torpedoboat.
I thought of buying Heller’s rendition of a Torpedoboat to build the T24, but the price on e-Bay is much too high as well as the shipping rate. Furthermore the model kit is quite old and lack details at least according to this modeler…
Ulf Lundberg built this model from the Heller kit. Ulf noted that Heller’s Torpedoboot is a mid-aged product which was released some 25 years ago. Its quality remains more of the old days and the fit of main components is rather poor. The details were soft and lacked finesse and worse still, there were shrink marks in all the wrong places, necessitating more than fair share of filling and sanding for a model of this size.
This other modeler though built an impressive rendition of the ship, but with a lot of work put into it.
T 28 belonged to the class of the fleet torpedo boats 1939, which were built between 1941 and 1944 at the Schichau shipyard in Elbing. The design underwent some modifications during the construction period: T 22 to T 24 had a long bridge construction with a 2cm flak on each cam. T 25 to T 30 had a shortened bridge superstructure, a weapon stand with a 2cm flak was built in the middle in front of it. T 31 to T 36 had one on port side and one on starboard side, in addition, to simplify the construction, the folding bulkheads in the bow area were omitted.
All fifteen units were in harm’s way the whole time, only T 23, T 28, T 33 and T 35 survived the war. France kept (ex) T 28 as Le Lorrain in active service until 1955.
With the Heller kit, only T 22 – T 24 can be displayed correctly from the box. A shortened bridge construction is included, but not a single central flak weapon stand. For the later boats the hull shape is not correct because of the existing buckling bulkheads.
Since I wanted to build a boat from the group T 25 to T 30, the kit was a good basis. In the Marine Arsenal Volume 44 I found photos of T 28, which were very helpful during construction.
The model could be built without any problems, there were also a lot of detail additions, and my etched part stash was plundered properly. Comparisons with drawings showed that the position of the superstructures had to be corrected: the bridge construction moved 2mm, the middle deckhouse 1mm aft.
I paid special attention to the torpedo tube sets. Since the kit parts were not usable because of the very simple and not to scale representation, I completely rebuilt the sets from brass tube, wire and Evergreen profiles. Also new are the front flak weapon stand and the platforms for the radio measuring antenna amidships and the 2cm flakvierling on the aft deck hut. Numerous structures were added to the walls of the superstructures. I rebuilt the masts from brass tube and steel wire. The boat was completed with four wabo launchers, a new winch for the aft deck and other gear including cranes, all of which I built myself.
On the photos of the prototype, T 28 did not wear a spotted camouflage, which was probably reserved for the first boats of this class. So my model got the uniform grey colouring with Tamiya and Revell colours, on which a careful oil colour washing was applied. For the rigging the yarn from WEM was used.
As a result I finally created a not everyday model, which I like very much.
If Trumpeter should one day decide to make one, I will probably be tempted to buy it honouring the sailors of the T24 since I have these two companion model ships in my stash.
When I bought them two years ago they were quite a bargain. Nowadays they are pricier which makes my decision to buy them two years ago a wise one.
If you are wondering how I got interested so much about the T24…then take a good look at these from the collection of a German sailor who was on that ship. His son sent me two weeks ago more than 100 never seen before photos who were part of his father’s collection.
I had an epiphany yesterday looking at some modelers’ stashes.
Mine is so small when I compare it to the ones seen above… Click here.
Looking at those stashes made me reflect on my first encounter with the P-38F. It was featured in a book I read in the early 1960s when I was in the 11th grade.
This is the first edition.
Images taken from Internet
About the book
Translated from Wikipedia.fr
Feux du ciel is a collection of short stories written by the French ace Pierre Clostermann and published in 1951. It presents short stories about World War II airmen and their machines.
This book is a testimony to the hardships suffered by airmen around the world and their sacrifices in the name of political systems. The author recounts the ignored sacrifice of French airmen during the French campaign, the ordeals of American airmen in the Pacific or English airmen in Malta, the death of talented German aces in the name of saving Nazism at the end of the war, and the sacrifice of special squadrons of the Royal Air Force, made up of Poles, in an attempt to support the Polish resistance in Warsaw while the SS massacred Poles under the eyes of the Russians.
Feux du ciel is a well-documented and vibrant testimony to the daily life of airmen during the Second World War.
Chapter 1: Maastricht
Attack of a German armoured column by French Breguet Br. 693 on 12 May 1940 in Maastricht.
Chapter 2: Bataan
An account of the heroic resistance of American and Filipino soldiers against the Japanese at Bataan.
Chapter 3: A Day in Malta
Account of Canadian pilot Georges “Screwball” Beurling’s first combat mission to Malta in 1942.
Chapter 4: Admiral Yamamoto
An account of the mission of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning of 339 Squadron during Operation Vengeance to shoot down Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, on inspection over the Solomon Islands, aboard a Mitsubishi G4M1 Betty on April 18, 1943.
Chapter 5: Colonel Pijeaud
Account of Colonel Charles Pijeaud’s last mission on a Bristol Blenheim in Gambut on 20 December 1941.
Chapter 6: Storm on Warsaw
An account of a mission by a crew commanded by Polish Flight Lieutenant Chmiel aboard a Handley Page Halifax to supply the Polish resistance that was crushed by the SS during the Warsaw Uprising.
Chapter 7: At the Twilight of the Gods
Account of the last mission of the Messerschmitt Me 262 against a raid of B-17 and B-24 on April 26, 1945 over Hanover.
Chapter 8: Max Guedj
Account of the last mission of the French pilot Max Guedj to destroy a German tanker in Rombacks Fjord on 15 January 1945 on a De Havilland DH.98 Mosquito Mk XVI.
Chapter 9: Under the sign of the divine wind
Account of the last suicide mission of the war, on August 9, 1945 on Okinawa.
I have already built Monogram’s P-38 twice, and I still have one in my stash. However I did not have the P-38F version which I have ordered yesterday from Hobby Wholesale in Alberta. The price was reasonable again with free shipping. It was less than the one I had found on Amazon.ca.
Source Tamiya.com
I had read lots of reviews about it and I was postponing to add it to my stash since I thought I had an addiction problem.
Now some modelers post what they have built on YouTube.
Reading reviews on the Internet and watching videos on YouTube can feed your addiction as well as looking desperately for a model kit you wish you had bought when it was readily available but thought then that your stash was much too big.
Foreword written by Pierre Clostermann in Feux du ciel
Original written in French
À mes camarades aviateurs qui sont morts pour effacer les fautes anciennes qui n’étaient pas les leurs. À ceux qui auront peut-être à payer encore pour des fautes nouvelles — et pourtant toujours les mêmes… — des Grands qui ne veulent pas croire aux leçons du passé.
En 1946, j’ai commencé à réaliser un projet qui me tenait à cœur depuis 1940 : l’Histoire de la Guerre Aérienne.
J’ai remué des centaines et des milliers de documents provenant des archives de la Luftwaffe, de la Royal Air Force, des United States Navy et Army Air Forces. J’ai lu pratiquement toutes les traductions de documents japonais réunis par le Pentagone à Washington, tous les ouvrages publiés en Amérique, en France, en Angleterre, en Suisse, en Italie et en Espagne.
Déjà sont accumulés les fruits de quatre années de patientes recherches, et dans quelques mois si les événements le permettent cet ouvrage sera prêt.
Et c’est alors qu’arrivé presque au terme de ce travail, j’ai eu soudain conscience de l’orientation très grave imposée à l’historien de cette guerre par la forme même de la vaste documentation mise à sa disposition.
Après avoir tout dépouillé, classé, fiché, rédigé, je me suis aperçu que de toute cette somme d’exploits individuels, de courage, de sacrifices souvent anonymes d’hommes de toutes races et nationalités, il ne reste finalement qu’une masse de papiers, de cartes, de photos, de chiffres et de statistiques.
Les leçons humaines se perdent dans les leçons stratégiques.
Les mains habiles et les cœurs courageux disparaissent dans l’étude froide des matériels et de la technique.
Les grands élans s’effacent derrière les communiqués et les rapports d’opérations… pourtant, au passage, que d’histoires sublimes, que d’énergie découvre l’historien entre les colonnes de chiffres de l’effroyable comptabilité de la guerre aérienne moderne:
Débit… Crédit… Avions perdus… Tonnes de bombes…, Ennemis détruits… Navires coulés… Tués… Blessés… Disparus… Total… Année…
Du drame monstrueux de la guerre 1939-1945 ne sortira-t-il que des plans de machines et des cours d’organisation industrielle ?
Une telle hypothèse est révoltante!
Doit-on oublier que sous les tonnes de débris des villes dévastées, ce sont des foyers qui ont été écrasés de bombes ?
Doit-on oublier que sous les ferrailles carbonisées et tordues des avions, ce sont des chairs d’hommes qui ont brûlé ?
Ce sont des hommes qui en maniant ces chefs-d’œuvre de la technique, ont souffert dans tous les cieux.
Ce sont des hommes qui sont morts dans d’atroces souffrances pour exécuter les plans stratégiques.
Ce sont des hommes qui se sont sacrifiés pour que d’autres puissent vivre.
Ce sont aussi des hommes qui sont passés par l’enfer pour racheter les fautes militaires et politiques des uns et sauver l’honneur des autres.
Est-ce en faisant étudier des graphiques ou des courbes de consommation que l’on fera détester la guerre et respecter ceux qui l’ont fait ?
Voilà pourquoi j’ai voulu, dès maintenant, faire connaître ces quelques histoires d’aviateurs, parmi des dizaines de milliers d’autres qui se perdront dans les archives des ministères et les tiroirs des services historiques.
Elles ne sont ni plus belles ni plus extraordinaires que celles qui resteront inconnues.
Je les ai choisies un peu au hasard, tout simplement parce qu’elles sont typiques de certaines phases de la guerre et de certains terrains d’opérations.
Chacune de ces histoires donne l’ambiance particulière d’un aspect particulier de la guerre aérienne sous des latitudes et dans des circonstances diverses.
Elles n’ont en commun que le courage et l’idéal de ceux qui les ont vécues — elles démontrent surtout que, sous des formes variées, les hautes vertus de l’homme ne sont l’apanage spécial d’aucune nation.
English translation
To my fellow airmen who died to erase old faults that weren’t theirs. To those who may still have to pay for new – and yet still the same – mistakes… – of the Great Ones who don’t want to believe in the lessons of the past.
In 1946, I began to carry out a project that had been close to my heart since 1940: the History of the Air War.
I looked up hundreds and thousands of documents from the archives of the Luftwaffe, the Royal Air Force, the United States Navy and Army Air Forces. I have read practically all the translations of Japanese documents gathered by the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., all the books published in America, France, England, Switzerland, Italy and Spain.
Already the fruits of four years of patient research have been accumulated, and in a few months, events permitting, this book will be ready.
And it was then, almost at the end of this work, that I suddenly became aware of the very serious orientation imposed on the historian of this war by the very form of the vast documentation at his disposal.
After having stripped everything down, classified, filed, written up, I realized that of all this sum of individual feats, courage, and often anonymous sacrifices of men of all races and nationalities, only a mass of papers, maps, photos, figures and statistics remained.
Human lessons get lost in strategic lessons.
Skillful hands and courageous hearts disappear in the cold study of materials and technique.
The great accomplishments fade behind the press releases and operations reports…although, while reading those, what sublime stories, what energy the historian discovers between the columns of figures of the appalling accounting of modern air warfare:
Flow… Credit… Lost planes… Tons of bombs… Enemies destroyed… Sunken ships… Killed… Injured… Gone… Total… Year…
Will the monstrous drama of the 1939-1945 war only emerge technical specifications of planes and industrial organization courses?
Such a hypothesis is revolting!
Must we forget that under the tons of debris from the devastated cities are homes that have been crushed by bombs?
Must we forget that under the charred and twisted scrap metal of the planes, it is the flesh of men that burned?
These are men who, in handling these technical masterpieces, have suffered in all the skies.
These are men who died in terrible pain to carry out strategic plans.
These are men who sacrificed themselves so that others might live.
They are also men who have gone through hell to redeem the military and political faults of some and to save the honour of others.
Is it by having people study graphs or consumption curves that we will make them hate war and respect those who did it?
That is why I wanted, right now, to make known these few stories of airmen, among the tens of thousands of others that will be lost in the archives of the deparments and the drawers of the historical services.
They are neither more beautiful nor more extraordinary than those that will remain unknown.
I chose them a bit randomly, simply because they are typical of certain phases of the war and certain areas of operation.
Each of these stories provides the mood for a particular aspect of air warfare at different latitudes and under different circumstances.
What they have in common is the courage and the ideals of those who have lived them – they demonstrate above all that, in various forms, the high virtues of man are not the special prerogative of any nation.
My Forgotten Hobby III 