SPA Modeler

impressive! Thanks, Mark.

oh dear what a bunch of models! Thanks for taking the time and taking the pics!

Thanks guys, and you're welcome. Stay tuned, more to come.

You know, I keep trying to post my latest update here and despite having copied it and pasted it here numerous times, I still keep getting in big red bold letters: "Your message contains too few characters." Hope interesting since I filled this box with text.

Lets see if this posts.....



Oh Joy! It does! How interesting! Now if I can only post my latest post...

Wow, I didn't realize how much time has passed. I think it's time to resume the tour of my Air Force Base. All aboard the bus....


As we drive on by the taxiway, we can see that Saburo Sakai has returned from his flight. This Zero was built by me back in the late 1970's:




Along with Saburo's plane, we see some more of my German aircraft sitting out here on the tarmac:

Here's another one of my first ever German planes. This Focke Wulf FW-190A came in an old Airfix "Battle of Berlin" set with the P-47. Remember the one where the box could be turned into the display base? This is from that set



In contrast, here is a pic of a Focke Wulf FW-190 that I had built in the mid to late 1990's:

Continued since any effort to post more above gave me the same red-lettered error message. How can it be too few characters when I have pages and pages on here?

Anyway, here's take two....

Another of my earliest planes, a Heinkel He-100 decaled over bare plastic:



Another Heinkel, this one is the He-112, also decaled over bare plastic. I did paint the red stripe on the tail... by hand with no tape.



Another early 70's plane, this one is the Henschel Hs-129. I had gotten this as a birthday gift one year:



This is my second ever German aircraft I ever built, the Junkers Ju-87 Stuka. This was quite the veteran of my early wargames, making many successful kills. It also got shot down quite a lot too...



These next two are my third and fourth ever German aircraft I ever built and the two of them were terrible terrors in my wargames! This is the Messerschmitt Me-110 (R) for Red:



And my Messerschmitt Me-110(Y) for Yellow







I think maybe I'm getting somewhere. On with the tour....


Next is my first German Night-fighter, the Junkers Ju-88 Nachjager. The radar antenna are long, long gone, and the rear gun had been replace by a carved matchstick that is still on this plane. I kept telling myself someday I would paint that black...



My second Nightfighter; this was a Christmas Gift Exchange gift at my elementary school oh so many years ago. Here's the Messerschmitt Me-410 Nachjager:



After getting this, I had dreamed about getting a Messerschmitt Me-210 and a Messerschmitt Me-310 to complete the 'count', that that dream got dashed when I could never find models of the other two aircraft....

But I kept building..

Here's another 1990's-era model I built because I realized I had never had a Heinkel He-111, and it was about time I added one to the force:



And finally, my first ever German jet. I had hand painted this camouflage pattern with no masking whatsoever:



I think with the exception of possibly one or two aircraft I haven't gotten pics of; (The Dornier Do-17Z comes to mind) that is a full accounting of all my German aircraft to date on this Thread.

Next up, here is a Czech plane I built back in the 1970's as well. It was a gift to me:



Moving right along, we are now pulling into my Italian Air Force hanger. In here we'll see all the Italian planes I've built over the years.

We'll start with my first ever Italian plane I ever built. This is the Macchi C-202-5 built in the 1970's. It was also one of my highest scoring aces in all my war games:



Next one is my Macchi C-205 that I built in the 1980's:



This is the second ever Italian plane I built in the early '70's; the Cr-35 Falco biplane:



Many years later in the 1990's, I built this Cr-42 Falco biplane:



Another 1980's era aircraft, this is my Fiat G-50:



These are two of my three Reggianne aircraft; this first one is the Reggianne Re-2000:



...followed by the Reggianne Re-2001:



I also have a Reggianne Re-2002 but I haven't got any pics of it yet.

And finally, this is my first ever Italian bomber, the Caproni Ca-311. I had hand painted the canopy on this puppy when I built it back in the mid 1970's:



In fact, I had hand painted all the camouflage patterns on all these Italian planes with a brush back in the day. It was great practice for the 6-and-a-half foot long German Armored Train I did in 2009 or so.

That is all I have for this part of the tour. I also have some more Italian bombers as well, but they are all on long range patrols right now. Once they return I'll be able to show them to you.

Until then, comments are welcome. Thanks all for looking in.

I really like those Italian jobs... but IIRC, the "Battle of Berlin" set was by Revell, not Airfix. I had that one too. The P-47 was with the yellow cowl with the skull & crossbones...

Those are priceless! Thanks for sharing those.

Wow! What a collection you have there. From your earliest to the latest and you can see all the progress over the years.
That's just awesome, Mark.

Thanks guys! I really appreciate the great comments.

Carlos, you are right. It's been so long since I built that "Battle of Berlin" set I completely forgot which company did it.

Thanks Lyle, I agree, I am thrilled that I've been able to keep them. After all this work I put into these, I couldn't see blowing them up with firecrackers afterward; it was like thinking of blowing up my kids. Other guys did it and it always made me sad to see their models blown up.

Thanks Paul, I always enjoy seeing the progress I've made. I can also see where I still didn't know a lot of things that others did at the same time. Then again, I always did live in small towns or Air Force Bases, and knowledge of and access to model magazines and such were unheard of for me.


Thanks again guys! I'll try to update this even sooner this time, and at Carlos' urging, I'll be starting a tour of my Fort Maddog. I just have to figure out how and where to start that one.