F-16 nose art of the 56th TTW

Nose art has been seen on many aircraft types over the years, but less so on the F-16 for some reason. True, there was the flurry of art we saw during the Gulf War on Vipers from the 17th TFS, and a decade later a few Vipers of the 389th FS sported some very elaborate art upon their deployment to the war in Afghanistan. But compared to other aircraft types, the F-16 hasn’t been a canvas for much art.

Thanks to my membership in a Facebook group, I discovered nose art on an F-16 from the 56th TTW in 1990. These drawings were added to F-16C 87-0256 when it was assigned to the 61st TFTS during a TDY deployment to Tyndall AFB. (This particular airframe served at the 56th’s “Wing King,” which you can see in this image on Flikr.) What I find interesting is this artwork was added literally to the nose of the aircraft; the artwork added to the 17th and 389th aircraft was added below and behind the canopy.

I reached out to JC Berlan, the aircraft’s assistant crew chief during the deployment, and he told me that this first version of the artwork — depicting a rooster doing something terribly inappropriate to a dog — was allegedly drawn by someone from the 19th TFS. The F-16s from MacDill shared the flightline with the 19th just long enough for someone to add the risqué artwork when no one was looking.

Aviation enthusiasts and patch collectors will recall that a rooster is seen on the emblem of the 19th TFS. The dog represents the iconic bulldog on the 61st TFTS emblem, an image that goes back to the 56th FG during World War Two.

After the artwork was discovered, JC modified it by erasing everything except the eyes of the dog and replacing it with image of the shark about to consume an F-15, an aircraft in service at the time with Tyndall’s 325th TTW. By this point, he said, the 19th had returned to Shaw AFB, so presumably there was no reason to throw shade back in their direction. “Panama City 1990” commemorates the team’s brief deployment to Tyndall, and "Shark Bite" was a term the crew got from Club La Vela on Panama City Beach.

JC said the commander allowed the aircraft to return to MacDill with the artwork. It was quickly removed when they landed, because the aircraft was nominated for, and won, Proud Falcon, a program that recognized the Crew Chief of the Month.

Leave it to pilots and their maintainers to have a good time taking jabs at each other!

My thanks to JC Berlan for the information and to Rob Seibert for the photos. The 19th and 61st squadron patches are from my own collection.

Movie review: Toward the Unknown

I’d never had much interest in USAF aircraft of the 1950s. I grew up during the Cold War, so I’ve always had an affinity for the aircraft that flew during the 1970s and 80s. Then I visited the National Museum of the United States Air Force in 2015 and really studied these old aircraft up close, and I was hooked. There’s something intriguing about the raw functionality of those aircraft, their almost primitive nature (that is, primitive compared to an F-22, not a Wright Flyer).

You’re probably familiar with the aviation-themed movies from the 1950s. Strategic Air Command is probably the most famous and has received a good deal of buzz over the last couple of months with its release on DVD, but another notable movie is Toward the Unknown, starring William Holden and Lloyd Nolan. The movie was based on a novel by Beirne Lay, who went on to write the screenplay for another aviation movie, Above and Beyond, as well as Strategic Air Command.

Movies like this don’t have much of a plot. This one sees a broken fighter pilot make his return to the air at Edward AFB’s Flight Test Center thanks to the support of an old flame. Pretty boring stuff. Movies like this are worth your time just for the flying footage. If the B-36 and B-47 were the stars of Strategic Air Command, the weird and unusual XB-51 (dubbed the XF-120 for the film) is the star of this one. It’s a huge, ungainly aircraft — one that we almost never see or talk about — so watching it climb and dive is a real treat for enthusiasts like us. You’ll also see the F-100 and F-102 in flying sequences, and too many 50s era aircraft on the Edwards flightline to count.

It’s interesting to note that only two XB-51s were manufactured, and one crashed on its way to Eglin AFB for filming of the movie.

Check out the Turner Classic Movies web site for future airings of the movie. DVR the movie and fast-forward through the non-flying segments.

Book review: B-25 Mitchell in Civil Service

I’ve had an affinity for the B-25 going way back to my teenage years. One of the first models I built was Monogram’s B-25, and a few years later I found that an airworthy B-25 was occasionally tied down at a nearby airport. Then in 1985 I got a flight in a B-25 at (if I recall correctly) Sun ’n Fun, the big Central Florida airshow. Today I have two Hasegawa B-25s in the stash, as well as a Minicraft 1/144 kit, and I’ve been patiently looking for the HK Models 1/32 kit for the right price.

A few weeks ago while browsing the Warbird Information Exchange forums I found a promotional link to Aero Vintage books, where Scott Thompson’s book B-25 Mitchell in Civil Service is offered at a discounted price of just $10. It’s rare these days to find a true bargain, so with a couple of clicks and a short one-week wait and the book was in my hands.

And it’s a very nice book. As you know, in the downsizing that followed World War Two thousands of aircraft were scrapped or sold, and this book traces the path of many of the B-25s that wound up in civilian ownership. Chapters focus on executive and research use of the B-25 (a role in which the B-25 served in the USAF for many years after the war), air tankers and agricultural sprayers, and conversions for use by Hollywood for air-to-air filming and photography. The history of the B-25’s post-war usage is accompanied by dozens of fascinating photographs showing the B-25 in a myriad of civilian markings and, sadly, disrepair.

Interjected throughout the book are fascinating stories about several pilots who flew the B-25, such as one who flew avionics test flights for Bendix, an air tanker pilot, two who flew B-25s for movies, and another who restored the B-25 that I flew in as a teenager, 44-31508/N6578D. (On a side note, that aircraft is now in Australia, having been purchased by Reevers Warbird Roundup. It’s in restoration and will be unveiled in April 2017. Warbird News wrote about its acquisition.)

The books wraps up with a substantial history of individual B-25s.

If you’re a fan of the B-25 you’ll appreciate the history of industrious engineers and pilots who extended the life of the aircraft well into the 1960s, and beyond if you consider the 25-30 B-25s that are airworthy today. (Someone let me know if that count is inaccurate.)

Three dollar decals

I recently wrote about my first hobby shop, Carl’s Hobbies in tiny Inverness, Florida. As I was thinking back to those days enjoying the shop and the hobby, I remembered the excitement of discovering Microscale decals.

I first learned about them from an advertisement in Scale Modeler. There was a short list of new releases, and it seemed that – wow! – I wasn’t restricted to using the decals that came with the kits I bought. I could actually make my models unique!

Carl didn’t carry Microscale decals, but I asked him if he could special order them. He could. The price…$3.00! I couldn’t believe it! That’s a lot of damn money for just decals! Hell, the Monogram 1/72 F-15 I wanted them for cost me $6.00 at the toy store across the street! Luckily my friend Steve offered up $1.50 for the Streak Eagle markings that were included on the sheet, so my pain was halved, but still!

My first decal sheet. Note the $3.00 price tag!

I still have that very same decal sheet (I’ve used some of the markings as you can see), along with dozens of others that I’ve acquired over the years. I’m almost embarrassed at my stash of decals, but I’m glad I have them.

It’s amazing how much we now pay for decals given the three dollar price tag you can see on the Microscale decals above. I’m not complaining, mind you. I’ll be the first to support the cottage industry and argue the value of, not just decals, but our hobby as a whole, but these retrospective voyages back into my earliest experiences in the hobby sometimes prompt me to pause and assess what it is that I enjoy about scale modeling. For me, variation is important, and at the very least decals – even inaccurate decals, as many of those early Microscale decals were at times – allow us to create models that reflect our interests and creativity. They offer ideas and possibilities every time I browse through them.

Jerrie who?

I wrote this article about two months ago after learning about Jerrie Mock but was holding onto it for a "rainy day," when I was desperate for something new. This morning I learned that Jerrie died yesterday. She's one of the more obscure characters in aviation history, so today is as good a time as any to learn about her contributions.

Do you know the name Jerrie Mock? I didn't, until I ran across this article about her on My Flight Blog. She was the first woman to fly solo around the world. I won't re-state what's in the article, so I'll just provide the linkage and let you explore.

I was surprised to find that Mock's granddaughter has a Pinterest page with more pictures of her. You see what you can discover when you play with the Google machine!

And here's her bio from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

P.S Her airplane, The Spirit of Columbus, hangs in the Udvar-Hazy Center, which should be among your favorite aviation destinations!

In the mood for: Seaplanes

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul...I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. There is magic in it."

---

Herman Melville understood the allure of the sea and explained it beautifully within the first paragraphs of Moby Dick. Ishmael, our hero and Real Man by anyone's standards, chooses to go to sea not as a passenger, he tells us, but as a sailor. Men for hundreds of years have followed Ishmael's lead and joined the great (and not-so-great) navies of the world either for the pure air and exercise that Ishmael sought or for the money, which he didn't fail to mention either.

Aviators, though their eyes are usually turned skyward, are not immune to this longing for the sea, and many have chosen to fly aircraft off aircraft carriers -- and even from cruisers and battleships when naval aviation was new back in the 1930s and 40s -- rather than concrete runways. Those  pioneers saw the practical and tactical value of flying aircraft directly off the sea, and they modified aircraft with pontoons and other technologies to exploit those capabilities. I'm fascinated by function over form, so it shouldn't be strange that I've been enticed to build models of seaplanes recently.

Over the last year or so I've purchased quite a few seaplanes, which are far from my usual interest in modern jet aircraft. How did this happen? Is the same longing for the sea that Melville wrote about applicable to scale modeling? Is it just a matter of time before I start buying ships?

My fascination with sea planes might have been sparked watching Kermit Weeks's in-cockpit "Kermie Cam" videos of his Sikorsky S-39, flying it off the lake on his Fantasy of Flight property in Central Florida.

Or maybe it was photographs of exceptional scale models of seaplanes, such as this scratchbuilt 1/72 Loening C-2H Air Yacht 1928 by Flikr user Franclab.

I know for sure why I bought an Eastern Express 1/144 Be-200. It was just after stumbling upon this video of a Be-200 performing at the Gelendzhik Hydro Air Show in Russia and being smitten by its unique, head-on profile.

To be fair, I've had a few seaplanes in my stash going back to my high school days. A couple of years ago, writing about the challenges of rigging, I mentioned my Williams Brothers 1/72 Douglas World Cruiser, which as some of you know can be built with either wheels or pontoons. I've also had an LS 1/144 Emily for nearly the same 30 years, which has called its siren song to me now and then.

More recently I've picked up an Airfix 1/144 Boeing 314 Clipper at Mosquitocon back in April, a fugly Amodel 1/144 Be-12NH, and a Sword 1/72 SO3C Seamew during my last visit to my LHS just last week. There are a few more on my informal wish list, so don't be surprised if you see one or two under my arm at the IPMS Nats next week.

I suppose it doesn't matter why we like what we like. What can we do but embrace these whims and see where they take us? I think they offer a pleasant distraction from building, in my case, yet another Hasegawa F-4 or Trumpeter F-105. An opportunity to stretch our skills, use different colors, and try new weathering techniques. In the meantime, if anyone has a Sword 1/72 JRF Goose they'd like to sell, give me a shout. I'll provide the water.

War memoirs

Those of you who enjoy reading military literature will be interested in an article in a recent issue of The New Yorker (the April 7, 2014 issue). Titled, "Home Fires," it's a look at some of the recent memoirs that have been written by American soldiers who've returned from the Iraq war.

Its author, George Packer, looks briefly at the motivation that drives young men to enlist during wartime and how a select few write about their experiences. It offers several suggested reads for those of you seeking a better understanding of what it's like to fight in Iraq.

Here are the books mentioned in the article if you don't care to read it in its entirety.

Redeployment, by Phil Klay
Thank You For Your Service, by David Finkel
Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting, by Kevin Powers
Dust to Dust, by Benjamin Busch
My Life as a Foreign Country, by Brian Turner

Packer also recommends a 1968 collection of stories by Tim O'Brien titled The Things They Carried, as well as his novel Going After Cacciato.

Look at this stash

I recently stumbled upon this article on Buzzfeed, about the US Army's Museum Support Center at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The center is the Army's repository for historical artifacts and more than 16,000 works of art reflecting military history.

What an incredibly interesting collection, though as the article says, most of us will not see it unless enough money can be raised to build a suitable museum.

Let's hope fundraising continues so that the artifacts and artwork can be enjoyed by the public. You can donate via the National Museum of the United States Army website.

Country music and rivet counters

Visit any discussion forum, click into any thread about a new kit, and you'll find a tangential conversation -- often heated -- about the value of nitpicking inaccuracies. Some of the so-called "rivet counters" are extremely vocal about their disappointment with a handful of the manufacturers who seem to consistently release models with inaccuracies. This rivet counting annoys more than a few modelers.

For what it's worth, this dichotomy is not unique to scale modeling.

I love music. I'll listen to anything -- pop, rock, rap, classical, country. Earlier this years I found Saving Country Music, a blog devoted to critiquing, sometimes in very harsh terms, the country music we hear on the radio. The webmaster, Kyle “The Triggerman” Coroneos, believes that the current crop of artists (Florida Georgia Line, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood) has twisted country music into a genre that sounds more like pop, and he's not happy about that at all.

For his ongoing critique of the industry, Trigger has come under fire by readers who ask why its necessary to criticize bad music. I'll let you read his full response, but some of his comments are applicable to our hobby.

"Professional criticism is something every artist should crave, and helps
maintain a healthy music environment that invites discussion on quality."

I have to believe that the manufacturers in our hobby are thick-skinned enough to read and accept criticism, and we have reason to believe they listen. For example, I wonder if the less prominent rivets on Trumpeter's latest releases is one example of a manufacturer listening to its customers.

"Criticism can also be an important tool to the music listener, especially
as the music world becomes evermore crowded with choice."

To this point, those of us who've been in the hobby for 20 year or more know there are thousands more products available today than ever before, and even if you've been building models for one year, no one has to tell you that prices on many of many kits are quite high. (I'll write more about that latter point in the future.) Most of us buy kits on a limited budget, so it's important that we know what we're buying. The rivet counters make us smarter consumers. I'd rather go into my LHS, or onto a favorite online shop, knowing more about the models I intend to buy than less. And for that I have the Triggers and the rivet counters of the world to thank.

P.S. For the record, I kinda like Blake Shelton's "Boys 'Round Here."

What in the world is that?

I've been an aviation enthusiast for 30 years, so it's always a surprise to find an aircraft that I've never seen before. Well, at least an American aircraft; there are plenty of British, French, Soviet, etc. aircraft that I couldn't name if my life depended on it.

That's what happened to me this week when someone posted a photo of a Naval Aircraft Factory TDN-1, a so-called "assault drone," on the Warbird Information Exchange forum. It might be considered a predecessor of the Predator, Reaper, and other UAVs that have become prominent in recent years.

The TDN-1 is an intriguing aircraft. I found this video (no audio) of them testing in 1943, including great footage launching from the USS Sable.

Enjoy!

The Corvette, the F-16, and America

Last weekend GM unveiled the seventh generation Corvette and it got me thinking that there are a handful of cars and aircraft that epitomize American design. The Corvette and Ford Mustang are the best examples of that aesthetic in the automotive world, and the P-51, C-47, and F-16 in aviation.

So it's fitting to point out that on this day in 1974 the F-16 flew for the first time by test pilot Phil Oestricher.

In case you missed it, Britmodeller user Vingtor posted an in-progress thread of a 1/72 YF-16 last year, and you can see his stunning, finished model here.

Vingtor Aviation History and Research produces decals of the early F-16s in 1/72 and 1/48 scale. I recently acquired a set and can say they're beautiful. They include markings for red,white, and blue YF-16s 72-01567 and 72-01568, the two-tone grey F-16A 75-0745, and the F-16B (75-0752) used to test the J79 engine. Great stuff all around!

My first experience with the F-16 was sometime around 1980, when as a member of the Civil Air Patrol, I went to an open house at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. The 56th TFW was transitioning from the F-4D to the F-16 at the time, and everyone was excited to see this tiny, new fighter. I still have a couple of the promotional prints handed out at the event. In the years that followed I flew with the 56th on three occasions. Every year they flew one of their UH-1P Hueys to my local airport and gave orientation flights to the members of the high school's AFJROTC squadron, of which I was a member. Those days are among my most treasured experiences of my life (particularly considering I never became a pilot myself).

An old survey, 30 years perspective, and models

If you've been in the hobby for 20 or even 30 years as I have, it's fun to look through old magazines and realize just how far we've come. With all the rivet counting of new kits (which I support, by the way), it's easy to forget that 30 years ago we were dreaming about many of the kits we have today. Sort of.

While unpacking old magazines after my move a year ago, I came across the January/February 1984 issue of IPMS's Update. It published the results of a survey in which the organization asked its members what new kits they wanted to see. Over 1,000 responses were counted, and the results are interesting. Consider the top ten kits requested for aircraft in the two most popular scales.

Aircraft 1/72

B-58 Hustler
F-89 Scorpion
A-3 Skywarrior
C-10/AC-110 Flying Boxcar
F3H Demon
F-94 Starfire
C-135/KC-135 Stratotanker
PBM-5 Mariner
F7U Cutlass
B-57/RB-57/WB-57 Night Intruder

Aircraft 1/48

A-20 Havoc
A-26 Invader
F-101 Voodoo
F-89 Scorpion
F-102 Delta Dagger
PBY-5 Catalina
Heinkel He-111
F-94 Starfire
Macchi MC.202 Folgore
SBC Vindicator

Most of these aircraft are now available in kit form, but many are what I would consider "third generation" quality, lacking the level of detail that we come to expect today. For example, Italeri's 1/72 B-58 is roughly 30 years old and totally shows its age, and only Monogram has tackled the A-26, F-101, F-89, and F-102 in 1/48 scale...about 20 years ago!

(By the way, the top five aircraft requested in 1/32 scale were the F-100D, P-6E, F-105D, A-10, and A-7.)

Now look at what the armor modelers were requesting in 1/35 scale in 1984.

M24 Chaffee
T-72
BMP-1
M-108/109
T-54/55
M2 Bradley
Merkava
ZSU-23-4 Shilka
PT-72
M18 Hellcat

You could probably make the argument that armor modelers have it made. Nearly all of these kits are available with fourth generation quality. (Dragon's Shilka is oldish, but still a very nice model.) And as I browser further in the IPMS wish list, I see many other AFVs that are now on the shelves of your LHS (BTR-60, M26, Wespe, BRDM-2, M88, T-34/85, JS-3, etc.).

I may spend more time looking at the list and comparing it to what's available today. A quick glance shows some odd choices from the manufacturers. For example, while over 100 people requested the B-58 only eight requested the F4D Skyray yet Tamiya offers a very nice Skyray while the B-58 in my stash has nasty raised panel lines all over it, not to mention proportions which I've read are way off. Fifty-five people requested a 1/48 F7F Tigercat and 12 requested a PV-1 Ventura, but which one did Revell choose to produce?

Oh well.

Old timey aeroplane films

I enjoy watching old aviation films, like this one about the first flight of the B-58 in 1956. They can be a bit campy, but it's fun to see these old aircraft as they were back in the day, not displayed as museum pieces or (god forbid) gate guards.

A few things struck me on watching this particular movie that I thought I'd share for shites and grins.

• How far aviation had come in just the 11 years following the end of World War Two.
• How frustrating it must have been for the pilot to not take off during the first run on the runway, knowing the airplane wants to fly and wanting to fly himself!
• How odd to use a prototype aircraft (the YF-102) as a chase plane for the B-58. I wonder why they didn't use two F-94s.
• I never realized until now how much the fuselage of the B-1 resembles that of the B-58.

Now where's my Italeri kit?

Enjoy!

When models meet history

Most, if not all, modelers I meet are armchair historians at heart. Take the models out of our sticky, paint-stained hands and most of us would be watching the History Channel or reading a biography about Zemke, Wittmann, or Halsey. We're aviation, armor, naval, and automotive enthusiasts, and models are one of the ways we get closer to our interests.

That's why this story on Hyperscale caught my attention yesterday. Yufei Mao talks about meeting Zhushu Wang, a fighter pilot with the PLA in Vietnam. He and his wingman shot down an American F-4C Phantom II in 1967. Yufei built a model of Mr. Wang's aircraft, a MiG-19. He describes the model in this article on Hyperscale, and I found this step-by-step of the build on ARC's discussion forum.

BTW, if you're not familiar with Yufei Mao, he's one of the finest modelers in the hobby today. Check out his MiG-29, Su-27, MiG-25, and F/A-18C on ARC.