I’ve been model-making only a couple of months now, so I’m not an expert by any definition. Our friend Jim Taylor sent me the linked Youtube of s guy who is by anybody’s description an expert in the model-making realm. Click on this link to see his result of building a one-third scale model of a Flying Fortress! The best way I can think of classifying it is WOW! (The photo above is from the website of the Mighty 8th Air Force Museum and is of the restoration of their Douglas-manufactured B-17.)
I’ve finished my 2nd model airplane of the pandemic. It wasn’t as difficult as thought it might be. The reason on picked an F4U Corsair is because at Seattle’s Museum of Flight there is fully restored (and I believe flyable) Goodyear F2G-1 Super Corsair that was salvaged after many years of sitting on the bottom Lake Washington. You see, the I was a kid Sand Point Naval Air Station occupied the site that is now Magnuson Park (owned now by the City of Seattle) on the shore of Lake Washington. This airplane’s driver for whatever reason decided that is was a float plane and ran right off the end of the runway into the drink. I’ve seen the museum’s Corsair (which is on loan from the Navy), and also one that is at the National Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport. And so I thought it would be a good model to build.
When I published the article on February 5th about the heritage of the 225th, our friend Steve Sachs sent me an email about his time at the University of Alabama. He asked me to publish it on this blog......
I was in an asterisk [*] National Guard unit in collage. The * was a designation that we were a recently converted unit from all (cld). I painted the beds of 2 1/2 trucks every Monday night. We did not clean or prep the beds, just painted over the dirt and old paint. George Corley Wallace was our governor (Alabama). We were federalized for two months so he could not use the Guard to prevent integration of the University of Alabama. This was a good deal for our unit, we did not do anything. We did get paid for the time we were federalized! This was in 1962-63. Many years later, Governor Wallace went to the largest Black Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He was not invited, but when he wheeled himself down the aisle, there was a dead silence. He apologized to the congregation and all Alabama. I don't that there was a single person that didn't tear up.
