IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad JU-87D

IL-2 Sturmovik: First Flight – Ju-87D Stuka Kanonenvogel

First Flight: IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad Junkers Ju-87D

Just picked up IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad and made one of my first flights. I selected the iconic Junkers Ju-87D “Canon Bird”, painted in winter white wash. The flight sim, in general, is a major eye-opener. It’s regarded as one of, if not the, most realistic WWII flight sim ever created. This is not your father’s Red Baron or Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. These planes aren’t easy to fly and they’re even harder to control on the ground. My Taxiing skills are abysmal.

I Have No Idea What I’m Doing

All that said, I’m pretty happy with my debut. I managed to get it off the ground and destroy a locomotive engine, some rolling stock, a tank, and a motor car—all prior to flying the thing into the ground.

by April 11, 2018no comment

Okaloosa County Florida: Sheriff’s Department 10 Codes

10-1 Receiving Poorly
10-2 Receiving Well
10-3 Stop Transmitting
10-4 OK
10-5 Relay to__________
10-6 Busy
10-7 Out of Service
10-8 In Service
10-9 Repeat

10-10 Temporarily Out of Service
10-11 Talking Too Rapidly
10-12 Visitor Present
10-13 WX/Road Conditions
10-14 Convoy or Escort
10-15 Prisoner in Custody
10-16 Pick up/Transport Prisoner
10-17 Investigation
10-18 Respond w/Lights & Siren
10-18X Do Not Use Lights & Siren
10-19 Return To Station

10-20 Location
10-21 Call Station By Telephone
10-22 Disregard
10-23 Stand-by
10-24 Trouble, Send Help!
10-25 Make Contact
10-26 Message Received
10-27 Drivers License/Identification
10-28 Vehicle Registration
10-29 Check for Wants/Warrants

10-30 Against Regulations
10-31 In Pursuit
10-32 Intoxilizer Operator
10-33 Emergency Traffic
10-34 Trouble At Jail
10-35 Confidential
10-36 Current Time
10-37 Dispatcher or Operator
10-38 Set Up Roadblock
10-39 Message Delivered

10-41 In Possession of_________
10-42 Home
10-43 Traffic for__________
10-44 Pick up Paperwork
10-45 Call by Telephone
10-46 Urgent
10-47 Radio Repair Needed
10-48 End of Message
10-49 Serving Warrant

10-50 Traffic Stop
10-51 En Route
10-52 Estimated Time of Arrival
10-53 Coming To Office
10-54 Negative
10-55 Car Calling To Car
10-56 Meet Me At_________
10-65 Can You Copy?
10-66 Cancel
10-67 Serving
10-68 Need Legal Advice

10-70 Send Tow Truck
10-71 Send Ambulance

10-86 Begin Shift
10-87 End Shift
10-88 Telephone Number

10-91 Pick Up Subject
10-95 Subject or Suspect Present
10-97 Arrived At Scene
10-98 Completed Task
10-99 Not Receiving Signal

ETOH – Denotes the chemical compound ethyl alcohol. Used to communicate that a subject is suspected of being intoxicated by alcohol. Frequently used during DUI traffic stops.

by May 22, 2017no comment
Polish CZAK P-64

The Polish CZAK P-64 Pistol – A Good Buy?

Since getting into C&R firearms, I’ve been waiting for a big import that I felt I was actually “getting in on”. This, versus feeling like I was just picking through the tailings. The the Polish CZAK P-64 appeared on the scene.

Along Comes the Polish CZAK P-64

The P-64’s are still looking nice and I didn’t want to dick around and lose out on getting a nice one. So… I started surfing the usual C&R dealers and GunBroker.com. I ended up choosing one listed in very good condition from a popular dealer on GunBroker (that I’ve purchased from in the past) and got in at $239.00.

The pistol arrived two days later and I couldn’t be happier. It appears to have been issued but shows only the most minor holster wear. After disassembly and close inspection, I can’t believe it ever had more than the arsenal quality control rounds put through it. Super happy. Only disappointment is that it didn’t come with a spare magazine. I did get a beat up flap holster and cleaning rod (multi-tool?) with it.

A Seriously heavy trigger

After the typical research that anyone does prior to purchasing this pistol, I was fully prepared to not even be able to pull the trigger on DA. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, yes, you can actually pull the trigger. It’s not bad.

It is bad though. The gun “just went off” said no one with a P-64, ever. Follow up in SA is very nice. I’ll order the Wolff replacement spring as soon as I figure out which one I want.

I ordered 500 rounds (or was it 1,000?) of 9mm Makarov for my new P-64. Not that I intend to shoot it a lot, but with the idea that I’ll pick up a Russian Makarov at some point in the future. I probably won’t take it back to the range until I do something about the springs so, for now, it’s a hangar queen.

Final verdict: Brand new pistol for cheap. Really nice. Really happy.

by April 18, 20172 comments
Douglas MacArthur Lands Leyte1

The Resurrection of My Blog

This blog has existed in some form or another for many years. Mostly, in the form of false starts. Hobby-wise, I have severe ADD. I’m first and foremost a photographer, and that gets the majority of my attention. I play the guitar, I draw, I shoot guns, I have pets. The list goes on. But, I have been building models buying models for a long time.

For the last five years, I’ve had a job that sucked. I embraced the suck because that’s what grown-ups do. It left, however, no energy for building. My situation has changed (for the better), and with that change, has come a renewed interest in building. I’m working on locating and reposting old articles, and adding new content as it arrives.

I write this because, if you feel like you’ve been here before, you probably have. I’m pledging to once and for all, finally keep up with this thing. Updates may not come often, and I don’t plan on documenting step-by-step builds, but I will be journaling how and when I can, and I will be shooting photos of completed builds and writing my thoughts on them.

Thanks for your patience!

by February 24, 2017no comment
Nakajima Ki84 Hayate 32 6 500x500

29th Sentai Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate

This is Hasegawa’s great 1/32 Scale Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate kit. It’s a simple and well-engineered kit that builds easily. Mine is out-of-the-box with masked and painted markings for an aircraft of the 29th Sentai operating from Formosa in 1944–45. I used Tamiya rattle cans for the natural metal finish.

The completed kit was too large for my Ikea bookshelf display cases so I ended up selling the model to a collector in Maryland. I’ve got two Hasegawa’s 1/48 versions in the stash and I’ll probably build this 29th Sentai aircraft again for my own collection.

by February 7, 2016no comment
Kannos Shidennkai21

Platz 1/144 Scale Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden Kai

This is a project I started long ago and has languished in a state of incompletion. The idea is a tiny little vignette with the aircraft and a pilot figure representing Kanno. I used a model railroad figure for the pilot and sculpted a flight suit for him using ApoxieSculpt. I scratch-built a basic cockpit and cut out the maneuvering flaps from the wings then built them back up using Evergreen stock.

Hopefully I’ll find a source of fresh motivation to finish this project up soon and will add to this post with any updates as progress is made.

Platz 1/144 Scale Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden Kai

The kit includes parts and decals for two aircraft. I’ll be doing Kanno’s “White 15”.

Platz 1/144 Scale Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden Kai

by February 7, 2016no comment
P 51d Mustang Bad Angel 2 500x500

Pacific Theater P-51D Mustang “Bad Angel”

This is the wonderful Tamiya 1/48 scale P-51D Mustang kit with (if I remember correctly) CAM Decals. I built this back in 2007-ish and it’s won a few trophies at contests in Ohio and Georgia. Nothing much to say about this kit other than it has a low parts-count, its fit and engineering is brilliant, and its a quick, easy, and pleasant build. If you don’t have one of these in your stash, you need to get one!

This is P-51D/20-NA 44-63272 “Bad Angel”—the aircraft of double-ace Captain Lou Curdes of the 4th FS 3rd Air Commando Group. He is one of only a handful of Allied pilots who claimed kills against each of the three major Axis powers, and the only pilot of the Second World War to claim kills against three major Axis powers and the United States of America!

Victories in Aerial Combat

April 29, 1943
April 29, 1943
May 19, 1943
June 24, 1943
July 30, 1943
August 27, 1943
February 7, 1945
February 10, 1945		 Messerschmitt Bf-109
Messerschmitt Bf-109
Messerschmitt Bf-109
Macchi Mc202
Messerschmitt Bf-109
Messerschmitt Bf-109
Mitsubishi Ki-46
Douglas C-47 Dakota		 3 Destroyed
1 Damaged
2 Destroyed
1 Destroyed
1 Damaged
2 Destroyed
1 Destroyed
1 Destroyed

Pacific Theater P-51D Mustang Bad Angel

The C-47 “kill” is the result of Curdes’s attempts to thwart the attempt of an errant American C-47 to land at an airfield in Formosa that had recently fallen to Japanese control. Unable to communicate with the aircraft via radio and after several attempts to force the aircraft to abandon its attempts to land, Curdes took out the Dakota’s engines forcing it to ditch in the sea where the entire crew was safely rescued by Allied forces.

 

P-51D Mustang Pilot L E Curdes Bad Angel

by February 7, 2016no comment
1/72 Scale Model USS Enterprise CV-6

1/72 USS Enterprise CV-6 Scale Model

If you’re a scale modeler with a passion for U.S. Navy Pacific Theater ops, then this has got to be your holy grail. As the highest-decorated U.S. ship ever, the “Big E” has been poorly represented by kit manufacturers in every scale. No wonder the builder of this magnificent model decided to scratch build her.

by February 6, 2016no comment
Bill Ki84 48 04 700x525

Tamiya 1/48 Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate

This is the old Tamiya 1/48 scale Ki-84 kit that was first released in the mid-1970’s (someone correct me if I’m wrong here). It’s still in production and can be had for about $8 as of the time of this writing.

Tamiya 61013 Nakajima Ki84-IA Hayate

This is one of the very first kits I bought when I returned to building models as an adult. As a kid, I don’t recall ever having any kits from a Japanese company—everything I built was either from American companies like Revell, AMT, and Monogram or from Europeans like ESCI and Italeri.

In surfing the web and forums, it was pretty clear that Tamiya was now the state-of-the-art and setting the standard for high-quality kits. I saw this kit with its very low price and thought “Wow. What a bargain!”

As most of you know, and as I didn’t know at the time, there are really two Tamiya’s: the “old” and the “new”. This kit is the “old” Tamiya and there is nothing state of the art about it. It’s actually toy-like. It was not a joy to build.

Tamiya 1/48 Scale Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate

I’m not saying it wasn’t good in its day and I’m not saying a good modeler can’t make something of it. I’m saying that, for about $10 more, you can get the beautiful Hasegawa kit that is beautifully detailed and well engineered. Unless you already own the kit, built it as a kid and there’s some nostalgia factor, or are just the type of person who has to see it for themselves, I would steer clear of this one.

I lost interest in the build about halfway through. As I said, it wasn’t an enjoyable experience this shows in the finished work. I think this was my first attempt at chipping paint and I don’t think it looks very convincing.

All the markings are painted with masks I made myself and stem from a Polish book on late war IJAAF units. I can look up the specifics of this sentai if one of you needs the details.

 

by February 24, 2007no comment

DIY Spraybooth For Airbrushing

by January 24, 2007no comment
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