Name: Jim
Web Site: http://www.hickoryhillphotography.com
Bio: Other interests include; Woodworking and Photography
Posts by Jim:
- Spitfire Mk VII, MD120, NX-0 from the 131 Squadron in March 1944 at Colerne. Aircraft was flown by James Joseph ‘Orange’ O’meara.
- Spitfire Mk VII, ON-W from the 124 Squadron in June 1944 at Bradwell
- Among leading aces of the AAF and USAF in both WWII and the Korean War, 352nd pilots Col J.C. Meyer ranks second; Major Bill Whisner ranks fifth; and Lt Col Ed Heller ranks nineteenth. Whisner was one of only seven pilots that became an ace in both WWII and the Korean War.
- Among the leading Allied air aces of WWII, two 352nd pilots, Major George Preddy and Col J.C. Meyer ranked sixth and seventh.
- The 352nd can claim more “aces in a day” with five victories on one mission than any other Mustang group in either theater. George Preddy (six Me109′s), Don Bryan (five FW190′s), Carl J. Luksic (four FW190′s, one Me109), and William T. Whisner (five FW190′s) led the way.
- The top two Mustang aces were Major George E Preddy, Jr. with 23.83 aerial victories in the P-51 and Col. J.C. Meyer with 21 Mustang victories. Maj. Preddy scored three more victories in a P-47D for a total of 26.83, and Col. Meyer also scored three in a P-47D for a total of 24.
- Seven 352nd pilots became “ground aces in a day”, destroying five or more in ground attacks.
- Twelve 352nd pilots scored aerial victories over German jet fighters.
- Twenty-nine of the USAAF’s aerial aces over Europe were 352nd pilots.
- Ten 352nd pilots were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the 2nd highest U.S. combat award. Col J.C. Meyer receiving the DSC three times and Captain Bill Whisner twice. Lt Ed Heller got the DSC for setting the 8th AF strafing record.
- Seven 352nd pilots continued their military careers and attained the rank of General. One of these, Col J. C. Meyer, the only fighter pilot in WWII to attain four-star rank, commanded the Strategic Air Command and later became the Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force. The seven Generals from the 352nd were: John C. Meyer, Luther Richmond, Sanford Moats, Bill Pattillo, Buck Pattillo, Glenn Moran, and Gustav Lundquist.
- Twin-brothers Bill and Buck Pattillo, both pilots in the 352nd, later flew with the first USAF Thunderbird team. Both went on to attain General rank.
- One 352nd squadron was the only 8th Air Force Squadron to be awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation. This award came after a mission flown from a Belgian airfield during Operation Bodenplatte when 12 pilots of the 487th, led by Colonel Meyer, shot down 24 attacking German fighters without a loss while under a strafing attack on takeoff.
- The 486th Squadron participated in the first “Shuttle Mission” flown by the 8th AF from England to Russia to Italy to England escorting bombers to targets en-route. On this mission, Lt. Ed Heller scored the longest range fighter victory of the war with a victory over Poland.
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November Meeting – Kalamazoo Model Railroad Historical Society
October 11th, 2011
For the club’s November meeting, we will be holding our meeting at the Kalamazoo Model Railroad Historical Society’s hang out. We will be meeting at our normal time of 7-9pm.
Directions to the KMRHS’s location;
From the North, South or West of Kalamazoo: Take US-131 to Exit 44 (D Avenue). Take D Avenue East 5 miles to Riverview Drive. Turn left of Riverview Drive, traveling North for 1.3 miles. The entrance is on the right side of the road.
From East of Kalamazoo: Take I-94 West to exit 80 (Sprinkle Rd). Head North on Sprinkle Road for a little over 8 miles until it curves to the West where it now becomes D Avenue. Follow D Avenue West to the first stop sign (Riverview Drive). Turn right, traveling North for 1.3 miles. The entrance is on the right side of the road.
A LARGE BLACK REFLECTIVE SIGN WILL BE AT THE DRIVE WAY
For those who have a GPS, the street address is;
9336 Riverview Drive
Kalamazoo, MI 49004
IPMS Kalamazoo Member honored by the Historical Society of Michigan…
September 23rd, 2011From MLIVE:
” A retired Kalamazoo Central history teacher, known for his creative and engaging teaching methods, has been named the 2011 State History Educator Award by the Historical Society of Michigan.”
You can see the entire article here…
Congrats Rick!
13th Annual Air Zoo Contest – Lucky 13
August 7th, 2011
All the information, fliers, forms, etc have been uploaded to the site. You may access all the information by clicking the contest link in the most upper menu bar or by following this link.
ICM 1:48 Spitfire Mk VII – Build Review
April 19th, 2011
KIT #: 48062
MSRP: $22.95
The kit comes molded in two different grays, which I will refer to as “light” and “medium”. The parts trees will allow you to build not only the VII variant, but the VIII and IX variants of the Spitfire as well. In the box you get 7 gray part trees and well as one clear parts tree. All are clearly labeled with tree letters and part numbers, making for easy finding when removing the parts from the trees.
One thing that was disturbing to me on this kit was the both the amount of flash and sink marks. As you can see below, several areas on the wings and fuselage needed to be filled, sanded and rescribed. I opted out on several of the underside areas, knowing they wouldn’t be so easily seen.
Despite the cockpit not being made of resin, I found the parts to be very adequate and well detailed. Not much needed to be done other than painting, wash and some highlighting to make for a great out-of-the-box cockpit. After the interior was painted, the fuselage halves were assembled. I opted out of building the engine after reading several reviews on the internet as well as posts on various forums saying the engine assembly would not fit the fuselage assembly. Once the fuselage halves are joined, it was time to slide the cockpit assembly up through the bottom. Be advised that the cockpit assembly is a little too wide for the fuselage assembly and some trimming and sanding work will be required to make it so the fuselage halves don’t “bow out” causing problems later when it’s time for the wing assembly. (A lesson I learned too late).
There are some gap/fit issues when assembling the nose of the aircraft, as evident in the photo here. For part E15 to properly fit on top of the nose, I ended up splitting it lengthwise down the center. Once assembled to the fuselage halves, there as a gap at the top of the nose as if there would have been two separate fuselage halves. I suspect some of this gap issue (although not all) has to do with the cockpit assembly being too wide.
The other problem I had with the nose of the aircraft was when part D10 got added; there was a giant gap between the fuselage halves and the bottom D10 part (as seen here). The gap had to be filled with plastic strips, puttied and sanded flush, and rescribed.
The canopy is another area of this kit that needs a little help. The clear pieces on this ICM kit are not as clear as you would find on other manufacturers’ kits. A coat of Future did clear this up a bit, but still not 100%. The rear portion of the canopy aft of the sliding bubble portion is a little to long for the opening on the fuselage, so either the canopy will need to be adjusted or the fuselage. The windscreen needs a little test fitting and tweaking as well. In the end I filled the smaller gaps with white glue and used a Q-tip once the glue was dry to smooth the glue out.
The kit comes with two decal options;
The decals in my opinion are a little on the thick side. The only spot I really had issues with decals were on the top wing surfaces where the roundels cover the bumped up surface (sorry, don’t know the technical terms for the bumped areas). Despite a couple coats of Future and a dull coating, the edges of the decals can still be seen in some places. One inaccuracy on the decal instruction sheet is the placement of the small flags under the canopy. Reference photos show the flags located under the windscreen on each side of the fuselage rather than under the sliding portion (closed position) of the canopy. On my version I followed the instructions and found out later about the correct location.
Despite its sink marks, gaps and fit issues. The ICM Spitfire Mk VII right out of the box will give you a decent representation of the Spitfire Mk VII High Altitude Fighter. No this kit isn’t a Tamiya or a Hasegawa kit, but it can be built into a decent looking Spitfire by a modeler of all experience.
1:48 Otaki Bf-109 G6
April 7th, 20114/24/2011
She’s up on her gears! Landing gear is on, wash applied and just about ready for a flat coat. Got a couple fiddly bits to put on it before I coat. I’m still hoping to have it completed for the next model meeting in about 9 days, but only time will tell. I’m dreading taking the canopy masks off. They’ve been on there a while. Hope they come off OK and without the canopy popping free of the fuselage.
4/16/2011
Yellow 17 has all her decals on and is ready for some washes to dirty her up a bit. Actually I do see one spot where it looks like I got an air bubble in the future finish that I have to fix but other than that she is ready for weathering.
4/7/2011
Well I’m back in the saddle again! Isn’t there an old cowboy song like that? I’ve been in a modeling slump for quite a few years now. I’d tinker with a kit here and there and probably have completed 2 models in the past 4 or 5 years. I had good intentions with this kit, atleast from a WWII Allied aircraft builders point of view. One of our inner club contests was something to do with the effect of Down and Dirty, grungy, dirty, messy, old, etc. Well my intention with this kit was to build a crash landed 109. Cause quite frankly nothing looks better than a destroyed Luftwaffe aircraft. Well the contest had come and gone and along came another inner club contest of 09. So what the heck, I’ll continue on with this 109 G6 but I got bogged down with no desire. We’ll I’ve resurrected this one again and now I am cruising along nicely.
Here is what I am shooting for on this model………utilizing a sheet of decals from EagleCal from Eagle Editions. Gerhard Stamp’s Bf-109 G6 “Yellow 17″ from III/JG 300 (top profile)
Being a photographer you would think I documented the progress of this kit along the way……….well I did not. So I figured I would do a “Finish in Progress” of this one. I had to put several decals on so I could paint over them as indicated by the decal instructions and artwork. Below you can see I’ve over sprayed the fuselage crosses and did the random splashes of darker gray across the fuselage.
References are very few on this particular aircraft and it was suggested that the upper wing crosses were possible sprayed over as well, so I went for an overall over spray and a almost complete overspray of the wing crosses.
Next step is to finish the underside painting by blacking out the crosses on the underside. More progress to come, stay tuned.
13th Annual Air Zoo Contest – Annoucement
April 7th, 2011The 13th Annual Air Zoo Contest will be held on September, 17th, 2011. This years theme is “Lucky 13″. Your model just needs to relate to the number 13 in some way to be eligible. We are in the process of finalizing the details and will be posting the information as it becomes available. STAY TUNED FOR MORE INFOMATION!
Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat – 1/48 – Tamiya by Jim Fox
April 7th, 2011
Wildcat 77 was flown by James Swett of VMF-221, Marine Air Corp 12, 1st Marine Air Wing out of Guadalcanal. Swett didn’t take long to mark his place in history as an Ace. As a matter of fact, Swett became an Ace in a day on his first mission. April 7, Yamamoto orders a major strike on Guadalcanal. Swett while out flying a standard defensive dawn patrol had just landed low on fuel when the coast watcher alert came in saying that the Japanese were on their way. Swett’s division flew to Tulagi Harbor to protect targets from the Japanese dive bombers. The battle insued and over the next few minutes Swett would have downed 7 Vals and survive being downed himself. For his actions that day, First Lieutenant Swett was awarded the Medal of Honor Citation. Swett went on to score 8.5 more victories in F4U Corsairs totaling 15.5 kills.
What can really be said about this kit that hasn’t already been said? This kit is another one of Tamiya’s box shakers. About the only filling needed for this kit is just for general seam finishing. Painting on this kit was straight forward with Blue Gray over Gray. For the upper surfaces I used Mr Color’s Blue Gray but I honestly don’t recall what I used for the under surfaces as it was a year between painting and completion. Decals were taken from various sheets and leftovers to make Wildcat 77. During the process of building this there was a long break taken during the construction plus a move. Somewhere along the way the tail wheel was lost so this kit is lacking that at the moment. I have another Tamiya Wildcat in the stash and maybe I can get around to casting a replacement, unless someone has a better idea.
IPMS Kalamazoo has gone mobile!
March 7th, 2011IPMS Kalamazoo can now be easily seen on your Mobile device! Our site now will automatically determine if you are accessing the site through a mobile device or computer and will automatically adjust the site.
Congratulation Officers!
January 22nd, 2011Congratulations to our new officers for 2011. In our January 2011 meeting we held our annual officer elections.
Our new officers are as follows;
President – Martin Schultz
Vice President – Steve Nelson
Accountant / Treasurer – Jim Fox
While not an official officer position of the club, we still would like recognize an important part of keeping IPMS Kalamazoo in the loop. Clarence Wentzel will continue as our Chapter Contact.
1/48 Tamiya P-51D, Ex-Lax…Shht ‘n’ Git!
January 22nd, 2011
The 352nd Fighter Group, one of the most decorated units in WWII, was stationed at Bodney, England. Fighter Squadrons within the 352nd consisted of the 328th, 486th and 487th. Recognizable by their blue nosed Mustangs, it is said the German Luftwaffe called this Fighter Group the Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney.
The P-51D Mustang represented here was Ex-Lax…Shht ‘n’ Git flown by Cyril Doleac of the 487th Fighter Squadron. The Tamiya 1/48 P-51D Mustang was used for this build. Enough has been said about how nicely this kit builds so will not cover that. I replaced the cockpit with the nicely detailed Black Box resin set. Replacing the kit cockpit with this resin set is pretty straight forward. Using a Dremel and a grinding wheel I removed all the detail from the side walls. Wheels were replaced with a resin set from True Details.
I used a mix of Floquil Silver Mist, Floquil Glaze and Floquil Diosol for the Natural Metal Finish. The blue nose was painted with Floquil’s German Imperial Infantry Blue.
