Right after I got done with the C-46 I quickly got going on another Airfix favorite of mine: the Cessna O-1 Bird Dog. My original one was built in 1976, and I have strong memories of taking it with me to an overnight stay at a hotel in Los Angeles for a wedding my family and I attended. I painted that original one O.D. with South Vietnamese Air Force markings like the cover art. But for this rebuild I chose to model the USAF version in semi-gloss light aircraft gray. Humbrol 166 was the perfect color for it. For such a small model, it took me a long time to build mainly because Humbrol paints take forever to dry, and I had to do a lot of re-touching to correct errors. It's a fun little model to have again, and brings back memories of that trip to L.A. with Elton John & Kiki Dee's "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart" playing on the car radio.
When I was in Nam one of these crashed across the road from my tent, about 30 feet from where I slept. It didn't even wake me, me being a heavy sleeper. It had rockets under the wings and I suppose I'd have awakened if they'd gone off.
ReplyDelete