Plastic Model Mojo
Plastic Model Mojo, a podcast dedicated to scale modeling, as well as the news and events around the hobby
Plastic Model Mojo
Mighty Eighth Educational Travel with Mark Copeland: Episode 135
What happens when winter weather in Kentucky meets the Plastic Model Mojo crew? We dive into the challenges of maintaining our modeling schedules amidst the chill and share our excitement for the upcoming model show season, including a much-anticipated trip to Columbus, and for the Moosaroo Cup.
Our mailbag is buzzing with some great listener mail, like one from Rock Rozak at Detail and Scale about their release of the P-51 Mustang book series, or a short discussion on decluttering, inspired by Jake McKee's keepsake dilemma, and Ville Jurvanen's journey to polish skills with shiny 2K clear coats.
Meet Mark Copeland, who brings a fascinating perspective from his role as Director of Educational Travel for the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force. His story takes us from the airline industry to historical tours through 8th Air Force bases, and to the shores of Normandy, emphasizing the emotional connections formed with veterans. Mark's passion for the Eight Airforce is palpable, and our conversation with him sheds light on the fascinating world of historical travel. Learning the details of these exciting tours, offers listeners a chance to join these historical journeys.
Whether you're here for the camaraderie, the community insights, or the chance to learn about spectacular educational travel opportunities, this episode promises an engaging and enlightening experience. Don't miss the stories, the history, and the promise of thrilling new projects on the horizon.
Aviaeology - Japanese tail code decals mentioned in the Episode
Twin Cities Aero Historians - IPMS/USA
National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Airforce
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Mike and Kentucky Dave thank each and everyone of you for participating on this journey with us.
Welcome to Plastic Model Mojo, a podcast dedicated to scale modeling, as well as the news and events around the hobby. Let's join Mike and Kentucky Dave as they strive to be informative, entertaining and help you keep your modeling mojo alive.
Mike:All right folks, kentucky. Dave, it's episode 135 of Plastic Model Mojo. How are you doing tonight, my friend?
Kentucky Dave:I'm not doing too bad if the weather around here would not stop trying to kill us. I'm telling you, I'm ready to see some green man. Yeah, green and the sun I take brown at this point.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah well, true enough. I take Brown at this point. Yeah, well, true enough. The weather in Kentucky this year has been nothing short of horrid For Kentucky. For Kentucky, yes, no, for anywhere else up north this would be a pretty mild winter, Although I understand we have had like four more inches of snow than Minneapolis has had this year, which is just crazy.
Mike:That is crazy. It's probably been warmer down here, though.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, when it's not been snowing, it's been single-digit cold, and then, when it finally does get warm, it pours huge amounts of rain, and I am just ready for it to be over.
Mike:So we have some escapism, yes. Known as our hobbies, and fortunately they're indoors.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, so my model sphere has benefited, but not as much as you would think. Simply because of having to deal with all of the weather-related stuff, that driveway isn't going to shovel itself. Simply because of having to deal with all of the weather-related stuff, that driveway isn't going to shovel itself. Those cars aren't going to defrost themselves. But I have made it to the bench and have been making progress on projects and the show season's coming up, so I'm getting prepared for show season. In fact, when we're done recording this, I'll be packing the vehicle up for tomorrow's trip to Columbus. I'm looking forward to what's coming up. Man, I am thrilled, I'm jazzed, a little bit panicked about the Moosaroo, but we'll get her done, and so that's my model sphere. How about yours?
Mike:We're running down a dream man. This is all great. I'm trying to find a cadence for this year. Man. Here we're the latter part of first quarter and you know we got some stuff we're doing changing a few things around and trying some new stuff and just trying to keep it fresh and all that for everybody. But you know we launched the website and just today I had the scope meeting with our web guys for the phase two, so hopefully we'll get a quote back from that in a week or so and figure out what we're going to do. That's it, my model sphere other than bench time. We'll get to that. I've been doing pretty good.
Kentucky Dave:Good Well, I assume you have a modeling fluid. I do.
Mike:What do we have? I have Pilsner Urkel from the Czech Republic.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, good choice. God, you never go wrong with that one.
Mike:Well, I went wrong because I started drinking it too early. I'm going to have to pause at some point and go retrieve another one.
Kentucky Dave:That's perfectly acceptable. What about you? Well, I've got one. It's a repeat, it's Ace Pear Cider. Oh, your favorite, one of my two favorite beers slash ciders, along with Gumball Head, and In the Mood for One had to happen to have it available, so that I know is going to get me through the episode and we'll talk about it again at the end.
Mike:All right, Well, the mailbag's always got something in it and we might as well get into that. You got it. Well, I missed one last week. It came in, should have come in. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say it came in under the wire, but it was one of the last emails we got ahead of the last episode and for some reason I missed it and it was from Rock Roszak at Detail and Scale, and I've already talked to him about that and told him I'd lead off with this one this episode, and he and Bert are about to rip through the P-51 series.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, and just in time with Arma's P-51 series and Edward's P-51 series, it's a good time to be a Mustang modeler.
Mike:Well, part one of a four-part anthology I guess has just been released and it's going to be the early Allison engine P-51s and variants. So I guess all the experimentals and prototypes NA-73X, xp-51, p-51, a-36a, p-51a and the Mustangs Mark I, ia and II Are those the British ones, yep, and then an F-6A, which I don't know what it is, and an F-6P. That's. The F-6 is the reconnaissance weapon.
Kentucky Dave:Ah okay, as you know, they digitally publish as well as publish books. And Rock is the guy who really convinced me that getting a tablet and going digital was the way to go for a lot of this stuff, and he was 100% right. He reached out because Google has its own book format and they had not published in that format up to now volume one book to kind of beta test to make sure everything looked right and to see if there were any glitches and if the conversion to that specific format worked. And it did. And so I got to read that P-51 book and wow, okay, I would like to flatter myself that I knew a fair amount about the P-51.
Kentucky Dave:It is amazing how much information was in there, stuff that I had no idea. I learned a ton, and the pictures are fantastic and the ability to blow them up to get in as close on the detail as you could want it's absolutely wonderful. So now you will have Kindle versions, you'll have the Google Book versions, the Apple versions, so no matter what book reader you use, you'll be able to access the detail and scale library. And I'm telling you, if you're a P-51 fan, this series is going to be great.
Mike:Well, the detail chapter covers all aspects of the aircraft with more than 125 detail photographs. They've used an extensive use of period color photographs. There's a modeler section, like in all the detail scale books, and in total 245 photographs, in total, 126 in color, seven color profiles and 10 scale drawings. And, like you said, amazon, apple, google and Kobo, which I'm not familiar with.
Mike:Yeah $14.99 via electronic version and $21.99 for print edition. Check it out at wwwdetailandscalecom. So Rock, there you go. Man Can't wait for Volume 2. Highly recommended man. Well, speaking of new products, how about new old products? Okay, Highly desirable new old products. All right, the Dixie Flyer, Warren Dickinson, is hitting us up again with some information. Yes, he did us a solid. All right, the Dixie Flyer, Warren Dickinson is hitting us up again with some information.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, he did us a solid.
Mike:He did. He reached out to Aviology and said what's up with these no decal availabilities on these Japanese tailcoats, and they informed him that they were indeed going to redo them and reissue them. So currently there are four sets. Each One of you know yellow, red, black and white tail codes in both 72nd and 48th scale. So, folks, if you want those tail codes, you better grab them.
Kentucky Dave:And I can tell you that Mike and I's order has been placed.
Mike:Aviology Publishing. Now they're up in Canada, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, they are Aviologycom, I'm thinking is the correct web address.
Kentucky Dave:I believe it is.
Mike:Now we'll put it in the show notes, because it's a complex spelling. Yes, well, our Texan friend, jake McKee, and past guest of a couple times, has written in regarding throwing stuff away and the inability to do so, or at least muster up the courage to do it.
Kentucky Dave:I've got that problem man.
Mike:He said for years his mother would send him small and sometimes large boxes of stuff she couldn't stand to throw away. He says he didn't know the stuff still existed, which ended up leading to the don't want to throw it away problem just being shifted to him.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I was going to say that that was a mom's revenge.
Mike:I think so. So you know. He opens these boxes and finds his Boy Scout uniform and his fourth grade glasses and his kindergarten artwork. He's found that help toss stuff is just to take a picture of it, because that's going to last forever.
The Voice of Bob (Bair):That's not a bad idea.
Mike:And just get rid of it after that. That's not a bad idea. And just get rid of it after that.
Kentucky Dave:That is not a bad idea.
Mike:So there you go, Dave.
Kentucky Dave:I like that.
Mike:You start taking pictures and get one of them 30 cubic yard dumpsters out in your driveway and start chucking it.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I've been chucking it a little bit at a time. So you know, I'm trying to make sure that every time the garbage goes out on Sunday night that it's full. So I'm making slow progress.
Mike:We're kind of always doing that around here. I tell you, one time I made a game out of it. I don't know where I got this tip, but I made this grid with 100 squares on it and it was get rid of 100 things. Now they don't have to be significant, Right? I mean they could be crap out of your junk drawer in your kitchen or whatever, but that's something Right. Broken wooden spoon Exactly Ballpoint pens with the clips broken off, the pocket clip and all that jazz. But anyway, you fill that out as you go and you can see the progress and when you're all done, you've thrown out a hundred things you didn't need.
Kentucky Dave:That's a great idea.
Mike:Well, from Finland is next Dave. All right, our listener, philae Yervanen has written in and he appreciated the story about the uh, the air cap not being tight with Dr Miller.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:And he's wondering if we have any other. Oh, crap stories.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, we got tons of oh crap stories.
Mike:We've done one, maybe two. I have to go back to the back catalog. I know we, early on our first year we did a goose, gaffes and blunders episode.
Kentucky Dave:Yes. So if you haven't gone back and listened to the early catalog, that would be a reason to go back and actually listen to those early episodes, because Mike and I tell some stories of some serious modeling mistakes in Goose and some of them are a little bit funny.
Mike:And we got some from listeners too.
Kentucky Dave:And some of them are only funny in retrospect, that's right?
Mike:Well, he's taking his task here a little bit, dave. Okay, His plan for getting better this year is to learn to spray shiny 2k clear coats on car bodies.
Kentucky Dave:Good, that is a wonderful, wonderful plan for getting better.
Mike:And, of course, yes, what's ours? Okay, which I think, if I'm not mistaken. I wish I hadn't deleted that text stream, but I think that is one of our topics for the next. It is the next Shop Talk.
Mike:Yes it is. So, philae, we're going're gonna take that to heart and it's something we've talked about offline we've well, on on the show too we've. Yeah, that had been a mantra for a long time. We've kind of gotten away from it with all the changes in the podcast and stuff and it's time to get back to that. Yep, I completely agree. Well, he's. He reminded me that I'd mentioned shiny paint jobs was not an interest of mine about modeling cars and suggested making an old, rotten car model and using military weathering techniques. Yeah, that's an idea. Maybe, I don't know. Yeah, I've kind of got a prejudice against derelicts, though we won't get into that tonight.
Kentucky Dave:We won't get into that tonight. You could do one of the number of military cars, either German or American, and you don't have to make it derelict. But those were all flat-coated.
Mike:Wouldn't that kind of be a genre change? Yeah, that would be. I mean it's still 35th. Well, I've got an Airfix Monty's Humber in the stash.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, there you go.
Mike:I should probably build that.
Kentucky Dave:That checks several boxes. It does.
Mike:Well, this one, I think, is going to segue eventually into some of our other comments, either maybe in the shout outs or possibly in your Facebook messengers. But Andrew Armstrong from Centerpoint New York has written in and he recently renovated his workshops in a couple pictures. Yeah, thank you, and he said it's worth doing. Yes, he actually says his wife pushed him to spend a little money to make things better because he spent so much time down there. It should be nicer, she says.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, and she was right.
Mike:My wife has done the same thing. Well, mine emphatically agreed yes when I asked her if I should get a spray booth.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah Well, given your wife's degree, that's completely understandable.
Mike:And he went out for new skills outside his comfort zone and he's been working on an old AMT International Scout kit and he was the new thing. There was the wood planks in the trunk bed of that vehicle. Nice, and to do it, and just do something better than just one color.
Kentucky Dave:There you go.
Mike:So there you go, man Learn something.
Kentucky Dave:It doesn't have to be something big, it can be something little like that, it's still. That's something that if you pull it off, you learn something new, you can be proud of what you accomplished, I mean, and you put another skill in your holster.
Mike:Well, finally for me, dave, on the email side of things, is from Duncan Young, on behalf of the Hamilton Club, the host of HeritageCon. Now, we just had those folks on, those fine folks on, yes.
Mike:For our model show Spotlight, which was HeritageCon, and he wanted to thank us for promoting them over the years and even not just for the Spotlights from the shows coming up, but all the commentary we make about HeritageCon Hither and yon all throughout the modeling year. So I guess we bring it up quite a bit because it's such a great thing.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, it is. I mean, I've been to a lot of really great model shows IPMS Nationals, amps Nationals, et cetera, mmsi so I would like to think that I'm a little hard to impress. I have been absolutely blown away by HeritageCon. Those guys have not only do they do it great, it seems to get better every year and that's hard to pull off.
Mike:It is Well. That's all for the email. What's Facebook Messenger looking like, well?
Kentucky Dave:Facebook Messenger has been very busy. First there were a bunch of people, when they saw on the news that Kentucky was basically becoming one giant swimming pool, dm'd us to check and make sure we were alive and we were. Luckily the worst rain was to the south of the Louisville-Lexington line, so the folks in southern and eastern Kentucky got hit worse, unluckily for them. But Mike and I both survived and we appreciate every one of the listeners who, when they saw that on the news, thought of us and thought to ask.
Mike:Well, you go south and west of here and it just gets flatter. Yes, floodplains get wider and it's a real mess.
Kentucky Dave:And then when you get into eastern Kentucky and Appalachia, it's hills and valleys and all that rain runs into the valleys.
Mike:So they got it a couple months ago.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, our friend Paul Budzig DM'd in with a link to. First, I want to thank everybody who heeded the call to post photos of their hobby room or hobby bench or hobby workspace. First of all, I am envious of quite a number of your all's spaces. I thought I had it good. But man, some of you all have some palatial workspaces. Almost all of you all keep it cleaner than mine, which is clearly a problem that I need to address and I'm working on it. But Paul Budzig, our friend, he sent in a link that I'll post on the dojo to a hobbyist machinist's room video about their setup. And you know it's a nice point that you can look not just at modelers' rooms but at other hobbyist's rooms woodworkers, machinists, watchmakers, etc. By the way, I was impressed as heck that Paul Budzig's model room has two actual Gershner boxes. That's some quality, not the cheap Harbor Freight ripoff that I have, but I'll post that link on the dojo.
Kentucky Dave:Next is Ken Schaefer, and Ken, knowing my interests in World War II, the Dutch East Indies, et cetera, he wants to build one of the KLM DC-3s that was shot up fleeing the Dutch East Indies, and so he wrote in and asked for recommendations, for information, and I've got a couple.
Kentucky Dave:I'll send him some more, but I've got a couple that I told him I would mention. On the air One, there is a book on the air battle over Broome Australia, on the air battle over Broome Australia B-R-O-O-M-E, which has some great information about not only that DC-3, but a bunch of other aircraft that were fleeing the Dutch East Indies. There is a two-volume set called Bloody Shambles by Shores and Cull, which has a lot of information. I know for a fact that those markings are available in 72nd scale from a company called, of all things, dutch Decal, and I think they may actually be available from some other companies as well. But, ken, I will send you some additional information because, yeah, that is an area of interest for both myself and Scott Skippy King. So we have a lot of the info available.
Mike:Well, is there some I wouldn't say popular photography? Is there some well-known photography of this aircraft that spawned the episode.
Kentucky Dave:On the episode listener Eddie Turner and I don't know your geography, I apologize he asked an interesting question, which I think has been a wheel question before, which was if you were going to introduce somebody into the hobby for the first time, what kit would you give them to build? And of course, my answer is the Airfix, the Tamiya Zero, the Tamiya 72nd, scale Zero. Even though it's not a beginner kit or a snap kit, it is one that I think any beginner could build and get a really, really nice result out of. So what one kit would you recommend to a brand new into the hobby person?
Mike:Well, since you're taking the 72nd scale aircraft, I guess I'll take the 35th scale armor line, and I think it probably changes as the years roll out. And I think it probably changes as the years roll out. I think today it would probably be one of the new Tamiya KVs. I think that's probably a good place to go.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, yep, one color really a beast looking of a tank. So you get something that looks like a tank.
Mike:And the parts count's reasonable.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, the rising part count part of this hobby sometimes can be a bit much, that's for sure, yeah, listener, scott Daniel wrote in.
Kentucky Dave:We had talked about what are your plans for 2025. So he wrote in and told us that two of the things he planned to do, number one was build the Airfix B Mark II bomber kit in 72nd scale. And then he also planned to build the ARMA aircraft carrier deck. And ARMA, on its blog, actually has where you can take their aircraft carrier deck and they suggest a way to cut it and build it to kind of make a multi-level effect like an elevator going down or part of an elevator, and so he said he wanted to attempt that and I thought those were both great projects.
Kentucky Dave:From what I hear, the Airfix Lank builds up really well. I recommended he take a look at the Bases by Bill carrier decks if he just wants a carrier deck, but he wants to do that particular project and you know what? That is a really good thing for modelers. If you draw inspiration, if you see some project that somebody does that you find very inspiring and say, hey, I want to try that, don't be afraid to go, do that. You're not only as imitation the sincerest form of flattery. But there's nothing wrong with doing a project that somebody else did and using their learning to assist in your learning. Let's see, you mentioned already, but I also want to extend my thanks to Warren Dickinson for his heads up on those aviology decals, because we've kind of been waiting for a number of years for those to get reissued. So thanks, warren, I appreciate it. That's all I've got from the DM side. Well, folks.
Mike:We appreciate all the emails and all the direct messages, so keep it coming. We love this segment. If you want to send an email, you can do it by sending it to plasticmodelmojo at gmailcom, or you can send us a direct message via the Facebook messenger system and look forward to hearing from you folks. And again, if you do, we'd appreciate if you give us your geography, city and state, or your country and the city you're in Not too much information, but just enough to know what kind of reach we're getting and where folks are from. We like to add that little detail to the commentary of this segment, so please, if you can remember that, we appreciate it.
Kentucky Dave:Thank you If you would, when you're done listening to this episode, if you would rate the podcast on whatever podcast listening app you are using. We would appreciate it. Also, if you would tell a modeling friend who doesn't listen to the podcast about the podcast, help them, on their phone or other device, download an app for listening to podcasts and help them subscribe. The best way for us to continue to grow and we do continue to grow is people who are current listeners recommending us to their friends. So please do so.
Mike:Well, I'll also add that it's a lot easier now with the website for folks to listen off the website. So, wwwplasticmodelmojocom you can find every episode we've ever dropped on the website.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, if you've got a computer in your model room, all you got to do is you don't even have to pull out your phone or anything. You can listen directly on your computer. Just go to the website.
Mike:That's right. Or you got a smart TV with a browser. You can do it there too, that too. Once you've done all that and you want some more podcast action, you can go to modelpodcastcom. That's modelpodcastpluralcom. It's a consortium website set up with the help of Stuart Clark from the Scale Model Podcast up in Canada, and Stu has done a great job just keeping all the banner links for all the other podcasts in the model sphere aggregated, so it's a one-stop shop. You can go there and see what else is available, subscribe to all of them, listen to all of them, and we really encourage that. In addition, we've also got a lot of friends who are creators out in the model sphere blogs and youtube friends. We've got mr jeff groves. The inside guy's got a great 72nd scale blog and he just started some huge batch build.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, what was it? The Oscars, the ARMA Oscars.
Mike:Oh yeah, he's got a bunch of ARMA Oscars. Yes, stephen Lee, spru Pie with Fretz, great long and short form blog. Also a lot of 72nd scale content. Who are we going to actually get to see on our own turf next month? Yes, next month?
Kentucky Dave:Yes, we are. He's coming to Louisville and we are going to show him Kentucky hospitality.
Mike:All right, evan McCallum, panzermeister, 36. He just finished a nice little BT-2. I'm really excited to see a video on his dust effects, because that is something that's always eluded me and I think he did a bang-up job on that model, did he he?
Kentucky Dave:He did a bang-up job on that model, did he? He knocked that one out as a quickie and just did an amazing job on it.
Mike:So looking forward to that. Chris Wallace model airplane maker. He's got a fun YouTube channel and blog and some cool keychains Mine broke, chris.
Kentucky Dave:I'm going to get another one man.
Mike:I don't know what happened there.
Kentucky Dave:Mine's fine Chris.
Mike:I must have got guy defective one. Not your fault, chris.
Kentucky Dave:I'm sure I can probably tell where those were made yeah, but uh, I'll have you know that I use mine every day, chris, and it's holding up beautifully.
Mike:So maybe that might be operator error might be operator error for keychain. That's pretty sad. Yes, hopefully not. And finally, we've mentioned him already, paul Budzik Scale Model Workshop over on Patreon and he's dropped a couple pretty recently, one on primer painting with spray guns and one on his A20.
The Voice of Bob (Bair):Yep.
Mike:Glad to see that one moving forward. Just some great stuff and always learn something from Paul's videos. Oh, absolutely, you will too learn something from Paul's videos?
Kentucky Dave:Oh, absolutely, you will too. Yes, if you are a listener and you are not a member of IPMS USA, ipms Canada or your national IPMS chapter, whatever country you're in, please consider joining your national IPMS chapter. It's a modeling organization run by a group of volunteers who give up some of their time to make your modeling experience better. Amps is a great group of guys who are super talented and devoted to the art of modeling armor-related subjects, so go take a look at them as well.
Mike:All right, dave, let's hear from Model Paint Solutions.
Kentucky Dave:It sounds like a good idea.
The Voice of Bob (Bair):Plastic Model Mojo is brought to you by Model Paint Solutions, your source for harder and steam back airbrushes. David, union power tools and laboratory grade mixing, measuring and storage tools for use with all your model paints, be they acrylic enamels or lacquers. Check them out at wwwmodelpaintsolutionscom.
Mike:Dave our special segment tonight is a little different, Something kind of in the vein of say oh, the high school teacher Chris Collins, yes, that we did back in episode one, oh five. And Tonight we got our friend Mark Copeland, who we know through our modeling travels and show attendance and through Steve Hustad no, Steve, through Mark. Actually. Mark is the Director of Educational Travel for the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, which is a really cool job he's found himself in in the last 18 months, couple of years, I think.
Kentucky Dave:He did something right for karma to come back that hard on him.
Mike:Well, as folks will hear in this conversation, he's lived the Air Force historian life for a long time and all that hobby interest and personal interest has really paid off for him. It was adjacent to his other career, sort of yeah, he was in the airline industry, but anyway, I think folks are going to find this interesting and maybe some folks will be inspired to take one of these trips through the 8th Air Force Museum. So let's have a listen. Well, dave, tonight we've got a great friend of the podcast over the last few years, mr Mark Copeland. How are you doing tonight, mark?
Mark Copeland:I'm terrific. Thanks for having me on here and hello to everybody from chilly Minnesota.
Mike:Well, Mark is from chilly Minnesota and I guess the first thing you did for the podcast, Mark, was get us introduced to Steve Hustad.
Mark Copeland:Oh, I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry.
Kentucky Dave:Please forgive me.
Mark Copeland:No no.
Kentucky Dave:The biggest favor you could possibly have done Well.
Mark Copeland:I couldn't agree more Seriously.
Mike:I didn't know him at all and Dave was too too deep down the idol worship to even approach him about coming on the show.
Kentucky Dave:So hey, I talked to him. I said like five words to him in 2006.
Mike:Yeah, nice model. How'd you do?
Kentucky Dave:that no. I really like your model.
Mike:Well, we're not here to talk about Steve. We'll have him on, I'm sure again.
Mark Copeland:I got to say that he was the one who introduced me to the podcast and I can say from both of us and probably the whole Plastic Model Mojo community what a great job you guys do and what you've done to kind of unite the scale modeling community throughout the world. And you've really just made it. Plastic Model Mojo is kind of like a really dependable friend that I see every two weeks and it's always a joy to listen to you guys.
Mike:We'll wrap it up right there. Thanks for being here.
Kentucky Dave:The check is in the mail.
Mark Copeland:Oh no, steve. Like I said, steve introduced me to you guys and I've been a faithful listener pretty much ever since you started the thing up.
Mike:Well great Cool. We want to start this off kind of. You mentioned the scale modeling community. You're in the club up there in the Twin City areas. Tell us a little bit about your model clubbing.
Mark Copeland:Sure, well, I joined the Twin City Aerohistorians, a IPMS club that was formed in December of 1966. I joined it in 1977. My first meeting. My dad had to drive me to the meeting because I didn't have my driver's license and that was a long time ago. But it's a group of gentlemen. We not only do modeling but we also are aviation history enthusiasts. There's several authors, published authors, writers, photographers, anybody that has a love of historic aviation, and we've expanded it. Really we weren't a snobby airplane club. We allow everything into our into it as an IPMS organization.
Mark Copeland:But there's a, there's a group of probably I think we were around 75 members, I think someplace in there. We meet every second Saturday of the month at a place called South St Paul airport Fleming field is probably better known and we meet there one o'clock on the second Saturday, like I mentioned, and it's just a great bunch of guys. I think you had mentioned something, dave. I kind of went yeah, I understand that these gentlemen there's a lot of them that are truly my best friends in the world. If I had to really depend on someone or trust someone, it's going to be one of my modeling buddies and it's just a great club. And Steve Husted, as you mentioned, is the vice president. And then they were hard up and I've been the president for the last four years and very proud to serve.
Kentucky Dave:So in other words, the meeting where they held the election. You missed that meeting.
Mark Copeland:Yeah, exactly.
Kentucky Dave:Because that's how it works at almost every club.
Mark Copeland:That's right. I was on tour at the time over in England and, yeah, I came back and they elected me again.
Kentucky Dave:Now you're a man after my own heart in that you build 72nd scale aircraft models. You're correct. Yeah yeah, mostly World War II.
Mark Copeland:Predominantly Dave. Yeah, I guess I'd really kind of classify myself from 1914 to 1945. And I kind of draw the line there. They stopped making airplanes, as far as I'm concerned, after 1945. So no, I'm teasing.
Kentucky Dave:Once those jet things started flying. Yeah, yeah, if it doesn't spray oil and have a prop out the front, it's not an airplane, right?
Mark Copeland:Well, aren't we living in just an incredible time in modeling? Right now, it's just raining new releases. It's just incredible.
Kentucky Dave:It is. It is especially for those of us in 70. It's true in all scales, but for those of us in 72nd scale, right now, this is the golden time. You can't keep up, yeah, which means we have to build faster, and Steve wanted me to remind you that you need to build faster.
Mark Copeland:Oh, don't we all.
Kentucky Dave:He tells me that every day too Right faster.
Mark Copeland:Oh don't we all?
Mike:He tells me that every day too Well, if you started in the club in 66.
Mark Copeland:Oh yeah, the club started in 66 and I I came along 10 years after I would. I was only. I was only six years old in 1966. However, the following year, at seven, is when I began modeling.
Mike:Okay, that's about when I started getting introduced to it. Yeah, it was about seven as well.
Mark Copeland:That's yeah, my uh. My dad took me to hardware Hank on 98th and Nicollet in Bloomington, minnesota and I picked up a powder blue box, four star monogram, one 48 scale, a six M five zero and we sat down and we built it together and I always tease him that when he comes over and sees my, my collection and my models and this and that I always tease him, it's all your fault.
Kentucky Dave:You're the one who started it now let me ask you steve and I were actually discussing this uh, we both have the first model we remember building. We've gone out and located it and bought it again so that you have it for nostalgia purposes. Have you gone out and located that first model? And you've got it, of course, of course. Okay, do me a favor when we're done recording, go on the Dojo. Oh, that's true, that's right, it's probably packed up. Yeah, in dojo.
Mark Copeland:Oh that's true, that's right, it's probably packed up, yeah, in the middle of a move right now.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, Okay, well, when you get access to it, please post a picture of it on the dojo.
Mark Copeland:I sure will. I sure will. I've got some other you know kind of models that had something to do in your life. Yeah, that had something to do in your life the Revell 172nd scale B17, peggy D43, and the Lindbergh B17 that had the clear globe stand that used to sit on my dresser. And then I think I was kind of, you know, in that time period, build a model and then get some white thumbtacks and some monofilament fish line and then my ceiling was covered with all my uh, with all my models and uh, I would stare every night and just look up and and you know, my favorite one was right above my bed and that was the, the Revell 172nd scale B-17. And I know that we'll talk about that a little bit later, but I used to sit there and dream about what it would be like to be on one of those and be involved with 8th Air Force. And now I work as the director of educational travel for the National Museum at the mighty 8th Air Force in Savannah. So dreams do come true.
Mike:Yeah, we wanted to establish the modeling connection up front, just so everybody out there listening would know you were in fact one of us.
Mark Copeland:But your current employment is why we wanted to have you on to talk about.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah well, thanks, guys. That's nice of you. Now you're in minnesota, but the museum itself is located in savannah, georgia yeah actually uh, pooler. How did you get hooked up with them? How did you end up doing work for them?
Mark Copeland:It's a really good question. Well, my interest in the 8th Air Force started way, way, way, way, way, way back and I spent about 32 and a half years in the airline industry working for various regional partners with Northwest and Delta Airlines. So I had the opportunity at my feet like you, dave to travel, and I really took advantage of that and I started going to England back when I first became an airline employee. In fact, the next tour that I take out in May that's going to be number 56. Oh, wow, that's my 56th time to England. Yeah, so I went up and around in East Anglia and made a lot of great friends, and the person that really really influenced my interest in the 8th Air Force came actually not from meeting him in person, it was through his book, and I'm sure all the listeners will be very familiar with the author, roger Freeman, and the book the Mighty Eight, and then countless books after that. I think Roger wrote roughly 60 titles on the Eighth Air Force and World War II aviation history and I became active in the Eighth Air Force Historical Society here in Minnesota and then I went to the national reunions and I became really involved with it then and then I, like I said, I had the opportunity to travel. So I not only went to England but I started going to several bomb group and fighter group reunions and getting to know these gentlemen and really making some great connections and really, you know, touching history.
Mark Copeland:So, in anticipation of, you know, what they felt was going to be a rise probably meteoric rise in the interest in the 8th Air Force history, the museum reached out to me back in about 2021. And they said we would really like to do something in regards to bringing educational travel tours to England and giving people the opportunity to experience this thing. And the reason why is that we're going to be hopefully a historical tsunami is going to be kind of hitting the museum because of the Apple TV miniseries Masters of the Air. So they reached out and they said can you help us build a dream trip? And I kind of said, okay, what do you want to do? And they said that's up to you.
Mark Copeland:So I sat down and I kind of made two lists. I made a list of well, this is just a phone call, this is an email, this is you got to do this, you have to do this. And then I made another list of the things that I'd really like to do. I really gave it a lot of thought in terms of the things that really would immerse a tour participant into the history of the 8th Air Force, and I made a list and I called it. These are the things I'd really like to do, but there's probably no way that we're going to get a chance to do them, but I'm going to try anyway list, and so I kind of went to work on that.
Mark Copeland:So I put this whole thing together. I did research on transportation, hotel properties, restaurants, a tour itinerary and you know kind of the logics of that, and then reached out to several friends that I had over in England. I took a 68 page prospectus down to the museum and I gave it to the folks that were involved on the project and said this is what I would do. And so I was asked to run a tour, kind of a kind of a preseason game, if you will, or a test tour, and that was in the fall of 2022.
Mark Copeland:And I took about 25 people over and we we did the tour and it was designed not to be perfect but we got got a lot of great feedback, mostly positive, or you know things in terms of, you know, did we stay too long in this place? Or how was the food here? Did you like the hotels? And blah, blah, blah, blah blah. And we took all that and really honed it in and we made the tour, and so at that time, they gave me the opportunity to join the team in Savannah. At the time, I had a full-time job and working as a OCC flight duty director in the airline industry and they threw that in front of me and I just said I'd like to stay in Minnesota if I could, and they allowed me to do that and, yeah, they hired me in February of 2023.
Kentucky Dave:Was your first tour limited to England only.
Mark Copeland:Yes, correct.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
Mark Copeland:Uh-huh. Last year we expanded it and we took a trip over to Normandy and once again we did some things that were really kind of off the beaten path and got a chance to really explore, you know, that beautiful portion of France and of the rich history that's there.
Mike:Well, what are some of the highlights for the England tours?
Mark Copeland:I can get you to Hannitz in London really easy.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, we may have to do that sometime, Mark.
Mark Copeland:Well, we fly our folks into Heathrow, you have a private car that meets you, I meet you at Heathrow and then a private car takes you out to the hotel and then really to start off the tour. This is one of the things that I never thought we would be able to do, but I got us into a place called Wickham Abbey, and Wickham Abbey during World War II was the headquarters for 8th Air Force and also RAF Bomber Command. They were co-located at this property west of London and this is where everything happened with the 8th Air Force All the target planning, all the bomb assessments, everything was done, or you know in terms of, you know, everything was signed off, you know, and put into place at that very historic place. Well, now it's a very, very exclusive, very expensive private girls' school, but I got us into the Abbey and you actually get a chance to walk into the very office where Ira Aker and Jimmy Doodle ran the 8th Air Force. It's an incredible feeling and then one of the stops that we do along the way. It's kind of where 8th Air Force Fighter Command started. Right now it's a British military base that also is very hard to get onto and we take our folks to Debden and I think our listeners will recognize that it was the home of the 4th Fighter Group and we actually get a chance to go on the base. We get a chance to, you know, do a short tour. It's, like I said, an active army base, but they allow us to actually go out onto the wartime runways and our motor coach literally drives down the runways where one spitfires, p-47s and P-51s of the famous fourth fighter group flew, and you're there, and then I'll take you to, you know, various spots along the way where you know this is where this pilot's aircraft was, or this is where this happened, and so forth and so on.
Mark Copeland:Throughout the tour we do five B-17 bases. We do Framlingham, which is the home of the 390th, the 100th at Thorpe Abbots, we do the 389th at Heffel at Thorpe Abbots. We do the 389th at Heffel, and we also do the 453rd at Old Buckingham where Jimmy Stewart flew. And then we take you over to Bodisham, where the 361st Fighter Group was at, and then we go into Cambridge. We have a special wreath laying ceremony just for our group at Mattingly Cemetery, where the graves of 3,811 servicemen and women rest today, and then we go to Basingbourne, which is also a tough place to get onto. That was for the 91st Bomb Group, the Memphis Bell and the first group to make it over, and also a group where the highest number of losses were obtained in the 8th.
Mark Copeland:We go to Duxford and then we go into London. We stay at a very posh hotel in central London and we do things along the lines of we go to the Churchill War Room, so that's fine, we can go down and take the 28-pound tour. But we actually make it special for our guests and we, through some connections and a dear friend that works or is now retired there, we're allowed to go in and they do a behind the glass tour. So we actually go inside the cabinet room and you literally stand right at Winston Churchill's very chair that he sat in during World War II. It's an incredible experience. And then, to finish it off, we go to St Paul's Cathedral and most of the time it works out, but we make great friends there.
Mark Copeland:And in St Paul's Cathedral, behind the high altar is the American Chapel.
Mark Copeland:It was dedicated by then-sitting Vice President Nixon and Queen Elizabeth II in 1958, but even more so that's where the American Roll of Honor is kept, and the American Roll of Honor. For those who don't know is this enormous book that was commissioned and was presented to the cathedral by General Dwight D Eisenhower in 1946. It contains all the names of the American war dead that were killed in action in defense of Britain. So it's contained in this big case with a glass top and we've made very good friends with the vergers and the vicars there and they understand what it really means to our tour participants and the significance of it.
Mark Copeland:Every day since it was commissioned and put out in 1958, one of the vergers comes out, unlocks the glass top and they turn a page and what they do is they wait for our group to show up. And this last tour they gave us the true honor of. Each of our tour participants got a chance to turn the page in the American Roll of Honor and it kind of almost chokes me up now just thinking about it, because it was such a remarkable experience and you just have to leave people with that feeling like they've walked the airfields and the museums and seen all this stuff. But looking at that book and all those names, it really brings it home to what the cost was for our freedom and in honor of the 26,000 8th Air Force veterans and the 28,000 prisoners of war. The 26,000 never came home and it's quite a remarkable feeling. So that's a long answer.
Kentucky Dave:That's all right. That's all right Now. I assume that most of these folks who go on the tour are either very, very elderly, actual previous members of the 8th Air Force or the US military during World War II, or their children. I would assume that that's the core group of people who would be interested in those types of things.
Mark Copeland:All our participants are interested in history and also having a good time. We live very, very well in four and five-star hotels. We eat and drink very well. You are definitely pampered, but, you're right, most of the folks are—not most of the folks, but a good majority of the people had a father, maybe a grandfather, in some cases a great-grandfather, an uncle, a cousin, etc. Or they knew their old band teacher in school was a B-17 ball turret gunner, or this guy in the church choir that he knew was a P-51 pilot. You know, we have all kinds of different stories and what I can say is we really try our very, very best and so far we've succeeded on every occasion.
Mark Copeland:At the peak of the 8th Air Force in its full strength, there were 40 heavy bombardment groups in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Air Division, 40 of them, 15 fighter groups, two reconnaissance groups and each of them had their own individual airfield.
Mark Copeland:Well, even though the tour is, you know, very extensive, you know we cover a lot of ground and see a lot of things.
Mark Copeland:It's impossible we can't get to every airbase, but on our last tour I had a woman whose father was a pilot at Sudbury in the 486th Bomb Group.
Mark Copeland:Another woman whose father was a co-pilot in the 452nd Bomb Group at Diefen Green and also was a POW, and a gentleman whose father was a tail gunner in the 44th Bomb Group at Shipton. And those are not stops on our regular tour, but we have latitude and some time to give some free time and so forth, and I've got a lot of very dear, close friends and I managed to make it work out to where each one of those aforementioned folks I had a friend or I've even rented a car myself and driven folks out so they can go out and see where their dad served. I mean, that's such a neat experience for them and for me, frankly, that you can make that happen. So that's one of the things I really am very proud of is that we'll try and personalize it for one of our tour participants who had a relative and have a desire to go see that former air base.
Kentucky Dave:I know some former US World War II bases are now currently either US bases or they're British bases. Yeah, but aren't the vast majority of them decommissioned? Yes, they are.
Mark Copeland:Every air base has something. I've gone to. I just spoke to a gentleman the day before yesterday whose father flew at a place called Kim Bolton in the 379th Bomb Group, first Air Division, very, very famous group. And I've been out to the air base a number of times and virtually there's virtually nothing there. But there's a memorial and it's a beautiful memorial and you know what, sometimes you don't need to see something but you can just feel the history when you're standing on that hallowed ground. And it was you know, it was you know.
Mark Copeland:But we kind of take folks to places where there is something to see, where you know, aforementioned Masters of the Air featured the 100th Bomb Group. Well, the 100th Bomb Group has the 100th Memorial Museum at the base and it's housed in the former control tower, restored and it's a fantastic museum. And all those aforementioned bases, all of them have some sort of a museum. But yeah, most of them there's either something along that line they have a physical museum there or there might not be a thing, but usually there's a piece of granite to commemorate what happened during that time and a lot of them are occupied. I can say Debden, basingbourne, molesworth, there's a few other over and more towards Norwich. That are active military bases and yeah, they're tough to get on, but where there's a will there's a way.
Mike:Well, spring and summer are coming. I imagine that's your peak season.
Mark Copeland:Yeah, we've got an op. We've got a tour in may, actually a special tour too, because, um, we've made very good friends at the Cambridge American cemetery at Mattingly and I've I've jigged the itinerary around and we are going to have VIP seating on Memorial Day for their annual Memorial Day commemoration and, believe me, the Cambridge American Cemetery does it right. It's a very emotional ceremony and I know our tour participants are going to really enjoy that. And then we've got a couple of other tours coming up in October. One that's a shorter tour of the 8th Air Force. You basically get a chance to do everything, but we combine it back to back with another offering going over to Normandy, and we call this one the Easy 8. That's the 9th through the 16th of October, and then we take a break in the middle of it. And if you wanted to do the entire tour and really really do it right, and if you wanted to do the entire tour and really, really do it right, you'd have a day to yourself. And then the following day we begin a tour to go to Normandy.
Mark Copeland:But we actually started in England and what we got a chance to do is we take the folks down to Southwick House in Portsmouth and that is the place where Eisenhower did the final planning stages of the Normandy invasion. And we go into the actual manor house where they have the map room and they have the original floor to ceiling map that was used in 1944 to plan the invasion and we have a great, great lecture. That's one thing we do on our tours is I bring in a lot of really good guest lecturers or guest historians you know, very, very knowledgeable about the subject, and then, following that, we go into this place. That was the room where the final decisions were made in regards to the invasion Wing. Commander Stagg, the chief meteorologist, gave the weather report to Eisenhower and his staff and said you know it's not perfect, the seas are going to be rough, but this is about your best opportunity that you're going to have until the latter portion of June. And it was said that Eisenhower cleared the room. He just had his immediate staff in this area. He got up, he looked out of the back window of Southwick House, he stood there for a minute and he turned around and he said gentlemen, let's go. And that's the room where the decision was made.
Mark Copeland:And we have a champagne reception to start off our tour and then we head over and we actually do the channel, which is quite, really remarkable, and we put our bus on a train and we start moving and about 20 minutes later we're in France and we go to all five beaches. Once again, we like champagne, for some reason. We have a champagne reception at Braycore Manor.
Mark Copeland:And for those who know 506, easy and Band of Brothers if I could refer to the miniseries the second episode, day of Days we parachute into Normandy with Dick Winters and later in the episode he's assigned to take out these German guns that are pounding Utah Beach and he basically did this ad hoc. You know, make it up as you go assault. And we actually go and meet Charles Duvalier, the owner of Braycore Manor, and he invites us into his Chateau area and then he explains, you know kind of what happened there. We go to all the beaches, like I said, and do some things that we've got a really good French tour guide that grew up in Normandy by the name of Dominique Francois. He's written about seven or eight titles on the Normandy campaign.
Kentucky Dave:And he's our guide and also an excellent translator because my French isn't so much.
Mark Copeland:So now, how many people are on a normal tour? We, you know we'll go small about anywhere from around eight to 12. Up to last year, I took 32 to France.
Kentucky Dave:Gotcha.
Mark Copeland:For the modeling community that I also should add. We have a mighty eighth tour that starts on the 27th of October, goes for 11 days and it ends on Thursday, november the 6th, and, funny enough I don't know how this happened it's such a coincidence the following day I will show you how to get up to Telford, and the next two days is modeling heaven at the largest scale model show in the world, and I'll, I'll, I'll, help you, help you out and help you get up there, because that's where I'm going and, uh, telford's the, uh, the, the greatest thing in the world. I mean, it's once you go over there, short of swimming, I'll never miss one.
Mike:It's incredible. Well, this new job of yours and these tours is kind of the pinnacle of a long history that you've had with the 8th Air Force. I know you've sent a little resume. We knew what you were up to before we started. We've talked to you a lot about this on our joint traveling, modeling adventures. But I'm looking at this thing, mark, and since about 1996 you seem to have been the lowly px manager for the eighth air force, historical society all the way up to national president yeah, yeah, I've had a really great life so you've?
Mike:you've been doing that for 20 years, looks like.
Mark Copeland:Oh, easy yeah.
Mike:Well, on the record, with the historical side, I'm sure you've been doing it longer than that on your own. What honed you in and got you interested in the 8th Air Force in particular?
Mark Copeland:They gave us everything. They gave us our freedom and what their courage and endeavor. To me they saved the world, and you know the gentleman that I've had the pleasure of knowing in the past. They've taught me a lot of things about love of country, about integrity, about respect and kindness and also about, you know, the self-fortitude that it took to do what they did.
Mark Copeland:And I guess what really, like I said earlier, really spawned on was my great friendship with Roger Freeman and we were close enough to where, in 2005, in October of 2005, he passed away of cancer and I was given the privilege to come across by the request of his family and I gave his eulogy. And that was a pretty important thing in my life and I think about him every day and I guess to me just the fact that when you can go out and, like I said, you had the luxury of travel and you got a chance to meet these extraordinary gentlemen and that just really really kept the whole thing going and I just wanted more and I guess it was just a way that I could give back for what they gave me and all the people in the free world. They gave us, like I said, our liberty and our freedom and whatever I could do to contribute back, will never ever pay the debt that we all owe them for what they did some 80 years ago.
Kentucky Dave:Now, given your long association with the society and with the 8th Air Force and with the museum, I'm sure you've met many, many veterans.
Mark Copeland:Oh yeah.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I know we could spend hours and hours talking, but pick out a couple of memorable individuals, tell a couple stories about a couple of these amazing men.
Mark Copeland:Oh boy, yeah, you're right, we could go for hours. Like I said, I've had an incredibly blessed life on getting a chance to meet some of these guys. I know that we have a shared love of August 1st 1943 and the tidal wave mission at Ploieste and I got a chance to meet several veterans from that campaign. I know that you had met Phil Ardrey down near Neck of the Woods. I knew old Phil and then I would do. Let me think relating to Ploesti, where do I start? Oh, I know, yeah, just because you could do it, I'd make arrangements with his secretary and General.
Mark Copeland:Ramsey Potts, who led or was part of the contingent of leading the 93rd Bomb Group on August 1st, was part of the contingent of leading the 93rd Bomb Group on August 1st. He went on excuse me to go into the 389th Bomb Group, the 453rd, and he was great friends with Jimmy Stewart and he went all the way up into 2nd Air Division and into command. Very, very, really really brilliant, brilliant pilot and also a great leader. Well, after the war he studied law and actually had a law practice in Washington DC and I would jump on an early flight to Reagan and make arrangements with the secretary and I did this probably about four or five times through the years and I would just jump on a jet and fly to Reagan and of course as an airline employee you know what I paid and then got out to grab the Metro and head uptown and I'd go to his office and I'd meet General Potts and we would just have lunch and talk for about an hour and a half or so and I'd say thank you very much and I'd take the Metro back, jump on a flight and fly back home and the whole day probably costs 25, 30 bucks but I got. But I but I got a chance to meet. You know one of those guys from from Ploesti. And then there's a dear friend of mine out in South Dakota by the name of Blaine Duxbury. That's he. If there's anybody that really, really knows the aircraft of Ploesti, it's Blaine.
Mark Copeland:And we we just decided, since nobody was going to recognize it or do anything. You have to remember what is the single one-day military action, the most decorated military action in our country's history. No, it wasn't at Valley Forge or Gettysburg or anything like that. It was August 1st 1943. There were five Medal of Honor winners, as you know, that were that participated in that raid, three that were awarded posthumously. So we just decided that somebody had to do something and I knew. I knew I had connections and Blaine had connections, and just the two of us.
Mark Copeland:We organized a 70th anniversary commemoration of the Ploesti raid and we did it in Dayton Ohio and of course we went to the National Museum of the Mighty Air Force, of the US Air Force, where they have the only real surviving B-24D B-24D. We thought it would be worthy if we could maybe get like four or five guys, because they're in their late 80s or just creeping into their 90s, and we actually managed to get 12. We had 12 Ploesti vets, including Mary Gerstead Jacobs, who was the only sibling of John Gerstead of the 93rd Bomb Group, who was one of the Medal of Honor winners that was awarded posthumously and that was the first time that she ever came to honor her brother. And that weekend was just unbelievable, just the history. And we conducted a lot of symposiums and things along that line and really kind of immersed in it, of course commemorated August 1st, the 70th anniversary of that raid, another one I do a lot of.
Mark Copeland:I still do a lot of consulting work for the Military Gallery over in England who publishes all the late Robert Taylor, richard Taylor, the late Gerald Coulson, anthony Saunders and a host of other artists and I used to consult in regards to being their chief kind of history guy, if you will. So, as an example, robert Taylor was going to do an 8th Air Force piece and he wanted to do a particular subject in particular of a certain mission, or he wanted to feature a certain aircraft. So I would give him information and as a modeler, you kind of knew what this airplane looked like at this particular time and you made sure that the accuracy was, you know, very pertinent. And then in turn, what I would get a chance to do is they didn't remit me or pay me basically in money, but I got a very nice aviation art collection and then what.
Mark Copeland:I also did was I went over several times to England for these gallery events and my job would be to stay at the hotel with the veterans. And all of a sudden, I was sitting there with five the surviving dam buster crewmen and six battle of Britain pilots and making sure that they were on time and that they were driven, and I got a chance to meet these incredible men you know not only the REF guys, luftwaffe veterans, et cetera, et cetera, through the connections, and then I also got a chance to bring over some Americans to these different events and that was some great memories. So, yeah, and then, probably of any vet that I was probably the closest to, was Colonel Don Blakeslee. Colonel Blakeslee and I were very close until he passed in around I think 2008 is when he left us but we were great friends and I spent many, many, many a time down at his place near Homestead Air Force Base south of Miami.
Mark Copeland:And for those who don't know Colonel Blakeslee was, he was the commander of the 4th Fighter Group and started flying with the Royal Canadian Air Force, then went to the Eagle Squadron and then flew of the 4th Fighter Group and started flying with the Royal Canadian Air Force, then went to the Eagle Squadron and then flew with the 4th and in all I think he flew just what I can figure out just over 1,300 hours of combat time, which has never been done by another American pilot. And Colonel Dion and I, we were good buds.
Kentucky Dave:Well, they didn't call it the Blake's to WAFA for nothing, that's right.
Mark Copeland:Yeah.
Kentucky Dave:Well, that's got to be wonderful, of course, and now you know there are fewer and fewer of them remaining, given that most of these guys who are still around are pretty 100-year-old or pretty darn close.
Mark Copeland:On one of our tours in 2023, we did an 80th anniversary of the Black Week period of the 8th Air Force October 8th through the 14th of 1943, when the 8th Air Force lost 138 heavy bombers in that six-day period.
Mark Copeland:And I had the chance. I got a call many of your listeners might know the name of John Lucky Luckadoo from the 100th Bomb Group and John was 101, and he called me up and said I want you to save a spot for me, for my daughter and my son-in-law, and we want to go on your Black Week tour in October for my daughter and my son-in-law and we want to go on your Black Week tour in October. And I kind of sat there for a second and I said what could go wrong with that? But by golly we did it and for 12 days I took a 101-year-old gentleman and he got a chance to go back to Thorpe Abbots and fulfill a lifelong dream to show his daughter where he served during World War II and fulfill a lifelong dream to show his daughter where he served during World War II. And that was just a remarkable experience and lucky. You'll be 103 on March 16th.
Kentucky Dave:Wow, that has to be for having lived through that awful week, no-transcript, 80, you know, 70, 80 years later, whatever it was, and to visit those places, I mean.
Mark Copeland:I can't imagine. Yeah, it was really something and we really kept his visit kind of private, we didn't advertise it on social media and I got to recommend in that regards to John Luckadoo, if your listeners really want to take a really good historical ride in 2000, no 2020 during the lockdown pandemic, lockdown, john and an excellent writer by the name of Kevin Maurer wrote the story of his World War II exploits and it's a book called Damn Lucky.
Kentucky Dave:And it's just unbelievable.
Mark Copeland:And he tells a story about his time in the 100th bomb group and he's very truthful. And I remember John and I were on, we went up on top of the tower and I mean he scampered up the stairs like like he was on fire and we were coming down and I said let's just do this right. And I had one of the docents kind of on the front in case he went forward and I was in back of him in case he went backwards. And we walked down and and all of a sudden he, uh, he stood on the tower and he stood at the, at the corner, just just staring out at the field and I knew exactly what was going on and all of a sudden he, he was back in 1943 and he just stood there and stood there and I didn't, I didn't say anything, but I managed to take my phone and I took some pictures and I'll I'll post that on the dojo of the last 100th bomb group veterans standing on the control tower at Thorpe Abbots, because there's only four of them left.
Mark Copeland:That's it. There's only four 100th Bomb Group veterans left living right now. And I was there, you know, to see it. And that was just something. And you know, I didn't say anything to him or whatever, and he just kind of turned around and I said you're right, john, and he goes, yep, and just we walked off and that was it. But yeah, that was. That was a remarkable honor.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that's gotta be amazing. So how many tours do you have coming up this year?
Mark Copeland:We've got one planned in May and then we have, uh, uh, as I mentioned, the long tour, which is 16 days, going to England and to Normandy, and then we split that. We can split it in half and you can. You can do the front portion of uh, which is a shortened date, the Air Force tour, and then the D-Day tour is after that. The whole, the whole tour is 16 days in total, and then we have a complete separate day tour which is starting on the 11th. I'm sorry, try to do that again. It starts on October 27th and then goes to November 6th. That's an 11-day tour, and then after that I'm going to Telford.
Mark Copeland:And anybody that wants to come along, please, please do. And then I'm also developing kind of interestingly enough, I'm developing a tour that nobody's ever done Aforementioned there were 28,000 8th Air Force prisoners of war during World War II. What I'm developing right now is a trip to go to Berlin. Then the group would go from Berlin up to Rostock and we would visit the site where Stalag Luft 1 was. At the following day we would go out to Peenemunde where the vengeance weapons were developed by the Germans, and then we'll go back to Berlin and kind of do all the sites in and around Berlin, not only World War II but also Cold War, you know, the wall, checkpoint Charlie, et cetera.
Mark Copeland:And then we'll take a drive off and we're going to go out to Kolditz Castle and then also the following day we're going to drive over to Zagin in Poland and visit Stalingrad 3. Of course that's the place where the Great Escape happened. And then from there we're going to go down to Dresden and spend a couple of days in Dresden and then finish off the tour in Nuremberg and we'll see the sights of Nuremberg. And the final thing that I want to put together is visiting the Hall of Justice where the Nuremberg war trials were held. So that'll be a really remarkable trip that's going to be in the spring. And then I have another German trip that's going to be in the fall of 2026.
Kentucky Dave:Okay. So you've already started. You've got all of 2025 planned and you're actually starting working on 2026.
Mark Copeland:And 27,. Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely yeah, and all this information can be found on our website. If you don't mind me doing a shameless plug, no, I was just about to ask, actually.
Kentucky Dave:Just about to ask, so I will.
Mike:So if our listeners would like to know just how to get on one of these tours.
Mark Copeland:Well, I can tell you just how to do that. No, now I have to send you guys a check in the mail. No, it's actually on our website, it's on wwwmighty8thorg. And then you just go to the educational travel tab. It tells you all the details, a more detailed itinerary, the hotel properties that we have, what we kind of do loosely on a day-by-day basis, and you know, we understand that. You know, you and I or anybody as far as that might be interested in this.
Mark Copeland:It'd be fun to take your spouse and I can say that we do give a lot of free time. We give you a free day in London. We give you a free day in London. So if your wife has to go to Harrods and go look at $1,200 pairs of shoes, we'll give you that opportunity and the hotel in central London. We're really close to the theater district, so if you want to go catch a show, it's just a couple minutes away and you're right in the heart of central London and, like I said, it's a nice place to live right in the heart of central London.
Kentucky Dave:And, like I said, it's a nice place to live. Well, for those of us who may have a little tough time getting to Europe anytime soon, tell us about the museum itself in Georgia.
Mark Copeland:Oh, certainly. Well, the museum has been open since 1996, and thanks for asking about that, dave. The museum is called the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force. It's actually located in Pooler, georgia. It's open six out of seven days of the week, and so forth, and we have a beautiful, beautiful museum that tells the story of the buildup of World War II, where you actually kind of go in and it's kind of a well, I don't want to allay it to like a Disneyland, you know, type of a show or something along that line.
Kentucky Dave:An interactive experience.
Mark Copeland:Exactly, and then you walk out into the combat gallery and that is where the city of Savannah is and that is our B-17. It is probably in the world, I would have to say, as a non-flyable example of a B-17, it is probably in the world, I would have to say, as a non-flyable example of a B-17, it certainly has. It's probably close to the most complete aircraft, not only internally but externally. All the turrets work ball turret, top turret, the chin turret, all of them operate and it's a remarkable, you know, aircraft that you can get right up very, very close to and for for anybody that wants to go on a tour or visit the museum. You can reach out to me and I can. I know. I know some folks and I recently folks that you that you've had on the show, like Bob Bob Bear and Harvey Lowe. They were down in Savannah and I got a chance to give them, make arrangements to make a VIP tour and both of them got a chance to get inside the fort, which was really nice.
Kentucky Dave:So the museum is, is the museum itself expanding.
Mark Copeland:Yeah, thanks for asking. Yeah, we just went on a major capital campaign project and we're actually putting on a very, very large extension and kind of doing a complete facelift of the museum, which will take actually a couple of years to do. I've seen all the architectural plans and the drawings and what they're going to do and you know, the museum is good right now but it's going to be so, so much better in the next couple of years. So, yeah, we're really excited about that, but it's going to be so, so much better in the next couple of years. So, yeah, we're really excited about that.
Kentucky Dave:Well, looking forward to it, I've got to. Maybe I can convince the wife to make a vacation trip to Savannah.
Mark Copeland:Savannah's a beautiful city.
Kentucky Dave:And we've never been, and you know, as long as I don't tell her we're going there to see a museum. Oh honey, while we're down here, why don't we do?
Mike:it like your Niagara Falls trip, dave, where you didn't even go to the falls, you went to Buffalo.
Kentucky Dave:I went to the Buffalo Naval History Museum while she went to the fall.
Mark Copeland:That's awesome.
Mike:Mark, let's bring this home now and all this aviation history or your new career track with as the director of Educational Travel with the National Museum of the 98th, how does all this job and your interest in World War II aviation influence your modeling topics?
Mark Copeland:Oh yeah, that's a great question. I think I could answer it in this regard, mike, I think anybody that builds, especially military or historic things, or shall we say real life things, we all strive to take something and create a 3D miniature of an aircraft in my particular interest, and so forth. All of us, I think, want to obviously strive for accuracy and to achieve, you know, a real life, you know, miniature, reproduction of something that was real, a real aircraft In my regard. I guess I purchased many, as an example, the new Edward P-51s.
Kentucky Dave:I was going to mention that.
Mark Copeland:I think now I think I'm pretty much to the point where I have just as many P-51s as Doolittle had in 1944. It's a remarkable kit and I have a list, a short list, of aircraft that I want to build. Not only are they beautiful, beautiful airplanes. But let's go back to Don Blakeslee. That's the first one I'm going to do is WDC P-51D5 that Colonel Don flew and just in tribute to my friend and I guess you know.
Mark Copeland:The other thing is is when, when you can go and you can, you can literally, as, like Colonel Blakeslee on our visit to Debton, I will take, take our tour participants to the exact spot where his hard stand was, and you can, and you can stand there, or I'll take you to the hard stand where the Memphis bell was parked, or you know this and that and when, when you actually stand there at that place where that airplane was and and the where that was and where that pilot flew, it's a whole different experience in terms of history. But then when you sit down with the model bench and you sit back and you say I'm going to build a P-51 of Colonel Don Blakeslee and not only was he a great friend of mine personally, but just to stand at that very place where that aircraft was at. That's, that's to me such it makes. It makes the build. It just means so much more, I guess. Does that make sense?
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, it gives you an extra connection, oh, completely yeah, completely.
Mark Copeland:And when that model's done and you put it on your shelf or bring it to your local club or what may have you Maybe people won't totally understand you know what it was, but you know to say that I stood at that very place where this airplane you know was parked or where it was serviced and things along that line.
Mark Copeland:Or we take our motor coach and our bus driver kind of knows the deal. When we're driving, when we're at Debton and we go down the main east-west runway, he tries to get the bus up to about maybe 80 or 85 miles an hour. We try and get it off the ground. But you're rolling down this runway where you know the 4th Fighter Group flew and the Eagle Squadrons and before that it was a Principal Bas and 12 group in the battle of Britain, and it's just like this is unreal and you get that sensation. And, like I said, when you bring that back to the model table it just makes the whole experience so much more, you know, interesting and it to me it just makes the hobby, you know, that much more enjoyable.
Kentucky Dave:I can relate completely.
Mike:Well, Mark, we want to thank you for agreeing to come on the show and talk to us about the tours and your historical endeavors. It's all been great. It's been great getting to know you and Steve over the last couple of years.
Mark Copeland:Well, that has been not only, like I said earlier in the program. At the beginning, you know, like I said, you guys just kill it every two weeks and I look forward to it. But I never, ever in a million years, thought that an email to you guys about my friend steve, my best friend steve houstead and then now, where it would, where it would turn out to be that I've really gained two really good friends out of it, so that's, that's what this hobby does, doesn't it?
Kentucky Dave:yes, it does. That is what this podcast has done for Mike and I Do me a favor. When you have tours upcoming, please post those on the dojo. Let the listeners have the opportunity. I'm sure that most of our listeners this is their first time hearing about any of this, first time hearing about any of this. If they would like the opportunity to actually experience it, please post the information on the dojo about upcoming tours so that people, if they're interested, can go ahead and contact you, contact the museum and arrange to get on the tour.
Mark Copeland:I think that's a terrific idea, dave, and I certainly will. Thanks for suggesting it. And yeah, and if anybody is interested in participating in one of these things, maybe to close, I guess it's something that I think we all know in the back of our mind, and it's not to get all philosophical or sappy or what may have you, but it's really true. We only have so much time on this earth and the time that we have is finite, and all of us have the bucket list and the list of boy. One of these days I'd really like to do this, and it's up to us, as human beings, to eliminate as many of those things as we can before the end. And, as I say, there's no ATMs in heaven.
Mark Copeland:And you know what, enjoy life and experience something, and most of our tour participants they come back and it really is, especially for people that had relatives in the 8th Air Force. It's really a life-changing experience and if anybody wants any further information on the educational travel page, there's my contact information, my email and my telephone number and either call me or email me anytime and I'd be happy to provide any information that I can for you.
Kentucky Dave:And Mike and I can both testify that Mark is a boon traveling companion, that's right.
Mike:Look forward to the next time we're on the same trip.
Mark Copeland:Yes, exactly Amen to that, Sooner than later as far as I'm concerned.
Kentucky Dave:Amen.
Mark Copeland:That's it, Guys. Thank you so much.
Mike:Thank you, mark, and we look forward to the next time we see you.
Mark Copeland:Absolutely All right.
Mike:right, you guys take care take it easy, all right, thank you man, that sounds like so much fun, oh it, it does, I've got.
Kentucky Dave:If I can't get to europe, and right now that clearly that's gonna be tough, tough haul for me. I at least want to go down to the museum of the 8th Air Mighty 8th down in Georgia. That just sounds like so much fun and can't wait to do that. And Mark always love talking with Mark. He's just such a fun person. He has such a bright outlook on life.
Mike:Well, and he's certainly enthusiastic about the 8th Air Force.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, he is. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, get building those P-51s, mark and the.
Mike:B-17s.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
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Mike:Well, I got a box from Bases by Bill. It's got the fruits of our experimentation in it.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, great, great. I can't wait. When we get done with this, you'll have to take a couple of photographs and send them to me, yeah, so folks will get enlightened about that a little later down the road.
Mike:We're not quite there yet on either of the projects that are represented in that package, but Christian thanks for sending that out and Bill and company thanks for working on it for us. We appreciate it.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, absolutely.
Mike:Well, dave, it's the Benchtop Halftime Reports and I hope you've got something to report, man, I do. It's you can't go over to on the Moose through.
Kentucky Dave:No, I, I, I. I can't post pictures of it cause it's top secret, but I am making progress on the Moose through the. The model, by Sunday night should be in in its final paint. Then all right. Then it's weathering and then I've got to knock out that, that base real quick because the diorama or vignette component is the one I don't want to. Don't want to. It's going to be very simple, so I think I can knock it out pretty quick. But yeah, I'm enjoying it. It's a fun kit. I appreciate the guys in Hamilton doing this and I'm not going to go 0 for 2, I promise.
Mike:Anything else In the hobby room I have been moving.
Kentucky Dave:I put up shelving, as I mentioned last time. I've been moving kits and stuff like that, and then I've been moving out some of my library into my pool room. By pool room I mean table pool, not outside the billiard room. Yeah, the billiard room, thank you. And I found the only problem with moving books is you look at them and it's like oh, I didn't remember I had that, or ooh, that's a cool. And next thing you know you're standing there. Instead of moving books, you're standing there leafing through something.
Mike:Yes, guilty.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, not good, that's not good. So it slows me down. It robs yeah, not good, that's not good. So it slows me down. It robs me of hobby time. So I've got to get better about that, but I am making some progress.
Mike:How about you? Kv85 is moving along. Yes, it is. It's about to pick up pace a little bit. It's about to pick up pace a little bit. The hurdle of the last few days has been the last of the primary hull welds on it which I've done in the epoxy putty, and there were six, yeah, six in total, and I tell you I can say we talked about this in a recent past episode. I don't know if it was the last one or not, but it was certainly recent couple. Was there anything from the E16 project that was actually going to carry over into armor? And, yes, I can say something has.
Mike:I got to point where I was handling that E16 float plane pretty gingerly and then if there was work I'd just done and I knew I was at risk of fouling that by working on some other area of the plane before that was set up or cooked off or whatever I would just not do it. I would wait. And I saw with these welds that that was going to happen If I just handled this thing. I was going to happen. If I just handled this thing, I was going to keep getting my fingers in the ones I'd already done because they were the, they were exposed, and so it took me three sessions to march through this thing. Yeah, I'd do these two, then wait, then do these two and wait, and then do the last two, and wait, and they're all done.
Kentucky Dave:So I'm moving on to the fenders next well, or let me ask you are you like? Are you like uncle, night shift and doing weld seams is now your favorite part of building a model tank no, I wouldn't say that.
Mike:I would say four of the six weren't bad. Yeah, no, there was eight. Actually there's two near the nose, two in the the middle and two on the rear Four in the middle and two on the rear. The four in the middle around those turret bulges gave me a lot of trouble. That was not my favorite.
Mike:I was glad when those were done. It was just a matter of you didn't have a corner to pack the putty into, because that bulge is round, because the that bulge is round. So you had a a round surface coming down and stubbing into a flat surface, so that that angle was really shallow down where the weld seam was. So I did his trick, though. I went back and I ended up scribing a a groove to pack the putty into so I get a little more tooth for it to hold onto. It just kept. It kept going away on me, yeah. But I got there in the end and I think they look pretty good.
Mike:Good, and the fenders are proven problematic. What's exactly wrong with them? They're fine. They're nice and thin for injection molded tank fenders, so there's really no need to replace them. I've thinned the fronts and rear exposed ends a little bit. But they've got a detail. That kind of friction fits up into the underside of those turret blisters on the hull sides and when you get those in there it forces a twist into the fenders, hmm, and I'm not sure where it's binding up. So I got to figure out what's causing that, to do that, and it's just going to be a lot of file.
Mike:Fit sand, fit sand, fit sand. Oh there it is. Now glue it on. So that's going to be hopefully this weekend I'll have those on. One of them's not bad, the other one's kind of terrible, so I'm a little worried about it. I think I'll get it, but not fun.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, well, you know, that can actually be a lot of modeling zen when you're working on something like that. You sand a little off, you test fit, you go okay, and then you take it off and you sand a little bit and you can kind of get in a groove doing that, and you can kind of get in a groove doing that.
Mike:And I'll be honest with you in some respects, I find that very relaxing, as long as you can get it eventually to actually fit. Well, once you get the Moosaroo thing done, you got to tear into those.
Kentucky Dave:The SAM has to finish up. And then I've got to tear into those F8Fs, which shouldn't be bad. Those are simple. Those are the Hobby Boss reduced parts kits, so they should not be very hard. And these things are going to be basically markings mules anyway. So I'm not, I'm not. There's going to be no super detailing or anything like that.
Mike:You know I had an idea, oh Lord you know, on your Moose Roo obligations years. You also have this September's collection or group build for the Nationals. Yes, you keep beating your head against. Yeah, I propose for 2026 that the September's group bill for the nationals be whatever. The Moose through is no community within a community and it's just stuff you guys have been building for the prior year and don't make it something different.
Kentucky Dave:Something different. Well, we, you know that would be nice. I'll talk to to the doctor, dr. You know that would be nice. I'll talk to the doctor, dr Gelbacher, who's in charge of those things, and see if for that year we can fit in something that I've already got something built that fits in the collection, in fact the one coming up. I've already got one item that fits in the collection.
Mike:I mean because these things are going to burn up your.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I know.
Mike:Spring and summer.
Kentucky Dave:I know, yeah, well, that's the other thing. I didn't get the dark time.
Mike:You, you, you've got like three months to build something you want to build.
Kentucky Dave:Right, I've got to build faster. I have to build faster there is no just trying to help you out.
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Kentucky Dave:Mike, new stuff is coming out at a rapid pace. In fact, I'm finding it hard to keep up with it all. So do you have some faves and yawns for what's coming out?
Mike:You know, I don't know if that's universal across all scales and genres, but I got a few things All right, honestly they're faves. But there's like this overarching theme that kind of bums me out a little bit.
Kentucky Dave:Okay.
Mike:Yeah, 3D print seems to be propagating faster than maybe I would care for. I'm kind of developing a love-hate with it.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:And you know I've got three faves here tonight and two of them are 3D print things.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:But they're cool. Yeah, b&l Models, a company out of Vietnam, has got a Type 65 twin anti-aircraft gun.
Kentucky Dave:Okay.
Mike:Vietnam War era gun. They've got the ground version. They've also got that one or two off. They built on T-34 chassis Right A conversion for that. So interesting subjects. I know they're my cup of tea so I don't have to worry about too much 3D print encroaching on my modeling enjoyment, but look pretty cool. Yeah, what's your first one?
Kentucky Dave:My first one is a fave. It's our friend ClearProp, out of the Ukraine. They have announced a new tool, mig-19. Announced a new tool, mig-19. And for anybody who is a fan of Russian-slash-Soviet aircraft, particularly from 1945 to the fall of the Soviet Union, the MiG-19 was a big hole. It was a major aircraft, the equivalent of our F-100, super Sabre about the same time period, etc. And there have been a couple of kits over the years, but no good kits. And, given Clear Prop's talents and the kits they currently produce, I have zero doubt that this is going to be a fantastic kit and, like I said, it's going to fill a big hole. And it looks like they're doing a couple of different versions the classic day fighter version. They're going to do the night fighter version. I'm happy to see it.
Mike:It's right up your alley man yep, it is go ahead ss models.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, yeah, they're god.
Mike:They are releasing everything in its brother I and it started out not so great, but some of the stuff folks have been I've been seeing online. I've gotten some nice stuff. I know ian up in canada right a couple and he's had fun with them yeah but this is one that's a 3d print. It's all 3d print, but this one's a 3d print and it's one where the overall quality would really make it or break it. It's the aft deck, catapult and gantry for the japanese ship fusso. Oh yes, I saw In 172nd scale.
Mike:Yep you got to order that man. But man, that's a lot of coin to throw down on something that might show up and be just a screaming turd man.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, not just a turd, a screaming turd, that's right. Yeah, yeah, well, hopefully, okay, yeah well, hopefully, okay. If there's some listener out there who has seen this thing in the flesh, tell us.
Mike:Or any of the other catapults. They've got two or three others.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, please tell us, because if it's halfway decent, mike is going to go sell his blood or do something like that to raise the money to buy probably all of these. So please, any listener out there, let us know.
Mike:I mean, I've been at this long enough to have cut my teeth on some really crappy resin disappointments.
Kentucky Dave:You don't want to spend money on bad models.
Mike:I'm easy to have pause on stuff like this. Exactly, exactly you got another one, my friend.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, I do, and you and I are both going to like this. There's a company called Yahoo Models, yeah, y-a-h-u. There's a company called Yahoo Models, y-a-h-u, and they make instrument panels that are absolutely gorgeous, pre-danned, pre-colored dial faces and everything, complete instrument panels that you can just drop into a kit and they are fantastic. They are unbelievably inexpensive, in fact, to the point where whenever I place an order with like Hannitz and I want to fill out an order, I'll just buy a bunch of those things because they're ridiculously cheap, they don't add to the postage, et cetera, etc. But they have announced a instrument panel and interior for the iar 80 81 oh, now I gotta get one yes, that's my point I'll.
Kentucky Dave:When I find one, I'll be buying two. Actually, I'll probably be buying three or four, because there are more iar 80 kits coming, that kit might have a nice one already in it. Oh, I suspect it does, but these things are just so, they're photorealistic. I mean, they are truly fantastic. So if any kit, if I'm building any kit and Yahoo makes a panel for it, I will use it, just simply because it saves you time and effort. Well, cool you got another one.
Mike:I do. I was talking about this one earlier man to you.
Mike:Okay, while we were supposed to be at work, mike MiniArt has added the final version of the Stug-Off G from the Alcat factory in their 72nd scale Stug line and probably going to get one of these the pig snout, yeah, but it's also got the remote MG on top and the close defense weapon. It's like the Sturmgeschütz reached its pinnacle at the end of the war. Well, while they were starting to shortcut some of their other mainstays in their armor construction, and that's it's my favorite long-barreled version of the Sturmgeschütz and I don't know. The images on the modeling news look pretty good. I think those kits are pretty nice and it's a little bitty thing, but I don't know Warming up to that scale and some of the armor subjects a little bit and I think I'm going to get this one.
Kentucky Dave:Well, good, I've got one last, which is a yawn, and it's not one that I've seen, it's one I've been told about. Our friend of the show, jim Bates, tells me that he has seen an actual kit of this, and I forget who the manufacturer is, but it is a 48 scale vacuform and 3D print Russian TU-95 Bear. What scale? 48.
Mike:That's got some long droopy wings on it.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that's just. I mean, a TU-95 in 72nd scale is a big airplane, Every bit as big as a B-52. I just cannot imagine doing a vacuform and 3D print 48 scale TU-95.
Mike:That's the only way you're going to get it. Yeah, that is the only way you're going to get it.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that is the only way you're going to get it, and I'm sure there are 48 scale guys out there who are probably like yay, that's good, I'm glad for you, but that's going to be a yawn for me.
Mike:Well, that's all I got. I don't have any yawns. I could but I've beat the drums that they would fall under to death, so we're not going to do that.
Kentucky Dave:All right, I almost feel silly asking but how was your Pilsner or Cal?
Mike:It's good.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, of course it is.
Mike:It's a mass market Czech beer. I really would like to know what they think about this beer in the Czech Republic.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, if we got a listener in the Czech Republic. Tell us what do you all think of Pilsner or Kel, because we really love it over here in the States.
Mike:I think it's good. I always feel a little slighted with the 330 milliliter bottles, which works out to about 11.2 ounces versus 12.
Kentucky Dave:Well, that's why you have two of them.
Mike:Well, you're losing a couple of swigs per bottle.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I know.
Mike:That's one way to get a light beer, I guess. There you go, there you go. Same to you, man. I'm sure you're enjoying the pear cider, having flashback memories to the IPMS Nationals in Oklahoma City.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, I am, it's good. In fact, that's one of the things. That's pretty unusual is, when I first experienced this at the 2003 Oklahoma City Nationals, it was on tap and I can say, out of a can it is every bit as good as on tap. There's no real noticeable degradation. It's a fantastic light drink and it's only basically 5% alcohol by volume, and so it's very drinkable, very light. Nothing bad to say about it. It's one of my two go-to refreshments. We now truly are at the end of the episode. Do you have any shout out? I've just got one, so go first I've got two.
Mike:So if you got more than one uh, we can alternate. I'll go first and you can do yours and I'll finish up uh one last time. The hamilton crew for being such pros. When we had them on for the show spotlight they were really well prepared and you know it's not their first rodeo, obviously, with heritage com. It's not their first rodeo with uh coming on and pitching the show with us. It's at least their third time, maybe their fourth, and they just showed up ready to go and had all their information and it was a really smooth conversation and easy at it and I really appreciate that because the show Spotlights we like doing them.
Mike:So don't think this is a complaint, folks, but it's an interesting one for us to do because we never know what we're going to get coming from the other side. Right, and sometimes it's been a challenge. We've always managed to get through it. You just never know. Are they going to be prepared, are they going to have any kind of good equipment or not? Or you just don't know how good is their internet connection going to be.
Kentucky Dave:Right, or are they going to be nervous? I mean the guys at. Hamilton because they've done this so many times now, really kind of have it down. They come across very professionally and that's just something that really comes with doing it multiple years, multiple places, etc.
Mike:So that was an easy one yes, and yours.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I've got to shout out that Arma Hobby has a blog and they had a recent post by a female aviation historian by the name of Dr Victoria Taylor, who is semi-well-known on Twitter, slash X under the handle Spitfire Philly. She is a recent doctoral graduate in oh gosh, was it Hull? I cannot remember the name of the school in England that she got her doctorate from, but she's a young, attractive World War II aviation historian. She's been on a number of TV shows, youtube series, she's done some excellent written work and she apparently and I'd love to know how this collaboration came about ARMA has a really nice blog where a special set of markings for some hurricanes, one of which Arma boxes with those decals, and these were presentation aircraft paid for by a Scottish lady a Scottish lady and by lady I mean the title lady who had three sons who had all died in air crashes, the last of the three actually in World War II combat and she donated at first a short Sterling bomber and then she donated four hurricane fighters, paid for them out of her personal fortune, and they were dedicated to her three sons and the fourth one to their Soviet allies.
Kentucky Dave:This is back when the Soviets and Britain were fighting together against Hitler and were fighting together against Hitler, and at least one of those aircraft armored in their Hurricane II-B kit actually has that set of markings. And so she did a really great article that not only discussed the markings but also discussed the history behind it and who this person was, and you really got a sense of what this poor woman experienced losing all three of her sons. It was a really great article. So congratulations to Dr Taylor, congratulations to ARMA. That was a very good tie together and hopefully they'll do more in the future. So you got one more.
Mike:I do. We'd be remiss not to shout out our contributors to Plastic Model Mojo. I was going to say Folks like Lynn Young, Don Gilman and Uni Korte from Finland, so we got another one from Finland.
Kentucky Dave:All right, you love the Finns Folks.
Mike:We really appreciate this. It's really flattering to know that you're getting enough out of this podcast and our adjacent content over on Facebook to want to help us out along the road. So much appreciated. If you'd like to be like these fine folks, you can go to wwwplasticmodelmojocom and there's a support tab at the end of the menu bar or in the show notes of this episode to get to all the avenues that you can support the show if you so desire. We don't want to charge anybody for anything, but we appreciate the support we're getting anyway. It's very, very flattering. So thank you very much.
Kentucky Dave:Amen, mike. That brings us to the end. I need to get off of here and get packed up and ready to go to Columbus. So, as we say, so many kits, dave.
Mike:So little time, mike. Well, you have fun in Columbus buddy, all right, all right.
