One of the more thoughtful gifts which I received for my birthday was also one of the most unexpected. JP got me a model of an F-14 and a Testor finishing set with which to build it. I certainly wasn't expecting to receive a model plane for my 35th birthday. It is, however, a really cool gift and I'm looking forward to putting it together.
You see, when I was a boy I used to put together models of planes. I wanted to be a military fighter pilot when I was growing up and so I pretty much ate, drank, slept, read, talked, and built fighter planes. I drew them, I read books about them, I watched movies about them, and I spent a lot of time - a lot of time - building models of them. In fact, by the time I stopped building them, I had built a model of every current fighter in the U.S. Armed Forces (Air Force, Army, and Navy/Marines) and had started on the (then) Soviet air force and other world fighters. I had a shelving unit in my room that was full of models and my mother and I had not a few standoffs over who's job it was to dust them all (I usually lost).
I had gotten pretty good at building them but I never really took my time on any of them except for a model of an F-15 which I had built (I was determined to put every last "No Step" decal on that blessed plane, which I did). Most of the time, however, I would never let the glue dry long enough to be really solid and couldn't wait for the paint to dry or got frustrated with the decals and tried to handle the models before they were completely dry. In my mind, I wasn't building models; I was building new toys to play with and I didn't want to wait for them to be ready! So, while the models looked pretty good for the most part, they usually had some jacked-up wheels which pointed back up into the body, or splayed landing gear, or missiles hanging at odd angles, or big globs of glue in joints, or seams that didn't quite line up, and the list goes on.
The very first one that I built was an F-14 (pretty much looked just like this), and I recall building it with my dad. In fact, I really think that he built most of it if the truth be told. It was a fighter from the VF-84 squadron, the "Jolly Rogers", one of the most well-known squadrons in the navy. In fact, while stationed on the USS Nimitz (CVN-68), several of their planes appeared in the movie The Final Countdown, a movie that asked (and perhaps answered) the question of how the world would have been different if a modern aircraft carrier with jet fighters had appeared in Pearl Harbor on December 6th, 1941. And no, the terrible '80s rock song of the same name by Europe had nothing to do with this movie! Anyway, the model was a complex one for a kid because the F-14 has swing-wings - the wings fold back against the body to make a delta shape for supersonic flying. It also has these little stabilizer wings that pop out from the front when the wings are swept, and the model duplicated that behavior. So, for an impatient kid that just wants to play with his new "toy", trying to get all the mechanics worked out and getting the gears lined up and the wings swinging was maddening. I believe my dad stepped in to prevent the project from being stillborn and he also stepped up to do the other frustrating task of cutting out the decals and sticking them onto the plane in the correct places. That model has always had a special place in my heart and I really loved it (and I would like to think that the skull and crossbones on the tails had nothing to do with it).
Now, thanks to Justin, I have an opportunity to finally take the time and build one right. I'm not so anxious to play with it or treat it as a toy at this stage in my life, and I would really like to give at least one model the attention to detail that it deserves. Multiple coats of paint, no glue globs, and pristinely aligned landing gear are my targets for this build. I have a few of my favorite models from childhood here with me in Austin and once I get this one built, I may just have to find a place to display them once again. Drew's Model Aircraft Museum may just be open for business once again.
Well played, Justin m'man....well played.
hey man - glad you like it. I have to say, the really cool part is that I asked God what to give you, and this is what I was directed to. I don't think it would have worked out so interestingly, and with so much Drewish history involved, unless God had guided my hand. So, there ya go! Enjoy :)
They have one of those F-14's on the deck of the USS Lexington at Corpus Christi. On of my comrades here at Dell used to be a fireman on one of the flatops that bird came from. Skull, crossbones and all.
Yeah, of all the squadrons, I think I liked the 70's Jolly Rogers paint scheme the best. I grew up with a guy that was as into planes as I was when we were little (but he discovered music before I did) and he was a fan of VF-1, the "Wolfpack". We always used to have arguments over which one was better, based on the strength of the current color scheme alone.
If you go to the wikipedia link on the VF-84 in the post, at the bottom it lists all the squadrons that have been in the Navy. There's some interesting names in there. ;)
The Jolly Rogers is still the best, though. I don't care what no one says!
Correction: it's the F-14 link in the post, and it only lists the squadrons that had F-14s deployed at any time as part of the air group.
My bad.