Going Forward…. A Blog Retrospective and Future Ambitions.

The other night, I was reviewing what I wrote in the ABOUT page (ABOUT) of this FlyBoyz Blog when I started it back in 2013. It set me to thinking about what has happened during those 11 years and it also set me looking to reorient how I approach the next few years going forward.

I’ve had some fantastic, unexpected, and highly enjoyable opportunities come my way over those 11 years. I’ve watched with awe and admiration the work of masters of their craft such as Tom Hallmann with the free flight masterpieces he builds and flies (Maxfliart). I’ve marveled at the Control Line model building skills of Windy Urtnowski. I’ve watched the control line flying mastery of former World Champion Precision Aerobatic flier Bob Hunt (and I had him make some positive comments after flying my Twister!). I’ve toured great aviation landmarks such as the restoration shop of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport (Restoration Shop Tour) with master restorer Tony Carp as my personal tour guide. I’ve watched up close and personal the majestic takeoffs, flights, and landings of historic soaring sailplanes at the 2021 International Vintage Sailplane Meet (IVSM) held at the Harris Hill Soaring Site in Elmira, New York (Soaring on Silent Wings). I’ve even gotten hands on with the restoration of a WWII P-40 Warhawk at the Glenn Curtiss Museum (P-40 Restoration). I returned to my Marine Corps aviation home at Marine Corps Air Station, Quantico, Virginia to see up close and personal the new Marine One Presidential Helicopters (Marine One). I’ve marveled at the detailed scale building expertise of scale plastic modeler Plasmo (Plasmo). And not everything I’ve been able to enjoy has been airplane related as just the other day, I had a personal tour of Bill Browns world class HO model train layout which is exquisite in detail and craftsmanship. These are just some of the many highlights I’ve experienced over the past 11 years. Through it all, I’ve tried to document these and my many other activities in blog posts here on FlyBoyz for all my readers to share in them.

And through all this, as I’ve seen and talked to many of the masters of their crafts, I’ve wished that I could emulate their craftsmanship. But I have realized that it has been their specialization in one specific area of aviation or modeling that has led in part to their master level work. In the meantime, while I dabble in all these areas, I have not developed as a specialist in any but rather I am a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None. I’ve come to accept that that is OK…I guess.

And while I may not be a Master Craftsman in any particular area, what I have developed is a stronger desire to achieve certain modeling milestones. I’ve developed an exceptionally strong desire to complete a specimen piece (or 2 or 3) in each modeling arena that I dabble in and I’d like to tackle those milestones before I die. For with each passing day, month, and year, I feel the inevitability of my mortality more and more. Sounds a bit gruesome, but hey, it is what it is! And so, going forward, I will be focusing my modeling efforts towards achieving those milestones. None of them are exceptional, but they do cover the broad scope of my modeling interests.

In the balsa plane arena, I want to complete the scale control line B-10 Bomber that sits there staring at me half built every time I enter my workshop.

(Click on photos to zoom in on them)

I also want to recreate my youthful first entries into balsa models with the control line SIG P-47 Thunderbolt and the free flight Guillows Fokker D7 that I’ve talked about building as tributes to my model plane roots in an earlier FlyBoyz post (Two For The Road).

Then there is a (somewhat) recently acquired Guillows Airacobra that’s just been reaching out to me to build. I have a soft spot for the stick and tissue Guillows models and this one speaks to me.

In the plastic scale modeling arena, the Tamia 1/32^nd scale Corsair is arguably considered to be one of the crowning jewels of the plastic scale plane genre. I have one of these kits and would like to build it and finish it in a paint scheme to honor the actual Corsair flown during Korea by the father of my USMC best buddy, Michael Miller.

And finally there is building the HO train layout of my hometown area (Troy & Waterford, NY) that I’ve been planning to build for something like 40 years now. I’ve recently started this layout in a much scaled down version of my original layout plan but the area represented on this current layout should be recognizable nonetheless. I’ve been spending the bulk of my modeling time over the past few weeks working on getting the layout initially established in order to run at least one track around the perimeter of it. This layout build represents a long term model building project.

Building each of these individual models and all of these modeling projects to a level of craftsmanship that I am capable of will represent a significant lifetime milestone achievement for me.

Since I retired on March 6, 2020, one week before the national COVID lockdown, the FlyBoyz Store has consumed much of my retirement time to the detriment of the modeling time I had hoped to engage in. To rectify that, I’ve been scaling back my store related activities in order to focus more on my modeling. My hope is that going forward into 2025 and beyond my redirected modeling efforts will allow me to make significant progress on my milestone builds. I’m sure there will be many other activities and builds along the way, but once I’ve achieved my ‘milestone’ builds, I can then settle into a regime of building whatever strikes me at the moment.

I’ve talked in the past about how I don’t want this blog to become stale with reports of the same repeated annual activities. While there will be more of those types of activities reported on here, my blog focus will be more directed to the specific modeling builds and activities I’ve mentioned. My goal at this point is to achieve the milestones I’ve listed and then to be able to look back and reflect on the varied modeling efforts I’ve been able to achieve. Maybe not as a master craftsman within each genre but as an accomplished Jack of all Trades in each of those areas.

Maybe you’ll consider continuing to join me on this personal journey of mine.

P.S. FlyBoyz is keeping up with the times…today’s ‘Featured Image’ at the top of the post is an AI Generated image!  😉