Thank you to all my new Norwegian IPMS friends! I am finally able to sit down and get onto your forum. The IPMS/USA Nationals in Anaheim, California were not one of the better national conventions I have attended. No organization and very little security, but I did do a lot of damage in the Vendors Area. I bought WAY too many new model aircraft kits (Eduard/Special Hobby/MPM were there in force!) and I even bought the new 1/350 Tamiya IJN I-400 submarine with Seiran aircraft. It is almost complete. I'm building it for a local contest here in Utah, USA in two weeks. I usually build 1/48 WWII aircraft, but this subject was just too interesting to pass up!
As Øystein has said, I am a retired USAF pilot (I flew C-141 Starlifters between 1971 and 1991) and am also a retired Delta Airlines captain (retired on the Boeing 767). All during my 35 year flying career I built model airplanes to help me recover from jet lag after returning from my world-wide travels. I have over 400 built model airplanes in my display cases, and over 1,000 more in my collection to build! My visit to Anaheim two weeks ago didn't help to reduce my growing unbuilt kit collection at all!
I am past president and current vice president of IPMS/Salt Lake City, and also am affiliated with the Hill Aerospace Museum at Hill AFB here in Utah. I have done many model projects for both the Hill museum (USAF) and the Fort Douglas Military Museum (US Army) in Salt Lake City. In fact, I have built models of both musuems for these museums, the Hill model in 1/144th scale and the Ft. Douglas model in 1/87th scale! I built all the buildings, grounds, and aircraft/armor for each of these projects (100+ aircraft and 4 buildings for the Hill project, and 12 tanks and two buildings for the Ft. Douglas project). Now that I'm done with these, I can concentrate on my own model building.
I recently purchased the new Special Hobby Blackburn Skua and intend to build it as one of the aircraft that sunk the German cruiser Königsberg in Bergen Harbour on 10 April 1940. I have been corresponding with Øystein about this aircraft, and the Fairy Fulmar, a lot recently. It was he who urged me to join this forum, so here I am!
I have built ONE Norwegian aircraft from WWII...the Gloster Gladiator "421". I built the model over 30 years ago using the 1/48 Life-Like kit, and it isn't one of my better models, but it still looks pretty good if I do say so myself!
Although I do not speak or write Norge, I do have a very close Norwegian friend here in Utah. He is the former Norwegian Consul to the State of Utah, Leif Andersen, who was also on the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics Committee in 2002. It was he who helped organize the Cross Country Ski venue, and he hosted the Norwegian team while they were here. He also invited my wife and me to the Norwegian team parties and arranged tickets to many events for us, and we got to sit with all the hard partying Norwegians at these events! I have an empty can of Aass Dark beer sitting on my desk to remind me of those party days in 2002.
Please feel free to contact me any time!
Pat Gilmore
Bountiful, Utah