This past month I attended the AMPS Nationals in Auburn, Indiana, and I drove.  It was held at the WWII Victory Museum, which also has side gallery rooms for Women’s Baseball League, cars, and a James Dean room.  A bit of an odd mix but a nice venue for the contest.   For those not familiar with AMPS, they don’t give out 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place awards, but award gold, silver, and bronze awards.  Your model is judged to a set of standards with a four-man judging team.  Each judge awards up to 10 points with the lowest judge’s score thrown out.  Each model is judged for eight minutes.   I did two judging shifts while at the show.  You can go to the AMPS web site and get more information on how they judge:

http://www.amps-armor.org/ampssite/default.aspx

There were 425 models entered, plus probably another 20 – 30 out for show.  The way the AMPS show works, people bring their models in and register them, and the models are put on trays and side tables.  The judging teams start judging and the models are then put out on the display tables.  The only exception is for figures, vignettes, and dioramas, which are judged out on the display tables.  I personally like this system better, but it does take a lot of time and people to judge.  Judging was finished by early Saturday afternoon and the awards ceremony was at 5:00.

As far as seminars go, I was only able to sit in on one.  Gerry Chester was a wireless operator on Churchill tanks from the Tunisian campaign on into the Italian campaign. He gave a great presentation and he has a web site also (http://northirishhorse.net).

The vendors’ room was pretty good.  Some of the vendors who attended were Formations, Roger Saunders from Hornet Heads, Great Models, Ampersand Publishing, Panzer Tracts, CRM Hobbies, M&Models, Wings-N-Treads, Tank Rat’s Models, and reps from Tamiya and AFV Club.   AFV Club had sprues out for their new 1973 IDF version of the Centurion and some artwork for the upcoming Churchill III.

As far as models go, there were plenty of nice models on the tables and if you go to any of the armor-related web sites such as Missing-Lynx or Armorama you can find links to pictures.  As for me, I did better than I expected. I won 1 bronze, 2 silver, and 3 gold medals, and I also received Best US Subject for my WC-51.

Next year, the contest is held at Havre de Grace in Maryland, but hopefully it will be moved around after that. I’m hoping either west coast or more of a midpoint, say Kansas City.   A one-day drive sure would be nice.

The annual Denver-based StarFest science convention took place over the weekend of April 18 – 20.

In addition to the impressive lineup of guests (including Masi Oka from Heroes, Zachary Quinto from Heroes and the new Star Trek movie, Adam Baldwin from Firefly, Serenity, Independence Day and more, Nana Visitor [who currently lives in Corrales] from Deep?Space Nine, Nichelle Nichols from the original Star?Trek, and many more), there were far more activities and events than one could possible attend.

This is always a heavily-scheduled convention, with eight to ten events ongoing simultaneously all throughout the show.

A costume competition is held on Saturday night, and the hotel (Marriott Denver Tech Center) is packed with various aliens, creatures, and oddly-costumed humans.

There are some events that aren’t scheduled, but are continuously available. A sci-fi Art Show is a popular attraction, and Tom?Grossman always runs the “Airbrush?Experience,” which is sort of a make-and-take along with instruction on airbrush usage. Tom is always at these shows, and never gets to see anything, as he’s running the Airbrush?Experience from beginning to end.

One of the continuous attractions offered at the StarFest is the Model Show, which this year attracted over a hundred models entered. Shown with this article are a few photos from that event.

There were figures, spaceships, dioramas (one had a giant Japanese-style robot standing on a highway, stopping traffic while a bunch of little robots crossed the road), kits, scratchbuilds, you name it.

A large scratchbuilt Sulaco from Aliens was there (pictured), as was a large Klingon battlecruiser from the original Star Trek series, scratchbuilt to studio scale.        

Like full-scale models?   There’s a nationwide organization of enthusiasts who build full-sized functional replicas of the B9 Robot from Lost in Space. Two were on display there, complete with the appropriate blinking lights and whirling thingies, and at least one of them spoke, in the Robot’s voice and synched with the flashing light. This was quite impressive—the owner operated the voice via a connected laptop computer, and could have the Robot speak numerous sentences and phrases, many taken from the old TV series. Still, some of the things spoken by the Robot clearly weren’t from the series; it said things like, “I?am not Robby the Robot—I am a Type B9 Robot, and am usually addressed as ‘Robot.’” and “I think R2D2 is cool!” There was also a function whereby the Robot would speak the time and date. The owner explained that he and several other members of this group had split the expense and hired Dick Tufeld, the voice actor who originally voiced the Robot, to record several things just for them. Now that’s aftermarket detailing!

More info is available online (http://www.starland.com), including links to more photos.

   I recently visited the USAF Armament Museum located outside of Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and took the pictures below of the aircraft that are on display outside the museum.  A lot of the modern aircraft types are from the Eglin test organizations that became surplus due to force drawdowns in the 1990’s.  Conditions of the aircraft vary greatly.  Some look to be just repainted and some are in very sad condition, particularly the MiG-21 and the MGM-13 Mace missile. 

    There are 26 aircraft and missiles outside the museum – the standouts include the following.   The B-25J - repainted as Jimmy Doolittle’s B-25B – used to be part of a memorial display in the town of Valparaiso that commemorated Doolittle Raiders training that took place at Eglin prior to the famous mission in April 1942.  The B-17G used to be an active fire bomber - I remember it flying in under its own power while I was stationed here.  The EB-47 was the last B-47 flying and was used to support electronic warfare testing at Eglin.  The SR-71 is a rare version with a long extended tail boom.   The AC-130A on display is the very first testbed Spectre that was built.

    Unfortunately the inside of the museum is currently closed due to work on the air conditioning system and will not be open until the end of April.  There are four aircraft inside, all in great condition: P-47, P-51, F-80 and F-105.  Fortunately, I do have pictures of the munitions located inside from a previous trip, and those will be included in my “Weaponology - Things Under Wings” talk at the September 2008 ASM meeting. 

A definite visit for aircraft and weapons fans if you happen to be near this part of Northwest Florida.

 Click on this link for more info on the museum: http://www.afarmamentmuseum.com/

USAF Armament Museum	B-17G Flying Fortress	B-25J Mitchell	SR-71 Blackbird	EB-47 Stratojet	B-52G Stratofortress
A-10 Thunderbolt II	F-15 Eagle	F-16 Falcon	AC-130A Spectre	MiG-21F	UH-1 Huey