MODELZONA 2025 – November 1
Articles/Reviews
Randy Cunningham Obituary
Randy Cunningham, the famed naval aviator from the Vietnam War and the U.S. Navy’s last fighter ace, passed away on August 27th, 2025. His service career is covered in this obituary from the Aviation Geek Club.
His jet ace status made his F-4J Phantom II “Showtime 100” a popular modeling subject; his jet graced many kit box tops and model shelves. Most airplane modelers tackled his jet as a modeling project at least once and his fighter plane is arguably the most popular jet subject of all time.
Fair winds and following seas, Commander…
Model Handling Models
Original Caption: San Diego, CA, June 3rd 1968. General Dynamics employee Toni Taura with models of Atlas and Centaur rockets and F-102 and F-106 interceptors.
Mig-21MF Decorated in African Beadwork
Currently on display at Boeing’s Museum of Flight in Seattle, a Mig-21MF decorated in African beadwork, a five-year project by artist Ralph Ziman.
https://www.museumofflight.org/exhibits-and-events/exhibits/mig-21-project
The last surviving Battle of Britain Pilot passes away
Excerpt from https://raf.mod.uk/news/articles/the-last-surviving-battle-of-britain-pilot-john-paddy-hemingway-dfc-passes-away/
John “Paddy” Hemingway, the last surviving pilot of the iconic Battle of Britain, passed away peacefully on 17 March 2025 at the age of 105.
Paddy Hemingway, one of a number known as ‘the Few’ and revered figures in British aviation history, played a crucial role in defending the United Kingdom against Nazi oppression during the summer of 1940. His courage in the face of overwhelming odds demonstrated his sense of duty and the importance of British resilience.
Eighty-five years ago, a nineteen-year-old Royal Air Force Pilot Officer from Ireland, flew his Hurricane in the skies over France, providing fighter cover (strafing attacks, air patrols and dogfights) to the British Expeditionary Force and other allied troops as they retreated to the beaches of Dunkirk in the face of overwhelming Nazi Blitzkrieg attacks. It became known as the ‘Battle of France’.
58 SOW Flightline Tour
On April 11th, 2025, ASM members Frank Randall, Tim Wood, Patrick Dick, Scott Jaworski, John Tate, and AJ Tate visited the Kirtland AFB flightline of the 58th Special Operations Wing (SOW), a thank-you for ASM members who built or helped provide models to the 58th SOW’s award banquet on March 13th. Our able guide was Benjamin Flickinger, 1LT, USAF, our point-of-contact for the model-build effort.
Our first stop was a hangar containing several CV-22 Ospreys. These aircraft were painted an overall dark gray with light gray markings. One of these aircraft was getting a wash and it was easy to see why, since these training aircraft see a lot of use, as evidenced by the dirt on the sponsons of an Osprey we were allowed to board. Contrary to the instructions on most model kits, the interiors of these Ospreys were flat black. Funny thing about this hangar, a loudspeaker was playing tropical bird calls, to scare away pigeons- with the splashing water and bird calls it sounded like a tropical rainforest.
Next stop was a helicopter hangar with veteran UH-1N Hueys; these helos had a color scheme similar to the 1980s Euro I scheme, with medium green, Euro I green and a splotch or two of gray. As with the Ospreys, they had black interiors. A real treat was seeing a brand new HH-60W “Whiskey” Pave Hawk, with a segmented, black national insignia not seen before. The Whiskey version has modified exhaust vents to reduce its infrared signature. Gun mount maintenance work was being done on the Whiskey, which meant the port .50 cal machine gun and the starboard minigun were dismounted and lying on the hangar floor. Impressive that trusty .50 cal has been a U.S. aerial machine gun for almost 90 years.
Leaving the helo hangar, we stopped to see a MC-130J on the tarmac and had a chance to see the interior of the fuselage and the cockpit. The MC-130J had a metal shield applied to the port lower front cockpit window opening, since replacement windows were difficult to get.
The finale was an AC-130J gunship, named Phobos after the Greek god of fear and panic. These gunships mean business, with a 30mm cannon forward, and a 105mm cannon aft. We had the opportunity to enter the fuselage and see the two guns, separated by a large console complete with gamer-style controllers and screen banks. It was dark inside, with flat black being the primary interior color, but it came to life when the power was activated and all manner of lights flashed on. The AC-130J is a big aircraft but with the gun stations and control console it didn’t seem very big inside at all.
There was no flightline photography allowed (for obvious reasons given the mission of these aircraft) but we had an opportunity to take images of static legacy aircraft of the 58th SOW parked at a nearby location off the flightline.
The flightline tour was a real treat for modelers and a fine courtesy extended to ASM members for our scale model work in support of our neighbors, the 58th SOW. Some of these aircraft will be on public display as part of the Air Fiesta airshow at the end of May, so if you have a chance they will be well worth visiting.
New Kit: Kotare 1/32 Hurricane Mk.I (early)
From Kotare:
Kotare are pleased to announce that our 2nd non-Spitfire release is…
K32015 Kotare 1/32 Hurricane Mk.I (Early) in development for release late 2025/2026
This early production Hurricane model has been developed using the most up to date reference material available to us. We are always looking for more information and publishable reference photos, so if you think you can help make our model even better, please do not hesitate to get in touch (https://www.kotare-models.com/about).
All new tooling. Optional parts include: 2 & 3 blade propellers, 3 styles of exhaust manifold, 2 styles of undercarriage doors, unarmoured and armoured windscreens, ring & bead and reflector gunsights, pilot’s seat with & without safety harness detail & armour plating, 2 styles of wing join fairings, short and tall rudders and tailwheel fairings.
Decal options will include a very early production pre-war aircraft, an aircraft from the Battle of France 1940, and an aircraft from the Battle of Britain.
Additionally, work is well underway on various other all-new subjects which we will announce in due course.
The Dark Side….of modeling
Actor Peter Cushing, who played Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars, was an avid scale modeler. Here’s a picture of him at his hobby bench in February 1959.
ASM Star Trek Display at Cherry Hills Library
ASM members Michael O’Brian and John Tate recently setup a Star Trek model display at the Cherry Hills Library Branch. The display will run through March, in conjunction with Star Trek events being held at the library.
Here is a link to the Cherry Hills Library mentioning ASM and showing off our models: https://abqlibrary.org/exhibits/CherryHills
