I started building plastic models as a kid in the '70s, but I was pretty random; funny cars, space ships, ect. I remember doing an aircraft carrier - don't know which - and I had to cut off the wings of ~40 airplanes and glue them back on folded (Grumman style) and the whole thing became a glue ball mess mixed in with the paint from the flight deck and it got all over my work table and my clothes
![Neutral :|](./images/smilies/icon_neutral.gif)
. That one succumbed to the BB gun in the backyard.
In 1977 was the first year I went to the Reno Air Races and I saw the Confederate's doing their Tora act and I was smitten.
I had been to airshows and air races before, but this was the first time seeing 'warbirds in action'. And I set about building as many 1/72 scale models I could right out of the CAF Airshow program. I still have most of them in my old room at my parents and I will get them out soon.
In early 2014 I broke my leg and was laid up for several weeks. I bought a Hasagawa P-51 and started searching for ideas (along the way I found a couple warbird boards like this one
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
) I decided on doing Ted Contri's old red Mustang, as I had known him back in '79 and he had just passed
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/icon_sad.gif)
I found Keith Davidson on the web (Red Pegasus Decals) and bought a bunch of his work and commissioned a bunch more from him, and he was cool enough to print me the registration for Ted's plane, too.
And that set off a new obsession and I have acquired a hundreds of civilian warbird and air race decals sheets and kits for them.
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Ted Contri P-51a.jpg [ 143.99 KiB | Viewed 2661 times ]
ed; picture re-host