{"id":105,"date":"2006-12-05T07:07:18","date_gmt":"2006-12-04T23:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/?p=105"},"modified":"2008-02-28T07:26:58","modified_gmt":"2008-02-27T23:26:58","slug":"my-b-52-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/?p=105","title":{"rendered":"My B-52 Model"},"content":{"rendered":"

People who know me probably think that U-2 is my favorite aircraft.\u00a0 The content of my website and other aviation-related activities I have been involved with might suggest so.\u00a0 But on the subconcious level, I think the B-52 wins.<\/p>\n

I started building plastic aircraft models in about 1977.\u00a0 The activities intensified after I went to middle school.\u00a0 In the school, there were many students who were serious military fans.\u00a0 I was surprised that they knew so much about guns, tanks, ships, and aircraft.\u00a0 And many of them built models.\u00a0 At that time, modeling was a luxury activity because almost all models were imported from Japan and the US.\u00a0 Because many students in this private school came from rich family (except me), they could easily afford buying models and paints.\u00a0 I began to learn more about military aircraft and about plastic models from my peers.\u00a0 Though my parents did not give me money to buy models, the scholarships I got every semester (I was a good student then) became the major source of my modeling fund.<\/p>\n

I think it was my third year in the middle school when I first saw the B-52 model in one of the hobby shops I frequented.\u00a0 That huge 1\/72 model made quite an impression on me.\u00a0 It was probably an H model from Monogram, completed in the SEA three-tone camouflage with a white underside.\u00a0 (Many years later I learned that people called the B-52 “BUFF”.\u00a0 But to me, the B-52 is Big but not Ugly at all.\u00a0 It is a real beauty.)\u00a0 I told myself that one day I was going to get a B-52 model like that.<\/p>\n

It was not cheap in any way though.\u00a0 It was priced at more than 1000 NT, which was a fortune at that time.\u00a0 So I persuaded my parents to buy me the model if I was admitted to the top high school in the coming High School Entrance Exam.<\/p>\n

Being a good student, it was a piece of cake for me to get the admission.\u00a0 But I forgot why eventually I did not ask for the B-52 model from my parents.\u00a0 I continued to build some models in my high school years.\u00a0 They were just not the B-52.<\/p>\n

The next time I picked up plastic modeling again was when I was a graduate school in the US.\u00a0 America is indeed a heaven for plastic modelers.\u00a0 In 1994, I became a member of IPMS and was actively engaged in modeling.\u00a0 A hobby shop in Madison hosted its first model contest in 1995.\u00a0 Not only did I participate but I also advertised for them on the Internet.<\/p>\n

The entrance fee was three or five dollars, with a chance to enter the drawing.\u00a0 The top prize was, guess what, an AMT\/ERTL B-52H model!\u00a0 And guess who won the model.\u00a0 It’s me!\u00a0 Finally I got my B-52 model.\u00a0 In the US.\u00a0 And free.<\/p>\n

More than ten years have passed.\u00a0 This model is still in the unbuilt mode, lying on top of a book shelf in my parents’ home.\u00a0 Last weekend, I returned there and took this picture.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The KC-135A was bought at a sale at Madison’s Toys R Us.\u00a0 I remeber it costed less than nine dollars.\u00a0 Quite a deal, isn’t it?\u00a0 Of course, it is unbuilt too…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People who know me probably think that U-2 is my favorite aircraft.\u00a0 The content of my website and other aviation-related activities I have been involved with might suggest so.\u00a0 But on the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}