For over 40 years, my 82 year old Father In Law has been building model planes. The unusual thing is, he’s not a flyer. He just simply enjoyed the building process…but NOT the finishing. Generally, he would get to that point and find an excuse to begin another project.
He has been in poor health for a while now. However, being the stubborn Brit he is, I’ve told him on his death bed (more than once! Ha) it’ll take a damn exorcism for us to be rid of him. He agrees!
He and my MIL finally made the move this spring to a senior’s friendly condo from a house. Major downsizing.
His fleet of aircraft were to be divided amongst the family. Unfortunately, as families can sometimes be, they had no interest them. So I ended up with everything.
The buggers do take up a lot of space though, and I’ve been finding creative ways to store/finish/pay tribute to these planes.
This Piper Cub he started nearly 30 years ago. It’s by far all of our favourites. I have around 100 hours into the finishing process (many, many more on his end). While fully equipped to be a flyer, I am not, nor intend to be. Today, my daughter and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and took the old girl out for her final photo shoot prior to being retired as a proper display piece. Needless to say, finding the perfect settings to send this old girl off required a bit of effort!
The tail numbers represent his initials and date of birth.
The funniest part is that the wind in the initial pictures proved a huge challenge. They in fact grabbed her at one point and lifted her about two feet off of the snow before the Shrub made a diving save. Final (and only) flight! LOL!!! Hope you enjoy the pics.
Tree