Welcome to my website. I created in 2004 for the following reasons:

1. As a virtual showcase. Whilst I’m fortunate enough to have a very understanding wife who is happy to allow 90+ models to be on display in our living room, the collection I’ve created is way bigger than that. Nothing lasts forever, and many of these models have been disposed of in various ways. A website allows me to keep the collection alive as a collection and to view it wherever I am in the world.
2. As a record of my journey. The collection here was started in 1994 and my evolution as a modeller is tracked within the pages below. I hope there’s been some progression and the newer, better models mean I’m not ashamed of the older, poorer ones. This is the whole lot, warts and all.
3. I wanted a reason to learn html4 in between submitting my PhD thesis and my viva, but that was a long time ago now and it’s just easier to use an online blogging site.

I’ve made plastic models since I was about five, my first kit being a 1/72 Spitfire or Hurricane (I forget which) in the early 1980s that my mum bought in a jumble-sale. Since then, more plastic has passed through my fingers than I care to imagine. Early favourites were the Matchbox series of aircraft kits in 1/72 that I could just about afford if I saved up three weeks’ pocket money (they cost £1.10). Those kits were great because they were moulded in several bright colours which were very pleasing to an eight year old when stuck together with good old tube cement — no paint necessary; that would merely delay the point at which the plane could be flown around the house.

Unlike many others, I never had a break from modelling and kept it up through my teenage years. A big leap in the quality of my models occurred when I was twelve and discovered Hasegawa 1/72 kits. These were lovely and at the time very reasonably priced (Hasegawa’s Tomcat, including photo-etch, was about £12). This phase was marked by building exclusively US Navy planes. A couple of years later I obtained my first airbrush, a Badger 200, and discovered that the finished article looked a lot better if I made the effort to sand and remove the plastic seams and paint the airframe as a finished assembly rather than in its component parts.

The aircraft shown on this website is my current collection of aircraft in 1/48. I build only military aircraft post-World War II, and only one of each type, or subtype. The oldest model in the collection is from 1994. The aircraft are organised in reverse order in which they were built — the newer, and thus (hopefully) better, models are towards the top of the list.