snelson

My only real complaint was the fact that the published schedule was thrown out the window. Our group was walking into the "streaming" room around 7:00, a good half hour before the awards were SCHEDULED to begin, and met folks walking out saying in effect "show's over folks..moose out front shoulda told ya." We arrived in the middle of the Fort Wayne promotional video, so all we saw were the juniors and best-ofs. We were hoping the slide show would be played again, but nope. This was the first year (out of some 20 Nats) that my wife and I have forgone the banquet, but we were expecting to at least see a slide show of the winners. Steve N

Perfect, Thanks! Steve

Greetings, My IPMS account is still tied to an ancient e-mail address that I almost never use (because I can receive on it but can't send, and can't access the account on my phone.) How do I change my e-mail to the address I'm now using? Thanks! Steve Nelson IPMS 30925

Thanks. We're planning on spending a couple days kicking around the Outer Banks before the show, so we'll just head up to Hampton on Wednesday.

So we were able to get a room at the Embassy when the reservations first opened back in February, but only Wed Night through Sat. Has anyone been able to add Tuesday Night to their reservation at the convention rate? Cheers! Steve

Woops..I didn't read the fine print on that one! Let me clean this egg off my face.... Steve

I'm not seeing a Thursday night BBQ, but there is a day tour to the Military Aviation Museum (Jerry Yagen's collection) on Friday for $50, with lunch from Subway for an extra fee.

Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Thanks for the update! Looks like hotels will be a piece of cake for those of us driving in next year. It sounds like parking at the convention center shouldn't be much of a problem either. According to the brief, Manona Terrace has 400 parking spaces available on weekdays and 600 on Saturdays. Does anybody know how many spaces the Nats typically uses? I suppose it might be more this time since probably 90% of attendees will be staying off-site. SN

I registered literally the minute it went live. Easy peasy! I wanted to do it as early as possible, because I really wanted to get in on the Lewis Air Legends tour, and I wasn't sure how fast it would fill up. Steve Nelson IPMS #30925

Nice work! Another screw-up HB made was to give the top turret full framework a-la the Sperry turret on the B-17 (Monogram mad the same mistake on the old Monogram 1/48 kit.) The B-24 used a Martin upper turret, which had no actual framework, just some clear reinforcing strips glued to the inside of the dome. SN

As others have mentioned, Olive Drab on top and Neutral Gray on the bottom. These planes were fairly new, but they had bee worked hard, so they exhibited a lot of fading and touch-ups. The fabric control surfaces were also faded to a lighter color than the rest of the plane. Many, if not all, had the forward cowl rings painted in a darker, fresh Olive Drab to cover up the squadron colors. The yellow prop blade tips were also overpainted with black (I'm assuming because the raid was originally planned to be a night attack.) As for the interior, as I understand it the cockpit and nose compartments were Bronze Green (a dark, blueish green.) Bomb bay and wheel wells were unpainted aluminum or silver lacquer (including the insides of the gear and bomb bay doors.) Everything aft of the bomb bay would be Tinted Zinc Chromate (US Interior Green would suffice for modeling purposes.) Cheers! Steve N IPMS #30925

I just checked our reservation, and found that Tuesday 8/1 has been added on, at the Convention Rate. Thanks Len! Steve

Yeah, I'm well acquainted with the Gordon LIghtfoot classic. 😉 SN

No complaints about the distance from me. This will be the closest Nats to our house in nearly ten years..just slightly farther than Columbus. It'll give us an excuse to finally take the ferry across Lake Michigan.

Financially, it's had no negative effect on us. If anything we're doing better than usual, since we're not spending money on things like our annual Nats trip. I work at a TV station and my wife is a nurse, so we're both still employed. Physically however...we both had Covid-19 back in June, when it tore through the nursing home where she works. I had a mild case with just a nasty cough and fatigue for a couple weeks, but my wife spent a total of ten days in the hospital. We both seem to have recovered now, although my wife's hair has been falling out like crazy (apparently that's a known after-effect of the virus..supposed to clear up after a few months.) All-in-all, we've been very lucky. One of our long-time club members passed away from the virus last week. Steve Nelson IPMS #30925

Any chance more rooms will be added after the first block sold out so quickly? As I said above, the block was gone in less than four hours. Steve N IPMS #30925

As of 8:00 pm EDT, it's showing no rooms available at the convention rate. I tried both Tue-Sat and Wed-Sat, with no luck. Steve N

Hi! The wife and I are in the process of getting all our ducks in a row for Nats..looking forward to a fantastic week! We've registered for the Pima tour, and would like to take the AMARG tour as well. This of course has to be reserved in advance through Pima's website due to security considerations. They offer two tours that day: one at 11:00 am and another at 2:00 pm. Which would be better? I'm afraid if we took the earlier tour we'd miss lunch at the museum (we've already bought the box lunches) but is the later tour too late? What time does the bus head back to Phoenix, and if we take the 2:00 pm AMARG tour would we get back to the museum in time? Thanks! Steve Nelson IPMS#30925

The site has been around for quite awhile. The biggest problem is that all the profiles come from various books and websites, and many are of rather dubious accuracy. You can find some interesting stuff there, but I wouldn't use it as any kind of definitive reference. Steve N IPMS #30925

We just switched our reservation from the Marriott to the Embassy. My wife was able to get a room at the Embassy for Wednesday through Saturday nights at the convention rate with not problem. BTW, they said tomorrow is the last day to make reservations at the convention rate. We haven't cancelled our reservation at the Marriott yet, in case someone wants it. Steve Nelson IPMS #30925

During the initial rush last August we were able to get a reservation at the Marriott, but only for Thursday thru Saturday. My wife called them up this evening, and was able to add Wednesday night (at the convention rate) with no problem, so there may be some vacancies opening up due to cancellations. Really looking forward to the shindig..2011 was fantastic! Steve Nelson IPMS #30925

Saturday night my wife tried to get reservations at Embassy Suites, and was told they "couldn't find the IPMS rate." I assume the convention rate rooms were gone by then..at least for all four nights. Fortunately last night we were able to snag a room at the Marriott next door at the convention rate, but only for Thu/Fri/Sat. Now that our foot is in the door, we may try to see if we can extend the reservation to include Wednesday night as well. Steve Nelson IPMS #30925

The only difference in the 1/72 Hasegawa Dauntless kits is the section forward of the cockpit (provided as separate pieces, differing in the various releases.) I built one many moons ago, and I had the TD set, but I don't recall how well it fit (or not.) I also had the Jaguar set, with I may have used instead. Steve Nelson IPMS #30925

I've seen the Anigrand resin B-32 built-up. I looks nice, but is basically a resin version of the Aviation Usk/Xotic vacuform kit. I have that kit, and it's the only vac I harbor any serious consideration of actually building (although I think I acquired it sometime in the late 90s.) Like the aforementioned Contrail kit, the injected parts are pretty terrible (the engine faces are copies of the Hasegawa B-17 engines.) I picked up an Academy B-29 "bagged kit" with no decals or instructions for less than ten bucks to pirate the engines, props, wheels and other details. The Anigrand and Usk kits both share a major shape error though: the nose turret is too big (it should be identical to the tail turret) and it's misshapen..it's wider than it is tall, when it should be spherical (and you only get the external half of the turrets.) This gives the model an even more "pug nose" look than it should..and would require major surgery to fix. I'd love to see a state-of-the-art injected B-32, but I can't imagine any mainstream company taking it on. It's just too esoteric to sell enough to be profitable. I suppose I could see on of the Czech outfits taking it on, but the price would be astronomical..I still haven't convinced myself to pay $50+ for the Special Hobby B-18. Steve Nelson IPMS#30925