June 09--WARNER ROBINS -- The number of aircraft on display at the Museum of Aviation increased dramatically for a few hours Saturday, if you count the ones you can hold in your hand.
Scale modelers from around the Southeast came for the sixth annual "ScottCon" model contest held in the Century of Flight Hangar. The event is sponsored by the museum and the Gen. Robert L. Scott Chapter of the International Plastic Modelers Society.
It featured not just model aircraft but ships, tanks, submarines, dinosaurs, knights, various vehicles from science fiction movies and just about anything else someone thought was cool enough to recreate in miniature.
The items are made with such exacting detail and precision that many look like not so much like a plastic model but as though someone had used a shrink-ray gun.
"That's the whole idea," said Bill Paul, president of the chapter.
While some models are made from scratch, including a P-51 Mustang that Paul made from carved wood, most are made from a kit. The kit, however, is often just a starting point as modelers add details they create themselves.
Walter Fryza, of Jonesboro, had a World War II German Tiger I tank in the show he worked on for five years, off and on. He started with a kit that was just the shell of the tank then proceeded to add an incredible amount of interior detail. He replicated the seats, shell holders and everything else that would be found inside a real tank. The only thing he said he was still missing is the shells. A Tiger I can be seen in the bridge battle in "Saving Private Ryan."
Fryza, 65, said he has been modeling since he was a child and estimated he has probably built 1,000 models.
"It's a challenge to yourself," he said. "Can I do this? You are challenging your skills to see how far you can take it."
Bruce Radebaugh, a former KC-135 pilot, builds model planes to such exacting detail that he replicates specific planes. He puts the actual name of the pilot who flew it on the canopy, just as it would have been in combat.
On computer, he recreates such details as the squadron insignia and even tiny safety warnings, as well as the actual tail number. He has a model on display in the National Air and Space Museum and has several models on display at the Museum of Aviation.
At Saturday's show, he entered a model of a F-105D flown in Vietnam by Col. Phillip Gast, who was Radebaugh's wing commander when he was in pilot training. Radebaugh tracked down Gast's crew chief, whose name is also on the plane, and got some photos of it so he could recreate every marking.
Historical research is a big part of the hobby. Paul said part of the allure is learning about the vehicles the modeler is trying to create. Many will even interview war veterans and others who used it.
"They actually are looking to preserve vanishing history," he said.
To contact writer Wayne Crenshaw, call 256-9725.
Copyright 2013 - The Macon Telegraph
