T&A Hobby Lobby's Month-Long Farewell!

Racks once filled with models have been cleared to accomodate RC and Electric flyers available for sale separate from the Museum collections. The Mustang in the background was sold today to an individual wishing to begin his RC Collection inexpensively and with plans to restore the nose section of the aircraft, which was damaged, and then reinstall an electric motor and the necessary RC equipment that was stripped out after the flyer's accident. The Fokker Eindecker in the foreground is a marvel that wound up on display today, Sunday April 23, 2006, and will remain on display until sold or donated to a Museum should sale not occur. Though a Classic, the silk skin remains in remarkably good shape and is ready for more flying.

Trumpter, of Mainland China, is one of the new Hobby manufacturers to enter the market and not only builds its own designs, but has acquired a number of designs from Revell, such as the 1:350 U.S.S. Arizona model still offered by Revell here in the U.S. This 1:48th scale RA-5C Vigilante is a steal, marked down to $45.00 and subject to further markdown by this Saturday.

Italeri is well represented via their original kits and those sold by Testors. Here we see the JU-88, F-111 Aardvark and others, mixed in with Tamiya's Brewster Buffalo, a Sparrowhawk, and an SM 79 Sparviero.

Just about every part imaginable sits ready for the RC and Electric modeler, aong with Peanut Scale and Rubber-band flyers, in Tony & Addie's shop. What isn't sold is to be distributed to other Hobby Shops to help support the U-control, Hand Launch and RC Model Flying Clubs in the San Fernando Valley area, where T&A has been located for 55 years.

Fuel tanks anyone? Six to a B-36 Peacemaker, or there's always the scratch-built Dornier DO-X flying boat waiting to be built...

...or you could feasibly compete with International Formula One (IF1)!

The East Wall at T&A is a fascinating selection of modern and classic kits. A Hall's Bulldog Racer RC or Electric kit sits in the center of this picture...to your left, World War II and Air Racing kits, and Peanut Scale and Electric flyers already built up to the right. Atop the Bulldog, two Classic car models from the 1940s and '50s when wood models ruled the industry before the advent of plastic kits.

The West Wall is airplanes from floor to ceiling, but also Classic Hobby displays in the glass shelves to the far left, and assortments of Die Cast, Ships, Vacu-form models, Collectables, Airliners, General Aviation, Executive Aviation, hard-to-find Eastern European kits, and Trumpter's large scale models, including the Tupelov Blackjack bombers in 1/72 scale, along with 1:35 scale helicopters like the Mil-8. Trumpeter is also responsible for educating the West as to new and old developments in Chinese Aviation, offering kits ranging from the Y-8 to the newest ships in the Chinese Navy. Shortly, they will release a 1:35th scale CH-47D Chinook model, likely to be the largest helicopter model released anywhere in the world as a plastic kit. Previous models of the Chinook have included the Italeri 1:72 scale CH-47D and MH-47 Chinooks, and Aurora's 1960s-era release of the Boeing CH-47A Chinook.

The West Wall is where the main collection of T&A Lobby has existed since 1951. In particular, the centerpiece has been the Boeing B-17G, which appears to be 1:32nd scale, and powered by four gas-fueled motors. I am fifty years old at this time and the aircraft was the first thing I saw at T&A when I walked in as a child of nine years of age, circa 1965. My first words to Tony: "How Much!?" <G>

The Magazine rack at T&A where I purchased the British periodical, Aviation News, a hard-copy newspaper of the 1960s and early 1970s, that sadly went belly up though it was one of the most newsworthy publications you could ever hope to read that covered every aspect of British Civil and Military Aviation.

Shades of Buck Rogers...

...a ground based platform with a rotor driven lift system prepared for launching every kid's imagination about flight and space flight.