quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
I've loved airplanes and anything that flew since I was a boy. I flew a lot when I was younger, and was blessed to fly a lot of cool airplanes, including some WW II and vintage planes.

I remember thumbing through a couple of the Famous Planes series many years ago...NICE find!

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Vaalic:
My 11 year old is obsessed with WW2 planes. His room is plane posters, he has all kinds of books, he has seen every episode of Dogfights on Discovery, etc. His favorite toys are matchbox WW2 planes and an aircraft carrier i found at a resale shop. He can tell you what planes had what engines, who had higher altitudes, etc.

Instead of Disney he wanted to go to the Air Force museum in Dayton, he loved it

I just think that is so cool! You don't find many kids today that are interested enough in vintage aviation and certainly not enough to actually learn the aircraft specs. Bravo!

Yeah he is way into it. He loves WW2 movies, but some are not appropriate so it's hard to know sometimes. He sat and watched Patton all the way through when he was 9. He can identify all kinds of planes.

We were outside this summer and he starts having a major spazz out, mommy daddy there is a B17 G flying over! We are like yeah sure.. But there really was one flying into the local airport. We had to take him over there immediately.. Lol. It's hard to find WW2 toys anymore.

We took him to a retirement home and he met some pilots and freaked out, talked to them for a long time.

How many 8 year olds ask Santa for Dogfights dvds? Lol, he has them almost memorized now. He also loves Plane Restoration on Netflix.

Yes, I get to fly in a SNJ 5, the Navy version of a T6 Texan from time to time. The engine noise, smell and everything is always fun. That plane draws the attention of everyone at the airport when we taxi in and out.

Some years back I was working Tech for a company in IL, got a call from a guy about our product line. He placed an order, said his name was Messerschmitt, Bill Messerschmitt.

I said, "Bill Messerschmitt? You mean Willy Messerschmitt? Any relation to...????" I had already detected a slight German accent during our conversation.

He said, "Yes, he was my Grandfather."

We talked for nearly another half-hour about some fascinating stuff, not all aviation-related.

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Originally posted by Micropterus:
I'm not a collector but have a nice assortment of books on WWII aircraft. William Green wrote great books on WWII aircraft, with his book "Warplanes of the Third Reich" being his ultimate work. He wrote others and they are getting hard to come by in good condition. I was in my favorite aircraft books store last week and came across these volumes, all first editions, in new condition. The owner had them in his personal collection and decided to sell them. He priced each of them back in the late '80s for $12.95 each and sold them to me for those amounts. Other than a little shelf wear on the dust jackets, which have since been covered in Brodards, they are in new condition. These are great books with lots of information on major fighter and bomber types and sub-types used in WWII.

I was lucky in that my father was a military aviation buff and had a massive collection of books and magazines. As a kid I got to read everything William Green wrote as well as a whole slew of others. Spent a lot of time following along in book stores and hobby shops. Good times, great memories.

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Originally posted by TheFrontRange:
Very nice! I've always had a thing for WW2 aircraft, built a zillion Monogram and Revell scale models back in the '80s. Monogram-brand WW2 models often included an insert featuring a diorama of that particular model - I thought those were great.

I just want to say that the Revell ones are still the best. Who doesnt love a B52?

At one time I was in the Military Book Club. They had some awesome books. All types of stuff. I had too quit I couldnt keep up.
Also Squadron, a company that sells models has some good books too. Mostly for camo schemes and various model types of equipment but will have some awesome photo not seen elsewhere.

When I was young we kids found a used book store ( circa 1958) that had back copies of old magazines. We found a pile of Flying magazines from the war years and bought every one we could carry home on our bikes. Gosh, we must have spent over a dollar on this treasure trove. Articles on all the war birds, which we did not read, of course, beautiful color photos, and advertisements of war production items that I remember still. One was a silhouette of a aircraft, blocked over, for the mysterious Black Widow.
Of course I have subsequently spent lots of time and money throughout my life trying to completd scale models, both plastic and balsa, of these wonderful airplanes.
Won't you know that during my college years Mom decided my collection was just gathering dust and threw them all out.
Among the things I wish I still had, which is fodder for another topic, these magazines rank near the top.

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Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
I like WW II aircraft books too. My favorites are Adolf Galland's book, "The First and the Last"

I have the paperback version somewhere. He was quite a character, and I found it especially interesting how he maintained a close friendship with RAF ace Douglas Bader and his family for over 40 years.