Introduction

The “Back to the Future” (BTTF) movie franchise began in 1985 with the release of the first movie. The film series featured the adventures of Marty McFly as he traveled back and forth in time in a Time Machine built by wacky scientist Emmitt “Doc” Brown. That first plutonium-powered Time Machine creation had been built by Brown from a vintage DeLorean sports car. For the second movie, “Back To The Future Part II”, the DeLorean had been converted to a flying Time Machine. At the end of the second movie, just as order had been restored to the 1985 timeline (once again?), the Time Machine was struck by lightning which fried the time circuits and sent Doc Brown whirling back to 1885. A third iteration of the movie franchise was needed to rebuild the Time Machine using 1950s technology (is anyone else confused?) and to set the timeline straight one last time.

In the years between WWI and WWII, moviegoers in America may have thought they were watching wartime footage of aerial dogfights between Fokker D.VIIs and Sopwith Camels in such films as Hell’s Angels and Dawn Patrol. They may have been watching some of the surviving Fokkers, but in all likelihood, the nimble fighters with roundels on their wings were aircraft that never made it into military service during the Great War…instead, they were the small single-seat S4 ‘Scout’ trainers built by The Thomas Morse Aircraft Corporation in 1917-1918 that were considered surplus after the war.

I began building Dragon Model kits when they first became available back in the 1970’s. Even back then they were a breath of fresh air on the modeling scene. They offered fascinating subjects never seen before and although sometimes a bit simplified, I liked them a great and built numerous models from their catalog, enjoying them all. My, how they have evolved over time.