History Brief

When the F-105 Thunderchief entered service in 1958, it was the heaviest single-engine combat aircraft and was commonly known as the "Thud" by its crews. In March 1956 the USAF placed an order for 65 F-105Bs and 71 were built. Although it set speed records the 105B was besieged with problems, typically the F-105B required 150 hours of maintenance for each flying hour. Most of these problems were addressed under Project Optimize and by 1964 it was relegated to ANG squadrons.

Ever since I was a young lad, and would pass construction and road works sites while out driving or walking with my Father, I have loved bulldozers. Big, yellow and Caterpillar! Yet whenever I went to try and build a model of one, I always struck out. The only kit I could ever find of a Caterpillar product in injection plastic was a 1/25th scale kit, which was either too expensive for me as a young hobbyist, or the wrong scale once I got a job but moved on to focus on modeling military subjects in 1/35th scale. This year, however, Meng Models from China, a relatively new player in the model kit industry, has hit the ground running and provided the 1/35th scale military modeler with an amazingly detailed injection model of the mighty Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer. Read on!

Memory Lane……As a bonafide TreadHead, I am not much of a model nostalgic. My first armor kit was the old 1/48 Aurora Sherman. While it was a great kit and got me hooked on my TreadHead ways, I have no desire to find one and build it again. However, building the first model that I ever built would be neat! I actually have one of those. I paid $95.00 for it on Ebay and thought I would never get to actually build it as I could not bring myself to open the seal and have at it. However, I might get to do just that thanks to Revell. Those of you that are car builders know the name Dave Deal. If you don’t, look him up. He hooked up with Revell back in the 1970s and released thirteen model cars and four aircraft. These were not your typical run of the mill kits. They were three dimensional caricature models. They had oversized parts and even more oversized driver’s heads. My very first model was the Baja Humbug. My second was the Glitter Bug.