Lt. Col. William A. Flanagan, aka Bill “Flaps” Flanagan, was an SR-71 RSO for five years, flying out of Palmdale. Bill was inspired to join the US Air Force due to a Northrop YB-49 trading card. Later on in his career, he became the 14th pilot to fly the Northrop B-2. He flew combat McDonnell F-4 Phantom IIs in Vietnam followed by an assignment in Europe under NATO. Next up for Bill was his experience as a test pilot for Lockheed where he was part of a task force for upgrades to the SR-71 Blackbird. Now he is a docent at Blackbird Airpark, in Palmdale, California, currently home to not only a SR-71A, a D-21B, a unique Lockheed U-2D, but a Lockheed A-12 Blackbird. Bill has been done a multitude of videos, including:

The Me 262 continues to be a popular aircraft, both with modelers and with model manufacturers. I admit to being a fan of the aircraft and its sleek lines, so I was excited to see that last fall Academy released a special edition of its Me 262 kit with markings for 7 different aircraft. The kit is marketed as the Me 262A-1/2 and unlike some other kits, it actually does contain the parts necessary to build either of these variants of the jet.

Having awaited the Tamiya Tomcat since they were at the museum - measuring the real things (and having to keep quiet about it until they announced it) I was very satisified with the excellent kit they produced. FANTASTIC!! I was even luckier when I found that the Eduard instrument set was available for review.

This set is designed for the Tamiya Tomcat and it fits the kit parts wonderfully. The instructions call for minimal scraping of the raised details Tamiya provides. The only part I had to actually remove was the RIO radar sunshield, but I used a brand new #11 blade and was able to use it instead of the etch piece Eduard provided.

The only part that didn't look quite right, when compared to photos, was #8. The triple fold worked fine, but the part seemed to be larger than the kit part (H34) it went on, and the edges overhang some.