My Father's "Bird"

[Sakrison]

I took me a week of scanning, scaling, recoloring, and printing the FlyModel kit, but I finally have a 1/33 paper model kit of my father's C-47. Now it's time to start building.

[Vermin_King]

Outstanding! Looking forward to it

[Sakrison]

The C-47 Argonia depicted in the FlyModel kit was the plane of Col. Charles Young, whose hometown was Argonia, Kansas. Young was CO of the 439th Troop Carrier Group. My father flew as a copilot in Argonia with Col. Young when Dad first arrived in England. The Argonia is preserved at the D-Day museum in Normandy, France.

Removing the invasion stripes was the most tedious part of the repainting process. My father and his plane arrived in England two weeks after D-Day and never got the stripes. Repainting the kit also involved changing the squadron and plane markings. Printing involved first scaling the scans by comparing their dimensions to the printed kit, then dividing up the parts (in Photoshop) to print parts from 16"x11" originals on letter-size and legal-size cardstock -- a lot of fussy work but worth the effort.

[gomidefilho]

Awesome project. I follow with great interest.

[MacSongLi]

Fantastic project with amazing family history. Looking forward to your build.


Gary

[Don Boose]

Wonderful project! It's great to see you bringing your substantial modeling skills to bear on this tribute model.

Don

[chaparral2d]

This is great! Anytime a model can be connected with a person or persons, it is just that more special.

Dave

[Sakrison]

My father enlisted in the AAF in 1942. He requested transports because he wanted to fly for the airlines after the war. He graduated from flight training at the top of his class and spent two years as a C-47 instructor at Randolph Field in Texas. When he got to England, he had more time in C-47s than most of the other pilots in the squadron, and at 26, he was considered an "old man."

Because of his high time in type, he ended up in the "front row" on a lot of hot missions. His was one of the first planes over Bastogne on Christmas Day '44, he flew seven or eight glider missions (double tows) during Market Garden, and he carried fuel to Patton's tanks during the crossing of the Rhine. After VE day, he carried POWs from Germany to England, then flew to the US with orders for Okinawa. He was at home on leave when the war ended.

[rifleman]

will be nice to see this build come together

[MacSongLi]

Fantastic background. He was one of the true heroes. Thank you for sharing.


Gary