Michael's Mustang
MODEL BUILDING is somewhat contagious, partially genetic-and frequently addictive. How else could it spread so fast? I caught it early, at about age six. My oldest son, Michael, was hooked a bit earlier, and each of my other children seems to be affected in varying degrees from time to time. So far, Michael shows every sign of being incurable. My son's first original design was a P-51B Mustang. Here's how he came to build it: "My name is Michael. I saw the P-51B Mustang in one of my dad's books. It was painted with the invasion stripes used at the end of World War II, and I liked the way they looked. The P-51 Mustang was one of the fastest fighters of the war, which is another reason I chose it. With four 50-caliber machine guns and rockets too, the P-51 was a real mean machine.
The Spirit of St. Louis
FOR AVIATION aficionados, the Spirit of St. Louis is one of those airplanes that seems to embody the wonders of flight. Whatever the source of our interest in aviation-aerospace, jets, aircraft of World War I or II, to name a few-nearly all of us have been touched at one time or another by the Lindbergh legend. Almost everyone has been attracted to the tall, quiet Lindbergh and his clean, high-wing monoplane, marveling over the man and then the machine. Many of us were fascinated enough to read the book We, maybe even to build a plastic model of the Spirit of St. Louis.
