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Well seeing as I'm co-hosting I thought I had better declare my intention build wise for what promises to be another very popular and very enjoyable GB. As I mentioned in Dennis' ( @Corsairfoxfouruncle ) Bird Dog thread I have had an interest in the secret war in Laos ever since reading a truly fantastic book called "The Ravens" by Christoper Robbins which tells the tale of a group of American airmen and CIA operators who fought against overwhelming odds to support the local Hmong population in their struggle against the Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese using nothing more than light aircraft and helicopters with the hottest ship available to them being the T-28. Armed with machine guns, rockets and bombs these armed trainers waged their own war against the fairly sophisticated weapons of the North Vietnamese, and not without success either. As it stands at the minute I am unsure as whether to build a T-28 flown by the Ravens or by the best pilot the Laotians had, a Hmong pilot by the name of Lee Lue who had an uncanny ability to place ordnance with pin point accuracy and had to show the USAF fast movers how to do things on several occasions when they had whizzed over a target in their multi million Dollar hi tech aircraft and missed the target and the Lee Lue would come along and roll his little T-28 into a dive pickle off one bomb and flatten the target. On to the kit. I will be building Roden's 1/48 T-28D Trojan which was released a few years ago and seems to be nicely moulded and perfectly adequately detailed for me, it actually comes with markings for the 606th Special Operations Squadron of the USAF based at Nakhom Phanom in Thailand used over "the trail" in the late 60's but I will leave that for someone else to build. Anyway here are the obligatory box and contents shots; The contents; The kit options; I do like the idea of that CIA one from the Congo but that is for another GB. My laptop is currently moving at the pace of an asthmatic snail with heavy shopping so updates might be a while in coming but don't worry I am really looking forward to getting started on this one as I have been wanting to do it for a long time. Thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received. Craig.

Hi All, I am going to enter with a US clandestine C-130A. I haven't picked an exact airframe, yet, but I only opened the box today, so I don't think I need to rush! Here's an abridged history taken from the excellent research notes created by the Air America archive at UT Dallas: http://www.utdallas.edu/library/specialcollections/hac/cataam/Leeker/aircraft/c130.pdf In late 1961, E-Flight was established within the 21st Troop Carrier Squadron / 315th Air Division at Naha, Okinawa. Unlike other C-130As of the 315th AD, the four or five E-Flight C-130As were uncamouflaged. They had very small USAF insignia, and had skate-wheel rollers installed on the cargo-compartment floor over which cheap wood pallets could be moved. That made handling easier at locations without forklifts and made it unnecessary to recover the pallets. Initially, 4 five-man Air America-crews (including a navigator) were trained to fly the C-130. From the second half of 1965 to the spring of 1971 Air America used USAF C-130As from Takhli, Thailand to fly large supplies of ammunition into "forbidden territory under cover of darkness". Those flights ended at Long Tieng, Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Sam Thong, Pakse, Savannakhet, or Saravane. In 1965 the Takhli-Long Tieng service (CIA logistic support pipeline) was opened. Since 1967 at least one of the two C-130As at Takhli flew into Laos every day; and since 69, C-130 missions from Udorn to Luang Prabang were added. When, in early 1970, the situation became too dangerous in the Plain of Jars (Laos), Air America made several refugee airlifts. Missions included the evacuation of refugees and the importation of troops along with the backhaul of critical USAID and -713 "Customer material", much of which was of a highly classified nature. In the spring of 1971, that part of the 374th TAW which had used C-130As from Naha, Okinawa, was deactivated, and the responsibility for supply flights to Laos activities shifted to the E-model wing at Ching Chuan Kang Airbase, Taiwan. As ever with these sort of missions, it isn't easy to identify individual aircraft involved, and the aircraft histories are very difficult to explain. But from a modellers' point of view the all-silver (Corroguard?) finish, usually with no markings other than a 3-digit tail code presents an easy win! In fact the challenge will be making it look interesting! The Kit: I will build the Italeri 1/72 C-130 with resin props/tanks from OZMods to backdate to an C-130A. I will drill the extra fuselage window and scribe the front cargo door, but I leave the modifications there. I will also leave the model 'buttoned up'. Anyway- a full afternoon of modeling is ahead, and I'll post some pictures later!

Hi guys, Not posted any photos lately so I thought I would get some up... Hopefully you like them! Mixed bag from Laos, Vietnam & RIAT... Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Untitled by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr and the Smoky & the Bandits at RIAT! Smokey and the Bandits. by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr Thanks for looking!