Meeting called to order at 835 with 18 present (20 eventual count) by VP Mick Burton. After initial remarks, having the needed quorum we called for discussion, nominations for Tri City Eight Contest Director. End result was Mick Burton the sole remaining candidate for this go around and resultant vote recorded as unanimous, with condolences from all. A short dialogue followed from Burton as to the "double feature" theme planned for the 2012 TC-8, in keeping with our tradition of "movie/geography" of recent shows, of course with a twist. The main thrust is that we're going to have an "All American" theme emphasis, "Double feature bill movies" being "Midway" and "The Missiles of October" which tie into the USA geography. Both link to two significant pivotal events in American as well as world history with the 70th and 50th anniversary of Battle of Midway, Cuban Missile Crisis falling in 2012 calendar. There will be expansion on this all on the Hornet website for future reference, the new TC-8 Director promised. After a vigorous review of all upcoming R-9 club events currently on calendar and no news on the state of the SJVSM Tomcats contest possibly in April, we got to the important part of the meeting, namely model talk followed by our raffle featuring what else, the NEW PV-1 Ventura in 1/48 from Revell and 1/72, 1/48 "Red Tails" editions of the Tamiya P-51D. http://s919.photobucket.com/albums/ad35/smilodon49/Hornets%20January%202012/ Lou Orselli had us start off with his 1/48 BA-65 WIP, the intricate metal framing alone in the cockpit seems worthy of an award. Ray Lloyd made it to the Sacramento Silvercon 2011, where he came back with an award to go with his lovely 1/48 Global Hawk, which as he said, many are bought but ever so few are seen on tables built. Next to it was great progress on Ray's M24 Chaffee in 1/35. Mark Schynert celebrated his decision not to burden himself running for TC-8 Contest Director with his completed 1/72 Spitfire Mk 12, which was a lovely example of his and Supermarine's work. Ben Pada celebrated twice with us, showing up with two recent completions in 1/48, one of them a long time (for Ben) coming. That being his camouflaged late F-104J JASDF which he began for the Hornets "New Starfighter" gruppe build of a few years back, of course using the Hasegawa kit. Beautiful rendering overall all, Ben. Next to it was his Ki-44 Shoki from the Hasegawa kit, a trademark "Pada rescue" in that Ben had done the entire craft in a very nice overall olive green only to find out after decals/finish, photos of this aircraft had it much more worn looking. Ben craftily applied a metalizer finish "weathering" so skillfully that one could not (to my eye and several others) tell he had not meant it to look that way from beginning. He makes it sound so easy when he explains it, almost is painful to grasp how it isn't. Eric McClure had a 1/72 "Dragon Wagon" underway which some of us teased must have been "the Oakland edition" as it was missing all the wheels. From the Academy kit, Eric is turning out another miniature masterpiece for sure. He also had a sweet new book from a Polish author on the Bell P-39 put out by MMP. Brian Sakai had himself a productive Xmas, with the USS Albany in 1/350, YB-49 Flying Wing and Vulcan B.2 both in 1/200, lastly a 1/144 Bell X-1 which seemed to have nearly as many bits as the ship kit! He was his own Santa Claus, I look forward to seeing some done. Gabriel Lee had his Viper Mk 1 done as well as his masterful "Space Cruiser Titanic" reimagined from the Revell 1/570 kit. One other work still in progress was captured in my photos but not in my recall, sorry Gabe. Kent McClure had his latest gang of gorgeous miniatures on the way, among them a very "rock star" posed Robby the Robot. Behind them was a sedate and seductive sailing ship underway, sorry no details here. Cliff Kranz had a trio of German Armor '46 done, apparently based on "Maus/E100" but again my notes are lacking here, but Cliff's work was clearly not lacking. Last speaker was Mick Burton, who displayed his recently finished "Uncle Martin's Space Ship" minus Uncle Martin from "My Favorite Martian", all out of the box from Pegasus kit. Right behind, four editions of the Italeri 1//35 Sdfkz 234 eight wheeled armored cars, originally intended to be done for the June 2011 "Here Comes the Sun" SVSM club contest (for primarily yellow subjects). All done in overall 1943 Dunkelgelb, the /1, /2 "Puma", /3 and "big gun" /4 versions of this iconic vehicle satisfied Burton that he's in for some serious effort when attempting FIVE of the later DML kits for a collection entry. He's determined not to forecast which year that entry will be made ... To relax, Mick has started 3 aircraft in 1/72 scale that were "cheap bids" from forgotten past auctions, only recalled that each was a buck or less (as in the F-100 had a bonus F-104 inside box). Esci's Super Sabre in tan styrene will likely end up in Danish AF green or Armee De L'air tactical camo, versus the original plan to use NMF for some "one dollar decals" on hand, since Burton knows that NMF is not his friend. The Ertl F-104C and Airfix F-84F will have NMF no matter what it seems. The Pegasus snap tite 1/48 V-2 has only taken Mick an hour to get nearly ready to choose whether it will be "Sandy" or the "test frame" scheme, using the IPMS nationals decal set. Finally, he explained the odd "armor box" as the Renault WF "Chenillete" in 1/35, again from an auction purchase and another German fascination, namely those "rockets in crates"
After a short break so that all could recover from his talking, VP Burton called meeting back to order so raffle could proceed and then we closed until next month. -notes by mickb