I was delighted to meet several modelers known through the internet. It was good to finally put faces to names, and they all are funny and talkative.

Here are (L to R) Mario "Marian the Slovak", Adrian Davies, and me. We all are holding our breaths to make the bellies look smaller. Both are super funny guys. Mario is well known from from Hyperscale, while Adrian is a fine "Britisher" modeler who takes a year to finish a model - my kind of modeler.

And here are me and Allan Buttrick, the master of Airfix Group Build at Hyperscale. Thanks to him, who introduced himself during a photo section of our models, I could finally meet Allan and also got company for the awards dinner that night. During the show, me and Allan spent a good while talking about old school techniques and the current trend of rediscovery of old tricks. Some things come and go, I guess.

Here are a glimpse of the judges in action. Mario is on the left, bothering Martin Quinn (leaning) and Dan Kaplan, head judges and contenders of the ship categories. I know Martin well since he is vice-president of IPMS-NJ, and Dan is a superb modeler who builds exclusively 1/700 IJN ships...

As the show was going on, I took these two photos from the cockpit of the F-84, to give you an idea of how the show merged with the museum:

On Saturday afternoon I had my chance to fly a WWII era Waco, but I chickened out. Better to my friend Mike Dobrzelecki, who took a 40 min ride on it including some acrobatics. Here is he strapped in the front cockpit prior to the take-off:

Another highlight of the show was the presence of veterans. They were deservedly awarded in a special section. On the left of the table is John Sutcliffe, a former P-47 pilot. Thank you for your services gentlemen.

Now let me take you right to the awards dinner, on Saturday night. I couldn't attend the Nats dinner last year, neither the JerseyCon last October, so I couldn't let this one pass. Check out the name of the restaurant:

You guessed. The 56th FG restaurant is located on the HQ of the real 56th FG, which was formed and trained initially there. The guard post is original, while the restaurant itself is inside the once Headquarters of the group.

Everything is properly decorated, imparting a unique atmosphere to the place:

And that includes real items like this duce and a half...

... as well as very interesting fiberglass replicas of a P-40, a P-47 and a Corsair in the background. Apparently, these were made from molds taken from the actual aicraft, including engine parts!

Back to the restaurant, There are many memorablia items preserved, as well as much of the forniture, most of them as they were back in the war years:

Back to the dinner. On arrival, I realized that none of my IPMS-NJ buddies were attending the dinner, but Allan kindly invited me to join him, Suzan, and Dario Giuliano. He saved my night. I had a most pleasing dinner talking with them while having good food, and of course, talking about models.

That was Dario's first show as a contender, and the man walked out with no less than four awards. Not bad for his first time, eh? Here is him receiving one of them from Freddie Seitz III, another great modeler that I met there:

I can't imagine how to have a better dinner. Thank you Allan, Suzan, Dario, and all the folks from LISMS.