I have never seen the ISS fly over before. So I decided to give it a try. I sat down in a chair and looked toward the northwest. I watched a few airplanes fly by (I live very near Van Nuys airport) and looked at a few faint stars and wondered what the space station might look like.

Off in the distance, in the northwest, I spotted an airplane with its landing light on. Nothing unusual there as I see that often with planes coming into VNY at night. But this one had no other lights. No flashing strobes, no red or green. And it was moving pretty fast. I thought it must be an airplane. I thought this for a minute or two. Then I thought to myself, "wait a minute, that must be the ISS!"

I could not believe how bright it was. And how fast it was moving, once I realized it was up in orbit.

I snapped some photos with my 300mm lens. All I saw with my eyeglasses on was a bright round dot. Once I brought the images into my computer and saw them at 100% I was thrilled to see the ISS with its outer solar panels. Very awesome!

Most of the pic's turned out too blurry but a few came out decent enough.

I was at a local scale fly in recently and one of my friends had a vintage Jemco PT-19 there. He built it many years ago and it has over 240 flights logged!

I remarked that I had the same kit, partially constructed, and that it had been sitting dormant since about 1975 or so. Seeing his on the flight line got my interest up again.

Today I went fishing in my garage. I pulled down a few boxes from the rafters. The Jemco PT-19 kit is in an enclosed box and all the parts and bits are in excellent condition. However, the fuselage was laying in an open box and has a thick coating of dust on it. So do all the pieces of balsa wood, plans, and other bits that were in the open boxes.

I totally forgot about having a Jemco P-39. It is also partially constructed.

The reason is that back in the mid-70's I really did not have any place to build, and especially to sand wood. So these boxes got put up into storage, and I just kept hauling them with me whenever I moved to a new home.

I also became a strong proponent of ARF airplanes.

I think I will probably finish these models some time this year. ...Continue Reading