What retired dentists get up to!

While dealing with children and their little models I can spend hours making and mending small plastic and wooden pieces to give them a few hours of fun and assist them in understanding what machinery is made up of.

Recently I saw a model of a galleon made by a prisoner of war. He would obviously have had many hours with which to spend his time, making a work of art, but now prepare to have your jaw dropped.

Young C. Park of Honolulu, Hawaii is a retired dentist who has been an aircraft modeler since childhood. He is now fullfilling a lifelong dream of making an airplane model all out of aluminum.

Here are a few more photos to wet your appetite before giving you a link to a website that explains all.  It’s almost impossible to comprehend how much skill and patience is required to complete these models.

Using a tweezers, the controls can be moved. All cables and linkages are in place to work the wing control surfaces as well. Young Park has since carved a pilot’s face and hands from solid aluminum and built an articulated pilot to sit in the cockpit. (Photo: George F. Lee, Honolulu Star-Bulletin)

Keep reminding yourself these models are all 1/16th scale: 1 foot modelled as 3/4 in or, in metric terms, 1 metre modelled as 2 1/4 cms!

Now read the full article.

By Bob Derham

• Aircraft
• Military
• People