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4K views 16 replies 8 participants last post by  russcal 
#1 ·
anyone else from the la metro area? i'd love to meet fellow local collectors.
 
#5 ·
Well, if anyone is in the Torrance area, I invite you to come by the Western Museum of Flight at Zamperini Field (Torrance Airport). I'm in Tuesdays, most Thursdays, and Sundays and will give you a tour of the place.
 
#9 ·
Just noticed this thread. Good to see some people in the South Bay. I grew up in PV/RHE, and now live in Hermosa Beach.

Russcal - I've been meaning to check out the Museum of Flight. Btw, were there some WWII era planes at Zamperini field this weekend? Was there some event? I was surfing in Malaga Cove about 2 hours ago, and saw a group of five planes (including at least P51) fly overhead in formation.
 
#10 ·
Heya, Nikoniko!

The planes you saw flying were Nanchang CJ-6A's. There were 6 up today practicing... they belong to a flight demo team (Tiger Squadron?). Four of them are based at Torrance and the other 2 fly up from Long Beach.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cj-6a



I "think" this is one of the local ones. Note that he is flying off Redondo/Torrance!

I didn't see the Mustang up today, tho' he does normally fly on Sundays. He'll take off, fly west out over the ocean, cut south around PV and back up over the port. He always does a low pass before coming in to land. The plane was restored about a year and a half ago, and has a fresh new engine in it.... he definately likes to take it out and "exercise" it.
 
#11 ·
I'm out in Torrance too. I love this city. I wish we had a sixth scale dealer around here though. All we really have is Volks USA. I have a big truck and it would be nice to save on gas and not have to drive to Echo Base toys, or Frank and Sons every week to get my 1:6 fix.
 
#12 ·
Russcal - thanks for the info. I didn't recognize those CJ6's - in fact I've never heard of those planes. And I love that over Torrance/Redondo - you can see the pier all the way up to El Porto! I believe the one plane which I thought was a Mustang was silver/aluminum in color, and could of sworn it had invasion stripes, but I could be wrong. Is there more than one Mustang at Zamperini? I remember seeing a racing p51 years ago, but that may have been just for an event.

sculpski - I love the South Bay too. After spending time in Washington DC, Japan and many years in the Bay Area, it's good to be back. I love that it's mellow, close to the water, but you can (mostly) avoid the "LA" scene. Too bad there are no good local 1/6 places. My all time favorite hobby shop was Paul Freiler's Historical Models - I spent countless hours as a tyke staring at the glass cabinets (with rows upon rows of planes, tanks and ships) at both the Old Towne location and the newer location at 182nd. Perhaps if they had stayed around, they would have branched out into 1/6 a bit (like Brookhurst Hobbies in the OC). Sad really, kids don't build models anymore (I sure did). Btw, how is the Volks USA store? I got into building Japanese garage kits when I was younger and Volks put out some amazing stuff - this was before they reinvented themselves as a maker of dolls (and now plastic aviation models). Hard to believe that they eventually opened a shop near where I grew up.

Apologies for the rambling trip down memory lane.
 
#14 ·
Russcal - thanks for the info. I didn't recognize those CJ6's - in fact I've never heard of those planes. And I love that over Torrance/Redondo - you can see the pier all the way up to El Porto! I believe the one plane which I thought was a Mustang was silver/aluminum in color, and could of sworn it had invasion stripes, but I could be wrong. Is there more than one Mustang at Zamperini? I remember seeing a racing p51 years ago, but that may have been just for an event.

sculpski - I love the South Bay too. After spending time in Washington DC, Japan and many years in the Bay Area, it's good to be back. I love that it's mellow, close to the water, but you can (mostly) avoid the "LA" scene. Too bad there are no good local 1/6 places. My all time favorite hobby shop was Paul Freiler's Historical Models - I spent countless hours as a tyke staring at the glass cabinets (with rows upon rows of planes, tanks and ships) at both the Old Towne location and the newer location at 182nd. Perhaps if they had stayed around, they would have branched out into 1/6 a bit (like Brookhurst Hobbies in the OC). Sad really, kids don't build models anymore (I sure did). Btw, how is the Volks USA store? I got into building Japanese garage kits when I was younger and Volks put out some amazing stuff - this was before they reinvented themselves as a maker of dolls (and now plastic aviation models). Hard to believe that they eventually opened a shop near where I grew up.

Apologies for the rambling trip down memory lane.
Volks is pretty much as you described. Dolls galore and some aviation models. They also have some model paints and supplies. They have a pretty small 1:6 section. It's mostly
female. I went in to get one of their Neo-Guy bodies. They claim they are going to make more Neo-Guy stuff. I hope so. It seems they put out a quality product.
 
#13 ·
Heya, Nikoniko and all!

This is the Mustang that currently lives at Zamperini:

(link to Flickr pic)

This is "Man O' War", the Mustang we used to have at the museum:



It's now up at Commemorative Air Force in Camarillo.

I've heard stories that there is another Mustang moldering away in one of the hangers at the east end.

Your mention of Historic Models brought back fond memories! That place was great... another victim of the publics shortening attention spans. Paul Freiler had retired to run another store he had in San Diego and gave the Torrance store to his son to run (Eric?). Eric was working for a SFX shop doing model work, and between not running it full time and the general state of things (early 90's, IIRC), the place folded. Too bad.

Now, the only decent hobby shops (for us) are Echobase an hour to the north or Brookhurst to the southeast.
 
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