March has turned out to be a month of crashes around here. I started out the month with a rather loud banging on the door the very early morning of the 2nd. Apparently the neighbors were awakened by a crash and upon looking outside decided that they'd best come and wake us. A drunk sailor careened through the parking lot and slammed into four parked cars, two of which were mine. He drove off but was caught not much later. He got his night in jail, a ticket for $470 for driving with no insurance, and he's back on the streets. Meanwhile I'm left trying to deal with my insurance company. Needless to say it wasn't like all those nice television ads you see for insurance companies....

While sitting on the phone, though, I did manage to get more modeling done than is my norm. And as the month came near to a close, another crash occurred. Imagine spending six years on a project, countless hours and hard work, with a result of an absolutely beautiful finished product. It wasn't flawless (heck, you should have seen the absolute dog that it started out as!), but you really had to go hunting for the small dings and dents. The project wasn't just constrained to the outside, though. The interior was completely built up and was a near replica of the original. Then on Friday the 29th the unthinkable happened: a crash. So what do you do? Fix it up back to its original state? Just do a surface fix and realize that you'll never be able to return it to its full glory? Or consign it to the scrap heap?

When you're talking about a model these questions aren't too heavy. But the crash that happened Friday wasn't a plastic model but rather a Model 307, the beautifully restored Boeing Stratoliner. After losing some or all of its engines the pilot did a masterful job of ditching it in Elliott Bay in Seattle. By keeping it close to shore and by having some boats pull it even closer, the damage was minimized and the salvage effort was made much easier. But the fact still remains: salt water and aircraft do not mix. Destined to be put on display at the National Air and Space Museum sometime in 2003, the plans for showing this off at a museum are obviously on hold. Knowing the amount of time that was put into this plane to restore it originally, and the beautiful finish it had, how would you answer the above questions? An interesting quandary and one that definitely makes my little car crash pale in comparison...