Naval aviation history comes alive at Sisters Library

The Friends of the Sisters Library Art Committee is bringing naval aviation history to life at Sisters Library. As you walk into the foyer you can't help but notice the group of Navy aircraft models on display in the glass cabinets along the wall.

They are the work of Sisters resident Roscoe Creed, a master modeler with a keen interest in aviation history. Creed built 12 of the models, and purchased three because they are one-of-a-kind. One is a pre-World War II small-scale Consolidated PBY, and the other two, Brewster Buffalos, also pre-World War II fighters built for the U.S. Navy. Except for the silver and yellow PBY, all models are 148th scale of the real thing, and there are placards next to each model providing historical notes.

The history behind the Brewster Buffalo is rich and filled with international significance. They didn't fit up to Navy standards, so they were sold to U.S. allies, including Finland, where they were used to fight Russian and then German aviation forces.

Roscoe purchased and built his first stick-and-tissue flying models in the late 1930s and early '40s. Later, he built solid models of pine. Then, because of a serious back injury, there was a long hiatus leading into the mid '70s. By that time scale model building had gone to injection molded plastic, and Roscoe got back into modeling again.

"At first I was happy just gluing the parts together and hand-painting them," Creed said. "Then I went to a model show and I asked a builder, 'what happened to the cracks?' No seams showed on his models like they did on mine."

The modeler told Roscoe he filled the seams with putty and sanded them down just like they were wood, and Roscoe was on his way.

He joined a model club and entered competitions and scored some wins. In time he began submitting how-to-do-it articles to FineScale Modeler magazine, where they were published. A couple of years later the editor asked Roscoe to write a book on how to build plastic model airplanes. He did, and it was published in 1985 and was on the market for 10 years (it's a collector's item today).

Roscoe's interest in building a model of the Consolidated PBY Flying Boat led him to the Naval Institute, which eventually gave him a contract to write a book entitled, "PBY, the Catalina Flying Boat." The book can be purchased through Naval Institute Press, 291 Wood Road, Annapolis, MD 21402-5034.