Allen Jones

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Allen Jones was born into a military family and spent three years overseas at Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan, listening to the sounds of F-15s and the SR-71s flying overhead, but for the most part he grew up in Bellevue, Nebraska, just outside of Offutt Air Force Base. While still a youngster, he enjoyed reading books about military aviation, learning how to build scale models, and watching aircraft flying in and out of Offutt. His dad also took him to the SAC Museum, which at that time was just outside of base, and he never missed an airshow at the base. After high school, Allen was still building models and doing research on aircraft while going to college to study computer network system’s. While Allen was working one of many temporary jobs in the computer field, he saw a picture on a coworker’s desk and recognized it as the engineer’s panel off of a B-36 Peacemaker. That coworker invited him to the SAC Museum at it new and current location and offered him the opportunity to come be a restorer. Allen became a volunteer in the Restoration Shop and worked on many aircraft including the B-36, B-17, B-29, F-101, and many others. He still volunteers in the Restoration Shop and also gives special tours for veterans at the museum. During his first years at the museum, Allen started learning how to take detailed photos (especially in poor lighting) as references for restoration purposes. From there, Allen started using that skill to take photos of aircraft in other museums and at airshows for modeling references. In 2009, Allen started going to IPMS (International Plastic Modelers Society ) meetings, and in 2011, Allen joined the Fort Crook chapter in Nebraska. He also got a chance to take a ride in a small plane out of the Aero Club on base. After that flight, he went home and did some research and discovered that a local college had an Airframe & Powerplants school. In 2012, he went back in school to become A&P certified. While still in school, Allen started volunteer work on the P-51D Mustang, “The Gunfighter,” out of Council Bluffs airport in Iowa. Once he completed A&P school in 2014, Allen started working at a local airport on general aviation aircraft. While using his skills photographing details of aircraft, Allen shared some of his detail photos of several rare aircraft with Detail & Scale. Some of these have appeared on Detail & Scale’s Facebook page, while others will be appearing on the D&S website. Still others will be included in some of the Detail & Scale digital publications.