In addition to being a private pilot, I too, am a member of the EAA, an A&P and attended their AirVenture many times, as well as visiting air museums, attending airshows (I live in Reno, Nevada, home of the National Championship Air Races), and just hanging out at both modeling fields and airports.  Lately, I've settled on building models for my hobby and as a stress-release.  

Here, you'll find fellow members who possess an incredible wealth of knowledge of aviation in general (many are retired pilots both civilian and military), an enormous amount of documentation to help you on your build, great collections of photos of the full sized aircraft that will also show great detail some of the small accessories such as turnbuckles, hinges, fuselage panels, warbird machine gun hatches, wheel wells and their plumbing, and of course the interiors, be it cockpit or the whole cabin, detailed drawings, plans, and references to other links, as well as vendors themselves adding support and so much more. 

Got questions?  Just ask.  Someone is bound to answer and from there, your whole world opens up.

Skye

ive been building and flying for years 

but am at the end stage of my largest 12 foot plane a ziroli dc3 so am looking forward to getting some really good tips from you guys

cheers

Be sure to read the FAQs for tips about posting pictures, etc., and definitely check out the tutorial section!

Glad to hear of your incredibly large DC-3 build.  I don't know if you're already aware, but there's several build threads dealing with both the DC-3 and it's military variant the C-47.  The most active one so far has been the C-47.  If you're at the final stages, could you post some of your photos here?  We'd all love to see them.   The C-47 build thread has already covered the unique landing gear retraction system.  You might wish to check it out.  Just type in "C-47" into your search on this site and you should immediately be directed to that thread.  Really great guys and, although I'm not building a commercial airliner (I'm in the process of building a Mustang for my daughter)  I've become good friends with a couple of them just by watching their builds.  You will definitely get lots of hints, suggestions and building tips.  

Skye