TRIBUTE TO THE SPACE SHUTTLE FROM AIRFIX

Weekend read from Mat Irvine:

As the last of the Airfix space launchers to receive a makeover, the updated 1:144 scale Space Shuttle was released to coincide with the last-ever Space Shuttle mission, STS-135 in July 2011, when the Orbiter Atlantis made its 33rd and final flight. So how did Airfix do with the makeover?

AIRFIX SATURN 1B JOINS THE 'RETURN OF THE ROCKETS'

Mat Irvine reports:

Airfix plans to have reissued all its original 1:144 scale rocketry series by the end of 2011. The Apollo Saturn V and Vostok kits have already been released, as has the modified Skylab Saturn V. 

Saturn 1B redux

Meanwhile the last of the original launchers - the Saturn 1B - has been reissued recently, and this one is likely the most welcome for collectors, as it was last available way back, in 1991.

YURI GAGARIN AND THE AIRFIX VOSTOK KIT - MAT IRVINE TALKS KIT UPDATES

Mat Irvine on a question of colour

Further to last week’s report on the Airfix 1:144 scale Vostok kit reissue (see it here) celebrating Yuri Gagarin's famous 1961 flight, as I provided the change of details needed to Airfix, here’s more of an explanation.

Secret Vostok shape

The kit itself was released way back in 1969, when we in the West had only recently found out what this Soviet rocket actually looked like. Although flown as early as 1957 to launch Sputnik 1, it wasn’t until 1965, four years after the Gagarin flight, that the shape was revealed.