REVELL V-2 MISSILE CARRIER TO 1:72 SCALE

RATHER LIKE YOU CAN NEVER HAVE too many Spitfires for WWII aircraft, you can never have too many V-2s in the missile category. 

SPECIAL HOBBY HAWKER TEMPEST: ANOTHER STUNNING VIDEO BUILD FROM TOM GRIGAT

FOR ALL WORLD WAR II FIGHTER FANS here's a great video by Tom Grigat, the master of stop-frame animated video model builds.

NAZI V-WEAPONS AT LA COUPOLE ROCKET BASE, NORTHERN FRANCE

IF YOU ARE IN REACH OF Northern France, a trip to the site of a World War II Nazi rocket base could provide some excellent source reference for model projects.

iHOBBY EXPO 2013: BATTLESHIP TO BULLDOZER, AS MAT IRVINE SURVEYS THE STEVENS INTERNATIONAL MODEL-KIT PORTFOLIO

You might not have heard of Stevens International, but it’s an important outfit in the modelling world, as the company is one of the main US hobby distributors.

MARKING THE 51st ANNIVERSARY OF THE X-15 ROCKET PLANE’S FIRST FLIGHT

Mat Irvine reports
Today’s the day in 1959 that test pilot Scott Crossfield took the North American X-15 rocket plane on its first flight. This was an unpowered glide only, after being dropped from under the wing of an eight-engined Boeing NB-52, and reached a speed of 840 km/h (522 mph), just ‘one small step’ compared to the X-15’s eventual record of 7274 km/h (4520 mph).

Aurora makes the first X-15 kit
Because of its exotic nature, the X-15 was a natural for model kit companies, especially in the early years when plastic kits were part of a new industry. One of the first such kits came from Aurora in 1959; the real craft had only just been revealed, which makes it understandable that some details were wrong.

X-15 in fit-the-box scale from Revell
After this came Revell’s far more accurate version, one that has survived in various releases for many years. But it had a slight problem in that it was not made to a generally accepted scale. It came from a time when many kits - especially kits from American companies - were made to ‘fit the box’. The companies had a set number of box sizes, and new kits were literally built to fit inside these standard boxes. So Revell’s X-15 ended up being made to 1:65 scale, not that far from the more usual 1:72, but not really close enough for purists.

In fact, it was not until 1987 that Monogram issued the first conventional injection-moulded X-15 kit to the popular international 1:72 scale.

New X-15 kits from Czech model companies
In recent years the Czechs have taken over the X-15 kit world with MPM and Special Hobby (both part of the CMK empire) both issuing kits in 1:72, 1:48, and even 1:32 scale. To date, the X-15 remains the most kitted of all the X-Planes - the number of different issues has reached almost 30.

The pictures show, top to bottom:
1 The first kit of an X-15, from Aurora. It had no undercarriage, was moulded in white plastic, and had spurious markings. Model courtesy the Collection of Andrew P. Yanchus.
2 Aurora’s second X-15 issue had an undercarriage, came in black, and had more accurate markings.
3 The box for Revell’s first X-15. This has lasted the longest of any X-15 kit, and was available until very recently.
4 The first conventional injection plastic kit to 1:72 scale, from Monogram. It was the X15A-2 version, with external tanks. The kit could be finished in black, or the ablative white used for some flights. Of course, that original Aurora ‘in white’ issue wasn’t entirely wrong - although no-one could have known then that white X-15s would eventually fly!
5 The 1:48 scale Special Hobby X-15A-2.
6 The biggest X-15 is the 1:32 scale Special Hobby kit. This picture shows a display at the One Small Step exhibition, currently showing at the Sensation Science Centre, Dundee, Scotland. The 1:32 Gunze Sangyo Ford  Galaxie Skyliner makes a good looking in-scale companion.

Visit the Sensation Science Centre here.

You can view a selection of X-15 models at the UK store Hannants here.

1:72 SCALE A9 LONG-RANGE ROCKET MISSILE FROM SPECIAL HOBBY

SMN reports
Here’s a look at the A9 piloted missile we brought back from the La Coupole rocket base in northern France. The A9 was one of many ‘Luftwaffe 1946’ secret projects that never saw military action before World War II ended, in this case luckily for the Allied towns and cities that could have been in the target zones.

 

Vengeance weapon
Developed from Wernher von Braun’s V-2 ‘Vengeance’ weapon (technical name A4) the A9 was the winged upper stage of a two-stage rocket, the A10 first-stage boosting it to high speed and altitude. Blueprints of the time showed that the wings would have given the A9 range enough to hit targets as far away as Scotland, more than doubling the standard V-2’s reach of some 320 km (200 miles). It wasn’t good news for the pilot however, who was expected to bale out and parachute to safety moments before impact - a fairly unlikely scenario.

Later A9/A10 designs had bigger wings, and were planned for attacks on US targets such as New York and Washington. You can see how this might have worked in the video, and also the pages from ‘Popular Science’ magazine, shown above.

Special Hobby A9 kit
Back to the Special Hobby kit, which comes neatly boxed, with art that should be useful as a painting guide. The 52 parts are presented on three runners, with a vacuum-formed cockpit canopy, which needs trimming out before cementing in place. There is an attempt at cockpit detail - seat, stick, floor, bulkheads - but no pilot figure is supplied. The long, vane-like wings are supplied separately, though there are no fitting stubs, so assembly will have to be careful.

The A9 itself has just 19 components - the other 33 are for the stand, which is something of a fiddly job, recommended for the patient model maker, equipped with fine tweezers. The smaller parts need some cleaning up before assembly, but there’s nothing major to worry about.

Summation
An interesting kit, though it’s hardly a new release, and can be quite difficult to obtain - you’ll probably have to search around for one, but for Luftwaffe 1946 fans, it’ll be worth the hunt.
  
Visit La Coupole here.

There are further A9/A10 project details here.

For a look at a nicely assembled A9, visit our friends at Fantastic Plastic here.