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. 

1:35 SCALE TACOM V-2 KIT: FINISHED AT LAST!

HERE IS PART THREE OF BUILDING this highly complex triple-kit from Hong Kong-based Takom.

V-2 ROCKET HAULER: HANOMAG SS-100 TO 1:35 SCALE FROM TAKOM

A WHILE AGO WE REVIEWED the Takom 1:35 scale V-2 rocket, with launch pad.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: V-2 TERROR WEAPON FROM TAKOM

THIS TAKOM KIT OF THE V-2 MISSILE is not the first in 1:35 scale, but is one of the most-detailed models yet released.

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.

ROD STEVENSON'S 1:5 SCALE V-2 ROCKET

A lesson for us all here in how to make a BIG model. Rod Stevenson's V-2 rocket is 1:5 scale, and as you can see from the video, it can fly high too.

FIVE YEARS AGO: SCALE MODEL NEWS VISITS THE SCIENCE MUSEUM, LONDON

Scale Model News hits the five-year mark around now, so we are revisiting scale models and subjects from that time for the rest of this week.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE V-2 ROCKET FROM SPACE MONKEY

 

Mat Irvine looks again at a big rocket kit

Earlier this year, I had a preliminary look at a 1:24 scale V-2 kit from a new company to the field, SpaceMonkey Models. It’s taken a while, but now I’ve finally had a chance to have a more detailed look at this big-scale release. For the picture above, I added an AMT 1955 Chevrolet Cameo pickup. It's a few years more recent than the V-2, but gives a good sense of scale.

V-2 ROCKET VENGEANCE WEAPON PRODUCED AS BIG-SCALE KIT

Mat Irvine looks at a new model company’s premier release

Despite the number of German V-2 rocket kits that have been made (and, ahem, a comprehensive list can be seen in my book Creating Space), 1:24 is a scale that’s not been used before. It is not a standard scale for military or aircraft models, which tend to be 1:32, 1:35, 1:48 or 1:72. However, 1:24 is one of the main automotive scales, so this new V-2 kit could open the door for those interested in building dioramas, with a whole range of interesting additions.

BIG AND SMALL ‘DESTINATION MOON’ ROCKETS FROM FANTASTIC PLASTIC

David Jefferis looks at some classic science fiction

It was couch potato time the other evening, with a chance to munch some sweetcorn while eyeballing a sci-fi movie from more than 60 years ago. George Pal’s Destination Moon of 1950 remains one of the best of its kind - a realistic future vision, dressed up as fiction by the addition of a lukewarm plot and wooden actors. Destination Moon may have been shot in black-and-white, with indifferent acting, but... it also featured a handsome spacecraft, the Luna, looking like a sleeked-up version of a World War II German V-2. And Luna became the prototype design for virtually all sci-fi rockets of that era, streamlined beauties that soared through the midnight depths of space. 

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.

DESTINATION MOON ROCKET FROM FANTASTIC PLASTIC

GEORGE PAL'S DESTINATION MOON MOVIE of 1950 was a classic of its kind. The acting was rather indifferent, but it did have a handsome spaceship, the Luna, looking like a sleeked-up version of a World War II German V-2.