I WANT TO BELIEVE: FLYING SAUCER UFO FROM ATLANTIS MODELS

I WANT TO BELIEVE is another release in the Atlantis Models range of 5-inch flying saucers.

UFO ENCOUNTERS DIORAMA FROM ATLANTIS MODELS

HERE'S A NEAT LITTLE KIT for UFO enthusiasts. The Atlantis Models kit is easy to build and includes a lighting pack for after-dark encounters.

PROFESSIONAL MODEL MAKERS OF 1968

HERE'S A NICE  LITTLE FLASHBACK movie. We particularly like the large-scale Spitfire, made for the air battle sequences in a World War II movie.

TESTORS 1:48 SCALE UFO CRASH SCENE, INDEPENDENCE DAY, 1947

ON JULY 4, 1947, something supposedly happened near the town of Roswell, New Mexico, an event that the world has never forgotten. It was the purported crash of a UFO - an alien spacecraft - and the recovery of the crashed ship and several of its occupants.

EARTH vs THE FLYING SAUCERS: WE COME IN PEACE - NOT!

Atlantis Models seems to be vying for the title of ‘model company making the most saucers’, with this latest UFO addition, the Attack Saucer from the 1956 movie Earth vs. The Flying Saucers.

50 YEARS OF ALIEN ABDUCTIONS

David Jefferis on close encounters:

On the night of September 19-20, 1961, the US couple Betty and Barney Hill reckoned they experienced a close encounter with a UFO. During the incident they ‘lost’ two hours, but survived intact, to file a report to US Air Force investigators the very next day. They claimed to have seen a silent, cigar-shaped craft, crewed by up to 11 humanoid aliens.

TAMIYA US ARMY STAFF CAR VISITS A CRASHED UFO

Mat Irvine inspects:

Although worldwide, model cars are dominated by the joint 1:24/25 scale, other scales find favour with various types of modelmaking. ‘Scale’ is an all-encompassing subject that could fill many an SMN slot, but one area that has grown in recent years is military AFVs to 1:48 scale. Yes, the main AFV scale is certainly 1:35, but it doesn’t match with much else, whereas 1:48 is one of the model aircraft standards, making mixing subject matter - especially dioramas - very straightforward. 

IS IT A UFO? NO, IT’S A FANTASTIC FLYING DISC!

Mat Irvine reports
Aeronautical designers have a history of fascination with aircraft that are round - in the ‘flying saucer’ sense. There have been dozens of designs over the years, though the vast majority have been impractical, were ‘paper projects’, or would likely never have flown even if a prototype had been built.

Flying Discs
However, flying saucer planes remain fascinating, and specialist model producer Allen Ury, who runs Fantastic Plastic, has slaked his enthusiasm for these bizarre designs with a kit of the US Air Force ‘40 foot Flying Disc’, a design that was supposedly proposed in the 1960s. As Allen says on his website: “In 1967, former US Navy aviator and aviation writer Jack D. Pickett and his business partner Harold Baker visited MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, to gather information for an Air Force-sponsored article on historical experimental aircraft.  At the edge of the base, they were shown four decommissioned X-planes - all of them flying discs - measuring 20, 40, 70 and 116 feet in diameter”.

Skyrocket or Flying Disc?
Whether Pickett and Baker actually saw such discs is open to speculation - certainly no official photos were ever released, and images of many other ‘black designs’ have become unclassified and made public over the years. And the two parked on the tarmac (top picture above) are neat cheats by artist Gino Marcomini, who has replaced the original B-29 Superfortress and Douglas Skyrocket with a pair of Discs, large and small. Pity the pic isn’t for real though - don’t those Discs look just great!

Fantastic Plastic Flying Disc kit
Real or not, the 40-foot (12.1 m) Flying Disc is a great kit subject that sits well with other offerings in Fantastic Plastic’s wide range of exotica. Like many kits from this stable, the 1:72 scale Flying Disc is mostly resin, with a clear vac-form for the canopy, and a set of decals. It’s a simple kit, with just 16 parts, though there are some aspects to consider when building it. Most importantly, resin tends to warp, so it’s important to clamp upper and lower halves of the airframe firmly together. As you can see from the picture, I didn’t spare the clamps and pegs to ensure all went well! Other than that, the Flying Disc went together well, and is supplied with a conventional tricycle undercarriage. This works perfectly well, though reports indicate that the ‘real’ thing might have had as many as six legs in a circle. But who knows which is correct so no worries there. An ejector seat is supplied to fit under that extremely clear canopy, but you will have to provide your own USAF pilot.

The pictures show, top to bottom:
1, 2  Gino Marcomini’s splendid retouch job (blue) with the official shot of the same scene at Edwards Air Force Base below.
3  Fantastic Plastic kit box.
4  Parts laid out before assembly.
5  Pegs ensured the disc halves mated properly.
6  The finished model.

Incidentally, Gino Marcomini is a talented artist, who produces many aerospace images. Have a look at his work on the alternate-history Luftwaffe 1946 site here:

Visit Fantastic Plastic here.

ATLANTIS MODELS - A NEW MODEL NAME FROM MEGAHOBBY

Report by Mat Irvine
It’s a brave person who starts a new model company these days - but that’s what not one, but two guys in Long Island, New York, have done, namely Pete Vetri and Rick DelFavero.

Pete and Rick run Megahobby, a mail-order company that supplies a wide range of model materials. But now they have decided to look at relaunching many out-of-production kits, especially those from Lindberg and Aurora, and to create the new company name Atlantis for marketing the kits.

Aurora returns
Rick and Pete have also employed the talents of long-time model maker and kit historian, Andy Yanchus of Brooklyn, NY, who was for many years Project Manager at Aurora. Andy has been helping Rick and Pete out, not only with background information, but also in building box-top models and designing the artwork. To date, Atlantis has issued three kits - two UFOs first issued by the small company Light Force, and the old Lindberg Flying Saucer.

Flying Saucer
Although (relatively) recently reissued by Glencoe Models, the 1:48 scale Lindberg Flying Saucer has a particular niche in the space model market, as it is almost certainly the first ‘all-plastic space kit’, first issued in 1954.

The TR-3E Triangular UFO is a 1:72 scale scale kit, with box art designed by Andy Yanchus.

Visit Megahobby here.

Visit Atlantis Models here.

The pictures show, top to bottom:
1  Mat Irvine’s photo taken recently at Megahobby’s warehouse in Long Island. Shown (left to right) are Rick DelFavero, Pete Vetri and Andy Yanchus.
2-3  The Atlantis release of the original Lindberg UFO/Flying Saucer. Note the main artwork is a reproduction of the original Lindberg from 1954, while the back of the box shows the built-up model by Andy Yanchus.
4  TR-3E Triangular UFO box, with artwork designed by Andy Yanchus.
5  Hopefully, a future Atlantis kit - but more down to earth this time - could feature the old Aurora ‘Black Bear and Cubs’.
UFO pictures courtesy Megahobby and Atlantis Models. 

  

UFO INVASION GROUP HEADING TO PLANET EARTH?

Now that summer’s nearly here, the UFO spotting season is well underway. And with news that massed groups of mystery lights were spotted over England and Europe this week, perhaps it’s time to wonder again at what goes on at Area 51, in Nevada.

Pegasus Hobbies' nice 1:72 kit envisages one possible answer - maybe the recent UFOs were squadrons of circular flying craft that were built here on terra firma, purportedly reverse-engineered from a mystery UFO that crashed many years ago. One mechanical engineer even claimed to have work on a ‘flying disc simulator’, communicating with an alien being called J-Rod.

Ah well, here at SMN Towers, we’ll just have to stick with the Pegasus kit here.

The London Daily Mail has a good feature on these recent events here.

Book review: Scale Spacecraft Modelling

This chunky paperback provides you with 208 colour pages, packed with useful information. It's the second Mat Irvine model book I've reviewed recently, and it maintains the fascination factor, this time for space modellers.

Mat provides a comment or a picture on just about everything to do with the subject, from the early days of spaceflight up to the present, and (most interesting for me) space-dreams and science-fiction sections, which cover all sorts of subjects from a Doctor Who Dalek to an Area 51 Roswell UFO.

Highly recommended for handy hints and ideas. Published by Crowood at £16.99 GBP or $29.95 USD, and the Amazon store may well offer a deal price on this.