If Kerry wins the election tomorrow, I plan to get out my partially completed Monogram P-40B, finish it, and hang it from the ceiling. OTOH if Bush wins, I figure I'll finish my partially completed AM A-36 and put it on a display base. If Nader wins, I'll go back to putting an interior in my Williams Bros. B-10.
I have seen the kit finished, a couple of them as a matter of fact. The builder was a retired Glenn L. Martin engineer who had started at GLM when they were finishing the 6 aircraft for Siam (Thailand) and doing some final work on the Dutch contract. He did one in Siamese markings (aircraft were overall white) and a Dutch ship and an Argentinean aircraft if I remember correctly. Nice work too. I've got one of the last 1/48 scale kits out of Lone Star's run sitting on the shelf, hope to do it in U.S Markings.
I have the parts to a Retriever Rocket with some delta wings salvaged from a Lindberg Avro Vulcan. I'm thinking about making a 1:72 fourth stage to the Manned Orbital Launch Vehicle. Do you know anywhere I might find some drawings of it that I could scale up? Thanks,
-- John The history of things that didn't happen has never been written. . - - - Henry Kissinger
Well, if you can't find his book, _The Exploration of Mars_ (I don't know if he has drawings, but he used photos from Disney), Rick Dunning did a drawing of it (plan view only) for Ron Miller's book, _The Dream Machines_ and Jon C. Rogers did a plan, side profile, and bottom view for his and Jack Hagerty's _Spaceship Handbook_. Be warned, both those books are in the
600-700 page range, many drawings, and color reproduction, and pricey. If you don't want to pay that much for just that (although they have -to use an advertising slogan- "Much, Much More!"), you might look for the Disney DVD of Tomorrowland.
Photo reference:
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(he's standing next to a drawing)
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(copy of the model kit diagram)
I'm planning on using 5/8 inch dowel (yes, a bit bigger than half the 1 1/8 inch diameter of the kit). The toughest part will be for me to carve the nose. Fortunately, the dowel comes in a length that leaves me enough for practice, for a cargo version (merely a long bullet shape), a tanker (a longer bullet), and the ferry.
Thanks for the links. I have a copy from the Ron Miller book; I'll have to look up "Spaceship Handbook" Considering the nose caps, have you thought about the prefab nosecones for model rockets like Estes? THey come in a lot of sizes and might be of some help.
Me, I'm looking for some cones as well, offset so that one side is a right triangle instead of uniform all around the circumfrance. Sort of like this:
/\ /| / \ / | /__\ /_ |
Front Side
Ever come across anything like it in your travels? (I do have four but I'm not giving up on that Revell XSL-01 - I want to build that sometime next spring) I need several to cap off "booster stages" for a larger static scratch-built launch vehicle (no particular type, just rather generic) to carry a kit-bashed spaceplane. The bottom diameter of the cones should be around a 2" diameter and the height should be no more than 3". I figure at least four and hopefully more to get me going. Thanks,
-- John The history of things that didn't happen has never been written. . - - - Henry Kissinger
Yes, the Spaceship Handbook is oriented towards model rocketeers (although they admit that things like the rotating space station are probably more suited to a static display). From it I learned a wonderful word, ogive, for these rounded cones, and that their silhouette is a section of a large circle centered somewhere off the centerline if the nose cap. Alas, I don't know if the companies have a standard to specify the type of ogive I'd want, or if I should wander up and down the aisle til I find something that "looks right."
If it's a straight-sided cone, have you thought of rolling your own from sheet plastic? Tape one edge along a ruler and wrap around a conveniently sized disk. (From my experiments this morning, a convenient cylinder would work better, you could tape the ruler to it.) From my experiments with paper this early in the morning, I can only make it work with two sheets, meeting again on the opposite side.
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