Revell USS Hornet +3 Kit Question

Jun 20, 2010 3 Replies

Not doing the math, I'm guessing that Apollo is not gonna be much more than a dot on the deck of this kit. I found one kit on ebay with lots of pics and a sprue pic could be the capsule but I could not tell.



Anyone build this thing way back when? As small as the capsule will be it may be more of a novelty kit. I've done a bit of research and I do not think it spent all that much time on the deck. Am I correct on that one? If so it may look a bit weird to have the capsule all alone on deck with nothing else going on around it...



Craig


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The Apollo Command module was 12.8 feet in diameter, the kit is 1/530 scale. So (12.8 feet x 12 inches/foot)/530 = .29 inches or slightly larger than 1/4 inch in diameter.

You should be able to find pictures of the capsule on the deck. Remember the crew was transferred to quarantine after landing The quarantine unit was like a trailer. The picture in the Life Magazine special issue shows the recovery frogmen in special suits applying disenfectant to the capsule surface before opening it. (This thing just went through a scorching reentry that made the exterior silver turn to a mellow gold appearance - the reason Monogram thought the CM exterior was gold, and they seemed to think some disenfectant might be needed, your tax dollars at work.) The next picture in the astronauts in blue contamination suits exiting a helicopter from the Hornet and entering the quarantine unit on the Hornet's hanger deck. So the recovery copter must have hauled in the crew, landed and went right downn to the hanger.

They must have also worried about the capsule interior also being contaminated - so it most likely got stored fairly rapidly.

The Mercury and Gemini pilots exited the capsule on the flight deck to be greeted by the press and crew - Apollo 11 was different. There probably should have been some tracking aircraft and helicopters spotted on the deck to aid as required in the recovery operation. The Life issue shows no detail of the Hornet flight deck - but some must exist - NASA photographed everything

Now I'm curious - I'll post anything else I find.

Val Kraut

"

Check this out

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capsule wasn't on deck when Astronauts were around, has some nice photos, the isolation van would have been a nicer bit, but it wasn't that big either, I think it was an Airstream trailer that had been modified.

NASA has a ton of photographs on its website you can search and browse through for more details.

yup, it was a classic aristream sliver turd. i read something about it bei reused, or restored. something like that.

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