SCALE MODEL NEWS

Here's something amazing to think about as the days lengthen and life goes outside, a truly excellent flying scale Yakovlev machine. We'll be doing some more RC stuff now that the light evenings have arrived. There's so much choice available now,  and as model flying - or boating, or driving - makes a fine alternative to display-only machinery. Meantime, click here to see the earlier Yak-130 article on SMN. Click the boxes below to see what else is around to fill those sunny days to come, including a neat and affordable Yak single-engine aerobatic machine.

This elegant spacecraft model is a reissue of the Glencoe Models Marsliner, itself a reissue of the original Strombecker kit of the TWA Moonliner that stood in Disneyland from 1955-1962. Mat Irvine: There is a new box, still with the Ron Miller artwork. It occupies the whole box-top, with no lettering to spoil the illustration. Underneath, poster-style art invites you to, Travel to Mars the Fastway . The kit tooling dates from 1956, and is now approaching 60 years old, so some allowance has to be made for its age. But Glencoe Models is owned and run by Nick Argento, and part of his company’s work is general injection moulding, so if anyone can get this half-century old tooling to run, it’s Nick. The component layout (below) shows that most parts are in white styrene, with portholes and flight deck windows in clear. The original Strombecker kit had these in a tasty shade of green, with instructions to fit a pencil-torch through the rocket nozzle to illuminate them at night. Given the k...

The T-800 Terminator strikes back with this latest 1:6 scale figure from the Hong Kong firm, Hot Toys. David Jefferis reports: Hot Toys has revealed the latest Arnold Schwarzenegger figure in its 1:6 scale collection, a battle-damaged T-800 from The Terminator a movie that’s been around for a near-unbelievable 30 years. Arnie has already been given the Hot Toys treatment for his role in the 1991 Terminator 2: Judgement Day , but this new figure recreates his performance in the first film. The 1:6 scale Hot Toys Battle Damaged T-800 comes with two different heads, one of them more damaged than the other, allowing you to see parts of the metallic endoskelton, and the famed glowing red eye. There’s also a leather jacket, a range of guns, different hand positions and, of course, Arnie’s trademark ultra-dark sunglasses. However (and it’s something of a pity for this reviewer) there’s no built-in trigger and sound system for the figure to say those immortal words, “I’ll be back.” More Hot ...

Watch out for a fresh new look at Scale Model News, due very soon. We'll have more models of all sorts, presented in a cleaner style on screen. Features will include new versions of the Star Trek Romulan craft (above) and reviewing the history of an old fave, the classic polythene-bag Airfix Spitfire (below). Ships will include more miniatures like this diecast Japanese aircraft carrier (above) and mixed-material kits like the paper-tech Pagani racer (below). Coming soon - look out for the new-style SMN.

The new and upcoming Transformers: Age of Extinction  movie gives science-fiction model makers another chance to get into robots and robotics. The scale model kit makers mostly steer clear of movie tie-ins, not so the toy manufacturers, giving us a chance for some excellent kit-bash projects. The trailer for Transformers: Age of Extinction shows that the newest in the series will move to a somewhat darker flavour, no bad thing at all if it takes the viewers to a slightly more adult place. What's on the market for model makers? Mostly toys, even if this Optimus Prime robot from Takara Tomy is called a kit.  It's certainly not a styrene injection item along the lines of an Airfix Mosquito, but the components are cleanly moulded and most importantly, the whole appearance can be massively improved by the addition of traditional detailing and weathering techniques. The bright shades are best toned down, and the metallic parts can be resprayed in aluminium or bare metal. The whole ...

Goodyear blimps are flown by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for aerial advertising, and as airborne camera platforms for sports events. Goodyear introduced its first blimp  The Pilgrim  in 1925, and now here's a video look at the latest one, shot in speeded-up action during assembly in the Goodyear hangar. Goodyear’s newest blimp (video above) has already taken to the skies, and after testing, will travel across the US. This new Goodyear blimp is bigger and more maneuverable than previous models. Goodyear blimps all have LED ‘Eaglevision’ lighting systems, which allow displays of animated words and pictures. A pity that the small Disney toy (below) doesn't feature the lighting system. It's quite cute though, if you like the animated movie Cars . What’s the difference between a blimp and an airship? A blimp is non-rigid, with no internal metal skeleton, like that of a 1930s Zeppelin. It can be steered in flight, so, like a Zeppelin, is known as a dirigible. For model m...

The International Space Station is the size of a football field and circles the Earth more than 15 times a day. But before the ISS came a range of space station concepts, many of them featured in miniature form. David Jefferis reports: Most of the truly collectible space kits and toys come from the golden age of space exploration, the 1950s and 1960s. Those Space Race decades were periods of intense activity in real-space technical development, and this headline activity was reflected in the wide range of space toys and kits available to buy in model stores. Revell kit Kits with working features were popular, and the tin-can space station, as modelled by Revell ( header, below ) clearly fell into that category. The basically rather plain cylindrical design was brought to life in several ways. The antennas at top and bottom could rotate, and, as depicted in the attractively busy box-art, sections of the outer walls opened up to reveal a detailed interior, with parts that came, in Revel...