SCALE MODEL NEWS

  HERE’S A FURTHER ROUNDUP of pictures taken at last Sunday’s Smallspace show, held in Hanslope, UK. SMN report:  As at previous Smallspace shows, there was plenty of variety on display, so lovers of sci-fi in all its forms had plenty to look at, whether models based on Gerry Anderson TV shows, or the movie worlds of Star Trek and Star Wars.  Our favourite item wasn’t actually sci-fi, instead being a gentle fantasy piece. Cue a small cartoon  Titanic  liner, heading straight for. a giant iceberg... lettuce of course! And both set in a neatly made diorama ocean. The ship was a 1:200 scale Meng model, which asssembles into a portly little vessel that will fit into the palm of your hand. Among the sci-fi models was a table packed with ‘realspace’ models, ranging from the SpaceX Starship to a Falcon 9 booster, depicted in post-flight configuration standing on its landing pad. Take note Airfix and Revell – there might be room for a SpaceX model or two in your kit ran...

MAT IRVINE AND PAUL FITZMAURICE brought another gathering of sci-fi modellers to the English village of Hanslope. Here’s our first bunch of pictures taken at the Smallspace show, held on 17 July, 2022. It’s been an annual event, but this was the first since the start of the Covid pandemic, and it was fingers-crossed for the management team as the show restarted.  But they needn’t have worried, as hundreds of sci-fi model fans turned up, and the K-9 Cafe ran out of bacon butties, a sure sign of success. As you can see from the pictures ( below ), there was a huge variety of items on show. Perhaps this writer’s favourite was a resin-cast Martian figurine, entitled ‘Quatermass and the Pit’ ( bottom pic ). The Martian in question was an ET featured in a TV series that aired on the BBC, way back in the late 1950s. The three Quatermass series (the pit was the third) were hugely successful, and Quatermass is well worth looking up if you’re a fan of silver-age science fiction. Keep tuned f...

  IF YOU EVER WANTED to know all about the Saturn I/IB launch rocket, you can find the information in this book. Mat Irvine:  Written by Dr David Baker, a world authority on astronautics and rocket development, this book has just about every fact about the said launcher that you could possible want, particularly model makers who need those ‘definitive details’.  There aren’t that many models available for the Saturn I, but there is the long-running 1:144 Airfix kit, one in 1:200 from AMT as part of its Man in Space set, and resin update kits from RealSpace Models. There are also several flying scale models from companies such as Estes, and the 1:72 Apollo Saturn IB from Dragon. Book sections The book is split into four main sections. These run chronologically, Sections 3 and 4 being on the Saturn I/IB itself. But, as David Baker points out in the Introduction, you can’t really have the Saturn I without knowing how its development was preceded by the earlier projects. So w...