SCALE MODEL NEWS

Scale Model News hits the five-year mark around now, so we are revisiting scale models and subjects from that time for the rest of this week. SMN report: We  looked  around the truly excellent Science Museum, London, in this early article. And in particular, the beautifully preserved Vickers Vimy seen here, famed for being the aircraft flown by Alcock and Brown in the first West-East crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, in 1919. As we noted, "For the precision scale modeler, having decent reference material to add the final touches to your masterpiece can easily make the difference between a ‘very good’ model and a ‘wow!’ show-winner. "So tracking down original source material can be vital to the discerning modeler, as well as making for an interesting day out. Luckily, many of the world’s museums are waiting for you to step right in and take as many photos as you need. Remember though that while museums are usually happy for you to take photos for personal use, they are not so ke...

SKYLON UPDATE: The UK Government is investing £60m GBP ($92m USD) on the Skylon's revolutionary Sabre engine, to enable a full-scale prototype to be built - so maybe this special edition model isn't pie-in-the-sky.  That political vote of confidence means that the designers now hope to see Sabre engines powering the Skylon spaceplane on operational flights by 2022, each ship carrying a 15-tonne payload into orbit. First test flights for the uncrewed vehicle are tentatively scheduled three years earlier, in 2019. As a passenger-carrying machine, a skip-glide flight across the top of the atmosphere could enable a London-Sydney journey in as little as four hours. The British-designed Skylon is the brainchild of engineer Alan Bond, reports Mat Irvine. Bond heads his own space business, Reaction Engines, and now i t may not be too many years before the single-stage-to-orbit aerospaceplane soars into orbit. Until then we can dream on with this Herpa 1:250 scale model kit. Alan Bond (...