SCALE MODEL NEWS

A KIT REISSUE THAT harks back to the golden age of Detroit dream cars. SMN report:  The 1950s decade was an amazing era for technical progress. Fuelled by the demands of Cold War politics, civil and military advances went hand in hand, with aviation in particular going from straight-wing slowpokes to Mach 2 skyblazers. And that progress was matched by events on the highway, for it was the age of the Detroit dream car. Every auto show displayed amazing vehicles, many of them taking their inspiration directly from the fast jets screaming overhead. One of the finest of those dream cars was the Lincoln Futura, described at the time as ‘A 250,000 Dollar Laboratory on Wheels’. The fold-back bubble canopies looked absolutely great, as did the hooded headlights and shark-mouth grilles front and rear. Under the sleek bodywork, the Futura was powered by a modified V-8 engine, and supported by a tubular steel chassis. This reissue of the original 1956 kit ( above, below ) takes you back ...

BRITISH SPACE HERO DAN DARE has been ignored by the mainstream model kit manufacturers. It has been down to individuals like special-effects model maker Martin Bower to produce one-off miniatures of the galaxy of spacecraft that filled author-illustrator Frank Hampson’s universe.  SMN report: There have been quite a few attempts to resurrect Dan Dare, the comic book hero that sold so well to schoolboy readers in the 1950s and 1960s. And Martin Bower has been in a position to provide model-making services for two of these attempts. The photo ( below ) shows him surrounded by a fleet of assorted spacecraft that would make any Dan Dare fan green with envy. In fact, Martin was echoing a procedure that Frank Hampson and his team had perfected many years before, in their art studio. To ensure accuracy, they built models of spacecraft, aliens, and assorted accessories. Photography was important too, as models posed for figure work, to ensure that clothes and uniforms looked right in the ...

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 (...

Scale Model News wishes you all a Happy and Prosperous 2012.  And then we'll be back tomorrow and beyond with news of... a stunning ultra-large scale World War II fighter with amazing interior detail... a science-fiction flying cop car... a NASA hot-rod... and much, much more... But for now, enjoy today's New Year Slide Show!  Here's Mat Irvine in his scale model kit-packed studio to wish you all the best for 2012. And ( below ) a boxful of miniature X-series goodness, all made by Mat. For those of you unfamiliar with the Mekon, here he is in a collected Dan Dare volume ( below ). As created and illustrated by science-fiction legend Frank Hampson, he was a nasty little vat-bred critter, constantly trying to conquer the Universe.  But luckily for the peace-loving citizens of the galaxy, the melon-headed monster was always outwitted by his human nemesis, Space Fleet hero Dan Dare and his chums.