SCALE MODEL NEWS

SCI-FI AND FANTASY MODELLER magazine has been going for ten years, with Volume 40 now in print. However, a first for the mag is  Modelling the Eagle , a one-off special that celebrates the Eagle spacecraft from Gerry Anderson’s best-known live-action TV series, Space: 1999. Mat Irvine:   Modelling the Eagle  is linked primarily to the fact that Round 2 Models - owners of the MPC kit name - decided to release a brand-new Eagle spacecraft model kit. Mike Reccia, founder of SF&F, and Editor in Chief at Happy Medium Press, decided to dedicate a whole publication to the Eagle, resulting in a perfect-bound ‘bookazine’ with nine comprehensive articles, spread over 82 pages of text.  The main cover image ( header, below ) was provided by the specialist model maker David Sisson. The lower centre photo of a younger Brian Johnson is one I shot myself many years ago, probably in the late 1970s, when I first met him at Bray Studios. Modelling the Eagle  includes a range ...

A QUESTION WAS ASKED THIS WEEK: Why did the first Space: 1999 George Barris Moonscope have six wheels? The real-life machine ( above ) was built by Barris Kustom, and made an excellent basis for MPC kits that have featured both six and four wheels. Mat Irvine:  Why six wheels? It’s a good question. After all, the Moonscope’s layour didn’t match the real-life wheeled vehicles that travelled on the Moon’s surface. The Apollo Lunar Rover had four wheels, the two robotic Soviet Lunokhods each had eight. But if we move to Mars, a six-wheeled design approach is the norm. All four Mars Rovers to date - Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity - roll on six wheels each, but we don't know if there is a direct design link to Barris. And the reasoning for six wheels? Basically, redundancy - if the electric motor in a wheel fails, the rover still has five left, at least two per side. Redundancy was also built into the independently-driven four wheels of the manned Lunar Rover , so if a moto...

HERE'S A BRILLIANT piece of video on the making of Space: 1999. It's just loaded with fascinating footage, including a righteous concentration on getting rid of the shine on those pesky suspension wires. Enjoy.

After Thunderbirds, arguably the second most popular Gerry Anderson production was the live-action TV series Space: 1999, originally aired from 1975-77. The series was based around the unlikely premise that the Moon was knocked out of its orbit round the Earth, to become a wanderer in space. Mat Irvine: As with other Anderson productions, many of the craft and vehicles seen on-screen were bound for reproduction as model kits. Examples from Space: 1999 include the Eagle Transporter, the Hawk warship and Moonbase Alpha. These three were modelled by the original MPC company, but then came the subject of this review, a lunar roving vehicle called The Alien. But The Alien never appeared in Space: 1999, instead being a small lunar car which used the TV series name for marketing purposes. The Alien kit is usually quoted as being a modified Moonscope, which was a semi-practical George Barris custom design for a stylised lunar rover, which MPC had earlier produced as a kit. But in reality, The...