SCALE MODEL NEWS

DURING MY 2017 TRIP to see the US solar eclipse, I took the opportunity to visit the Strategic Air Command (SAC) and Aerospace Museum, near the city of Ashland, Nebraska. Mat Irvine:  The SAC and Aerospace Museum includes two large hangers, several smaller buildings, and plenty of outside displays. You can’t miss it on approach, as a Rockwell B-1 bomber and T-39 trainer-transport ( below ) act as gate guardians.   The museum buildings also have guardians ( below ). Left to right, Atlas, Thor, and Blue Scout rockets, with a Northrop Snark cruise missile in the foreground. The SAC and Aerospace Museum ( below ) has this glass and steel structure as its main building.   Closeup of the Atlas ( below ). This version was recently issued as a 1:72 scale kit from Horizon Models of Australia. The Snark ( below ) is finished in grey, its operational finish. Prototypes were painted in bright red, which is the scheme usually depicted by model kit manufacturers.   The Royal...

THIS KIT COULD BE IDEAL for astronomers, as the name includes a planet, a solar system phenomenon, even a weather system. But actually, it’s a car! Mat Irvine:  Moebius Models continues to issue ‘annual’ cars that have been omitted by other kit companies. With this new 1:25 scale 1965 Mercury Comet Cyclone, Moebius fills the gap left by AMT, which made 1964 and 1966 Comets, but missed out the year between. The components ( below ) include three small chrome-plated runners. The Moebius Mercury Comet has a one-piece body, full engine and running gear details, plus a multi-piece interior. Options are few, though stock and magnesium alloy-style wheels are supplied, and you have a choice of stock or finned valve covers on the engine. Future versions of the Moebius Mercury Comet will differ in detail. To allow for this, the comprehensive instructions ( above, below ) include details on drilling out holes for the centre console, a procedure that also applies to the exhaust system. The cha...

IF YOU LIKE LOOKING AT click-to-view slideshows, especially the ones here at SMN, then it's a good idea to choose your web browser for desktop or tablet carefully. SMN report: If you click on a picture in an article at SMN, then the slideshow version should pop up automatically, with the pictures enlarging into a bigger format. Sad to say, some readers have reported occasional problems with older browsers. We've looked carefully into the issue and reckon that any issues should be resolved by loading the latest version. Popular browsers include Firefox, and Safari, the browser used as standard by Apple Macs. Another popular option is to use Google Chrome. These browsers are all widely used, and should perform slideshow duties without fuss.  

MAKING ITS DEBUT ON THE SILVER SCREEN very soon will be the Crystal Fox, an alien critter that appears in The Last Jedi , latest in the Star Wars saga. SMN report: The Crystal Fox is an interesting beast, not least because it's been created both as a 'physical effect' animatronic machine, and as pure-digital cgi imagery. There's even a hand-puppet version. Of course, whatever form the Crystal Fox appears in the final movie, the concept started off with traditional hand-drawn artists' concept visuals ( below ). The life-sized animatronic creature is controlled by human operators, behind and in front of the camera ( below ).  The short vid ( below ) provides some interesting background detail. We haven't yet seen a miniature Crystal Fox from a kit manufacturer. But perhaps it's only a matter of time before the silvery quadruped becomes a scale model star as it lopes across a science-fictional diorama scene. The Force is very strong with other Last Jedi produc...

UK MODEL MAKERS should head toward this popular annual show. Click here for previous HaMeX shows, as featured in SMN. Click here for more details of the 2017 HaMeX kit swap show.

EAST MEETS WEST with this collaboration between Tamiya of Japan and Italeri of Italy. SMN report: Tamiya has taken the excellent 1:32 scale Italeri Lockheed Martin F-35A kit, and used it as the basis for a Limited Edition of the aircraft in Japanese military markings. As with most modern military aircraft, this F-35A has a monotone marking scheme, consisting of plain grey with a lighter grey-blue for the radome and assorted panels. Note that even the normally blood-red Japanese rising sun roundel has been reduced to a pale circle. The F-35A has them on the wings, and beside the air intakes on each side of the fuselage. The finished model is on the big side, measuring nearly a half-metre long, 19 inches to lovers of Imperial measurements. That's large enough, we reckon, to merit a diorama, even a minimal one. Perhaps a section of tarmac and a figure or two would do the job, if only to give a sense of scale. However, with or without a diorama, this F-35A will look the biz when displ...

THIS 1:72 SCALE MERCURY-REDSTONE IS THE FOURTH KIT from Horizon Models of Australia. Mat Irvine:  Horizon Models has already made a Mercury-Atlas, the launcher that put US astronauts into orbit. This time Horizon has released the earlier Mercury-Redstone, which was the first American human-rated space booster. Back of the box ( below ) depicts three of the build options in full colour. Left to right, the boilerplate launcher MR-BD, MR-3, MR-4. Opening the kit box reveals plenty of components ( below ) including the rocket’s launch pad, or launch stand in Horizon parlance. The Mercury-Redstone took off from what was basically similar to the arrangement used by the German V-2 of World War II. It’s good be able to display the rocket in ready-to-fly position. The components ( below ) include three runners. Two are used for the rocket, the other is for the Mercury spacecraft. The Mercury spacecraft is the same that Horizon supplied in the earlier Mercury-Atlas kit. Horizon enables you t...