Recently sold on eBay (for $500) was a display model of the Boeing proposal for the C-5 program, which of course lost out to Lockheed. The Boeing design (circa 1965) was vaguely like a Lockheed C-5 merged with a Boeing 747… roughly the configuration and fuselage size of the C-5, but with the raised upper deck and the standard “jetliner” lower tail surface of the 747. I have surprisingly little on the Boeing C-5, but I do have some fairly detailed diagrams of a civilian passenger version, and a few derivatives. Interestingly, while this was clearly part of the genesis of the 747 – which by every metric was a far greater success for Boeing than the C-5 was for Lockheed – it was actually a model 757. As the design effort continued the 747 designation would become the jumbo jet, while the 757 designation would be applied to a much smaller jet.
Fark.com ran a photoshop contest… take a photo and photoshop it to be funny. The photo this time came from NASA… and it’s just kinda begging to be photoshopped.
Just sold on EBay (not to me, sadly) is a kinda rough Topping display model of a little known proposed variant of the Atlas space launcher, the SLV-3X. This design had a widened body, from ten feet to 12 feet, 7 inches. This allowed for more propellant to be carried without lengthening the vehicle, meaning that the existing launch infrastructure could be used. Additionally, the MA-5 sustainer rocket engine would be replaced with a higher thrust H-1D engine. See HERE for stats.
The SDASM Flickr account has a nice illustration of the SLV-3X/Centaur. See their site for the higher rez image.
Currently for sale on EBay is a presumably-vintage model of a Lockheed C-141 in civilian livery. While the C-141 wound up solely a military transport, it would not be surprising that Lockheed would try to sell it on the civilian market. The model doesn’t depict passenger windows, so this was, presumably, still a cargo carrier.
This display model was sold on EBay some months back:
Without a display stand it’s difficult to determine exactly who made this, but all indications are that it was an “official” model, made by Boeing, Lockheed or NASA. The design was given some small amount of study around 1973, though the available documentation on it is lean.
Lockheed studied the same idea with the C-5 Galaxy. Of course the C-5 would have been easier to modify since it already had shoulder-mounted wings.
Recently sold on EBay was a sizable (something like 4′ long) wind tunnel model of the Curtiss Wright Model 90 AAFSS submission. This was a derivative of their X-19… more or less a quad-tilt-rotor. The Model 90 would have been fairly highly armed, designed to fulfill the same role that the winning AAFSS design – the Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne – was designed for: transporting troops and tearing up ground targets. The US has not had an operational vehicle like this; the Soviet “Hind” helicopter is the closest, though substantially slower, analog. EDIT: Senior moment. Not a troop transport, just a blowin’-up-stuff-on-the-ground-real-good vehicle.
The Model 90 wind tunnel model was formerly on display at an aviation museum in Teterboro, New Jersey. No idea where it ended up, but hopefully it found a good home. I made a half-assed effort to crowdfund this one, but I think the lack of a good way to split the spoils among the funders doomed the concept. How *do* you reward funders for a purchase like this? Best idea was to have the thing 3D scanned, and distribute the scan among the funders, but unlike a scan of a drawing or a document, that’s not going to be readily useful for most people.
What I’d hoped to do was to disassemble the model, male fiberglass molds of the components, reassemble and restore it to like-new-ish condition then send it on to an appropriate and willing museum, possibly Ft. Rucker (since they’re all about Army aviation and have themselves an AH-56). Then make a few fiberglass copies from the molds, converting the “wind tunnel models” into detailed display models. Alas.
Now this is just plain spiffy (see what I did there? Where else can you get this quality of high-larious wit?), an electric remote control airliner meant to be flown indoors. I don;t know what the wings are made of, but they are clearly low mass… and the fuselage is inflatable, and probably filled with helium.
Here’s the thing: for *decades* I never had much use for the Star Destroyer from Star Wars. It just seemed “meh” as a design. But for reasons at best unclear, a few years ago the design started to grow on me. And the timing has been pretty good.
For most of the last 39 years, if you wanted a model of the Star Destroyer, you had one option, the MPC kit. And it, in a word, kinda sucked. It was pretty much what you’d expect from a 1970’s sci-fi model… it more or less replicated the shape of the thing, but completely cheaped out on accuracy and details. And even so, for many years the only way to get one of these things was to shell out a bucket of money on EBay.
But no more. There are several good options if you want a nice Star Destroyer to display. NOTE: you *should* be able to see illustrated links to Amazon items. But some browsers /ad blockers don’t show them, so hopefully the text links work.
First up: Disney has had a diecast metal Star Destroyer available for a few years now. It’s quite good in terms of accuracy and detail, and is a good size for a die cast replica – about 9 inches long.
Revell has released a large-ish (about 16 inches long) snap-together Star Destroyer kit. Like the other Star Wars models they’ve released since The Force Awakens, this comes with some toy-like features and a built-in electronics module that provides sounds and LED lighting. That said, it’s really pretty good. The accuracy overall seems pretty good and detail – except for the irritating “landing gear” on the underside that takes the place of a proper display stand – is excellent. t has been a number of years since I’ve put together a model kit, but this came together just in the last couple days in spare moments. I spent substantially more time in painting it than assembly… the parts come bagged rather than on a sprue, and there are essentially no issues with flash. The kit can be assembled straight out of the box with no glue or trimming and produce a respectable replica… except for reworking the “landing gear,” I put mine together in perhaps half an hour.
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I admit to admiring the Revell Star Destroyer I’ve put together and painted. I think it looks Damn Good. But as I looked at it, it seemed to me that the bridge module looks like it might be a bit wide, so I looked it up online to see if there was any discussion of that. In short… it seems that the bridge module *is* a bit wide (the hypothesis seems to be that the model was based not on the filming miniatures or a CG model made for Rogue One, but the CG models made for “Battlefront” which have the wider bridges). But more importantly, in looking this up, I found several references to yet another Star Destroyer model kit on the horizon. This time it’s coming from the Russian model company Zvezda. It’s not out yet in the West, but it seems to be available in Russia itself. It’s unclear if it *will* be released in the West, and if so, for how much (I saw numerous references to $80-$130 dollars).
But from what I can see, this is the first Holy Crap model of the Star Destroyer that you can obtain without having to sell your car. Behold this unboxing video:
There appear to be some somewhat inexplicable choices with the Zvezda kit. The Revell kit, for example, has eight separate turbolaser turrets, which snap in and can rotate; the Zvezda kit, probably twice the size, seemingly has the turrets in a fixed position. This was likely done to minimize cost, and is not really that big of a deal given how small they are.
The Revell kit is I think the best deal for the money, even with the too-wide bridge module. The laid-back modeler won’t notice, and may even appreciate the “landing gear;” for the sticklers, I’m sure someone will crank out a replacement bridge in resin or on Shapeways if they haven’t already. The Zvezda kit seems like it’ll be the new benchmark in Star Destroyer Awesomeness, just as the 1/350 Enterprises from Polar Lights reset the stage for Trek. But as with the PL Enterprises, the 60+ centimeter Star Destroyer might prove to be problematically large for many people. Of course, like the Bluetooth Communicator Cell Phones I posted about a while back, having one of those monsters proudly displayed in your home might be just the thing if you want to make sure that the ladies view you as Undatable.
Since I have cemented that status for myself, if I see one of the Zvezda monsters – and if I can afford it – I’m’a gettin’ me one.
