Sep 282011
From Fantastic Plastic, the 1/72 Pluto/SLAM model I mastered a while back:
It is available HERE.
NOTE: The kit has been retired.
http://fantastic-plastic.com/ProjectPlutoCatalogPage.htm
And to help with the detailing, don’t forget to pick up your Project Pluto CAD drawings, available to download for $3.
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And For Grud’s sake, if you are going to build a Pluto model, you have to download a copy of Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N1 with the ginormous Pluto article…
Available to download for a miniscule $8.00!
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15 Responses to “1/72 Project Pluto model now available”
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That looks mighty awesome Scott!
The SLAM is one of my all time favourite “OMG This is so fricken cool we have to build it, no matter how dangerous it is” American projects from the 50s-60s. Nothing spells the height of the cold war than an unpiloted, airbreathing, Mach 3.5, nuke ramjet bomber that spews both thermonuclear weapons and radioactive particles with wild abandon wherever it goes. Rock on!
🙂
On the more mundane side, I see that the rail car missle holder configuration is the one with the rollers to perform the elevation (as opposed to discrete hydraulics). Can you provide a simple cross section drawing of that ramp profile for purchasers of the kit? That would allow us to build the ramp/revetment that would have been used to raise thelauncher and protect the surrounding countryside from the hail of hot crap coming out of the nozzle?
Whattya think? Possible?
Paul
I agree with you, Paul!
Just to be pedantic, though, the reactor didn’t spew radioactive particles. The fuel was in the form of uranium oxide, a ceramic, and pretty well contained. There were some mutated nitrogen atoms in the “exhaust” but they had a really short half life. What it did “spew” was gamma rays. Lots of them. The only shielding was around the control electronics, the rest of the missile was wide open, so to speak.
(FYI, I provided Scott with the unclassified LLNL reports on the construction and testing)
– Jack
> the reactor didn’t spew radioactive particles. The fuel was in the form of uranium oxide, a ceramic, and pretty well contained
Only true in an ideal bench test. In the real world, by the time a Pluto was zipping hither and yon around Uncle Joe’s USSR raising a ruckus, the engine would have swallowed several tons of water from fog, rain, snow, sleet, hail; sand; dust; sulfuric acid and other industrial pollutants; leaves; bugs; birds; smoke; and very likely flak. All this stuff would have caused trouble for the reactor, from mechanical impact damage, to chemical erosion, to bits of crap sticking to the reactor and either blocking airflow or causing localized hotspots and coldspots from flow interruptions and oddball shockwaves.
Oh, I forgot to add, nothing was coming out of the main nozzle at launch. For exactly the reason you suggested (contaminating the launch crew and countryside) only the solid boosters were ignited at launch. The reactor was air-started after it climbed above 100,000 ft.
– Jack
Yeah, you’re right, of course. Until the boosters got her up to “ramming speed” little other than flow-through air would come out of the back.
I did think, though, that one of the problems was that the reactor core would slowly deteriorate during the flight, losing highly radioactive particles along the flight path. That is what was written in Scott’s article unless I totally misunderstood things (always a possibility).
Paul
The ramp was actually made for the kit, but I gather that the production cost for such a large part was just too much.
So, could we get a cross section/elevation from the model (if you built a CAD model) so we can build our own??? Pretty please?
Paul
Would you consider releasing the CAD models? Please….
Admin,
Ahhh… I get it. I’m supposed to buy the CAD drawings and the Aerospace Projects review issue and make my own 3D model. Okay, okay, I might be able to do that soon enough 🙂
Looks great! Modelers: please customize by putting a grinning shark mouth, cackling Death’s-head, etc. on the nose cone, for that added, last-seconds-before-flaming-death, eff-you-Joe-Stalin frisson.
The Tory nuclear ramjet used in the SLAM/Pluto would fit nicely into the hull of a V-2. Just sayin’.
>>The Tory nuclear ramjet used in the SLAM/Pluto would fit nicely into the hull of a V-2. Just sayin’.
Perhaps, but the thrust of 37,000 lb wouldn’t lift a V2 and you need boosters to get it going. If you take out the fuel to lighten it, you have a new vehicle. Would probably look like a SLAM without wings…
I’ve been anticipating this kit release as I wanted to construct a 1/48th scale version for my O-gauge train layout.
It’s odd, but I always envisaged this as much larger, 707 sized or thereabouts. To see that it fit’s on a rail car…
It’s a big rail car. Compare the size of the tracks and the wheels to the human figures.