Lifting Bodies Part 4, and final(?); Mach 2 X-24B 1/72

[hsr]

After building the X-24A part of the Mach 2 double kit I decided that I while I liked the rounded curves of the X-24A I had no interest in building the flying flat iron that was the X-24B, So I gave the X-24B part of the kit to a fellow club member that liked building experimental aircraft. Then I read R.Dale Reeds "Wingless Flight" and concluded that I really needed to build an X-24B to complete the set. I couldn't ask for the kit back, so I searched out another one on Ebay and bought another double kit. Proving, I guess, that a fool and his money are soon parted 

 

Anyway, after the successful completion of the X-24A test program the designers came up with a design that they thought would perform better at hyper-sonic speed, but they were not sure how it would fly at subsonic speeds for landing. In order to test this, and to save money, they took the X-24A and built their new hyper-sonic shape around it. This is why there is only a mockup of the X-24A on display and not the real thing. As it turned out the X-24B shape had very similar flight characteristics to the then proposed Space Shuttle. This lead to the X-24B being used extensively to test the landing characteristics of the Shuttle. These tests lead to the conclusion that the Shuttle would be able to land with no power on a concrete runway and lead to dropping the requirement that the Shuttle have a jet landing engine, cutting costs and complexity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Marietta_X-24

 

This second Mach 2 double kit had pluses and minuses  over the previous one. On the plus side the molding seemed to be better with less flash and short shots. On the negative side while the decals on the first one were excellent these decals were on the thick side with less crisp printing, and they were again on the large side. During my search for another Mac 2 kit I found an old Eagle Talon kit that had much nicer looking decals that were the right size. Unfortunately they turned out to be badly mis-registered and refused to release from the paper without disintegrating, so I used they Mach 2 ones. In any event they went down well and behaved correctly on the model.

 

I did one thing differently then usual. My current procedure  if to spay my models with Tamiya Fine primer before painting. This time I use their white one and after several coats with sanding in between it looked so nice I decided to go with it rather then covering it with actual white paint. This meant that there would be no way to touch up the white after painting the trim, but things worked out and I am happy with the results.

 

So on to the pictures:

 

I would still like to built an M2-F1 and an M2-F2 and while there is an Anigrand M2-F2 available, the only kit of the M2-F1 was by the now defunct Muroc models and is no longer available. I have an automatic save search set up for it and if it ever appears I will get one and the M2-F2 and complete the set. 

 

My last 5 kits have been 2 Anigrand, 1 Mach 2, and a Unicraft. I think it is time to build a few Hasegawa's so next up is their E-2C.
 

Enjoy

[Eric Mc]

Excellent (especially as it's a Mach 2 kit). I have desires to build some of these lifting bodies but little desire to build anything from Mach 2).

[David Newman]

Hello,

 

Muroc is still around, I just do a good job of hiding.  I have a strange business model, the less time I spend casting, the more time I can spend on new projects.  I can be contacted at newmanispwest at yahoo dot com.

 

David

Muroc Models

[hsr]

Message sent