Eric Mc

Lucky you. KSC and Cape Canaveral is still on my bucket list - although at the moment I have little enthusiasm for visting that part of the world. Hopefully, one day.

Blue Origin uses Launch Complex 36 (LC-36). This is actually on US Space Force Cape Canaveral property which is separate to NASA's Kennedy Space Center. So, ultimately, it is the Department of Defense that owns the pad and leases it to Blue Origin. It will be Blue Origin themselves who will have to cover the cost of rebuilding the site. They had already spent a lot of money rebuilding LC36 to make it suitable for New Glenn operations and support.

Nice to see one finished. I've had one in the stash for decades. I should pull it out. Novo decals were useless even when the kits emerged under the Novo label. I always work on the assumption that their decals will be unusable.

Very nice. There were a few on the UK register in the 1960s and 70s. I remember seeing G-ASWS and G-ATBH in my plane spotting days.

That is a thing of beauty - and in 1/72 too.

Very interesting. Although Lippisch's work during the war resulted in very few actual operational aircraft, his theories and ideas were very influential in post war aviation.

This is one I decided to build as a "quickie" It certainly qualifies as a simple kit as the parts count (excluding the decal sheet) comes to the grand total of 11 - and that is including the ground handling and take-off trolley. I quite like PM Models. They are produced in Turkey and are very basic. They remind me a bit of FROG models from the 1970s. Some of their kits are a bit dubious accuracy wise but they have picked very unusual but interesting subjects over the years - such as this one. Dr Alexander Lippisch was a bit of an aerodynamic genius and was very enthusiastic about two concepts, doing away with the tailplane in general and the benefits of the delta wing . Germany was the only country that possessed supersonic wind tunnels in the 1930s and 1940s and a number of papers had been published before the war showing the advantages to be had in the transonic regions of flight (600 mph to 750 mph) by sweeping the leading edge of the wing back. The delta allowed this sweepback concept to be used AND the dropping of the need for a tailpane. Lippisch was involved in a number of projects. The most important one was the tailess rocket plane concept which eventually led to the Messerschmitt Me163 Komet interceptor. His delta research work resulted in the P.13a. Various small scale glider versions were flown but for the actual production aircraft, it was proposed that it would be powered by a rather bonkers coal fueled jet engine (as if the delta design wasn't radical enough). Like many German projects, it never actually came to fruition but Lippisch's work was strongly influential after the war and inspired later aircraft such as the Convair family of delta wing jets (XF-92, F-102, F106, B-58 etc), the SAAB Draken and the Dassualt Mirage III. I expect it also influenced the British Fairey Delta 2. Even though there were only 11 components in this kit, I managed to lose one - the canopy. I replaced this with judicously placed Sellotape which was then "glossed up" using Gauzy Glass Coat. I use this technique when doing wing leading edge landing light covers as I think it works better than the clear plastic covers provided in most kits. However, this is the biggest aperture I have attempted to cover using this technique.

Started building one of these. If it turns out half as good I'll be very pleased,

Interesting views. Chimes with my thinking on where Artemis is at the moment.

I'm still not optimistic that the lander(s) will be ready in time for Artemis 3. They are still quite a way from being flight tested i.e. neither of the two designs have been finalised and/or built yet.

The OP specified 1/48 Vietnam War jet aircraft. That is quite a specific area - and, I would suggest, rather limited too. If you are limiting yourself to jets only (no prop driven stuff), then you are looking at - Mig 17 Mig 19 Mig 21 Republic F-105 Thunderchief McDonnell F-4 Phantom Northrop F-5A Freedom Fighter Lockheed F-104 Starfighter McDonnell F-101 Voodoo Martin B-57 Douglas B-66 Destroyer Douglas A-3 Skywarrior Douglas A-4 Skyhawk North American RA-5 Vigilante LTV F-8 Crusader LTV A-7 Corsair II I may have left out a few. Once you know what aircraft you are interested in, then specific internet searches should give you a list as to what kits are available in 1/48. 1/72 would yield more options - and may be more suitable for some of the larger aircraft such as the A-3 and RA-5.

What types of things are you interested in - cars, ships, aircraft, armoured vehicles, sci-fi, real space etc etc? No point in recommending anything until you give us an idea as to where your interests lie.

How it used to be done - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxDNyJPwcxE

Apollo 11 astronaut Micheal Collins was once asked "What was Apollo all about?". He thought for a moment and then said, "Apollo was about leaving". In other words, it was about leaving earth and eventually, never coming back. It was the first stage of man's migration off planet earth. So ""no return" is the correct description of what Apollo, Artemis and all future similar space projects will be about.

Cracking info. If you were designing a human lunar landing system from scratch you wouldn't have ended up with Artemis/SLS. In fact, you wouldn't have ended up with the Saturn V either - although I think the Saturn V methodology is better than Artemis. Both programmes, when launched, leaned heavilly on other programmes that were already in place with some hardware already available or in development.