TallBlondJohn

Fantastic - having built this kit myself I know what an achievement yours is. I ended up replacing the fuselage completely with an Academy one and just using the nice thin wings and superb decals. Nice base too - the oil leaks are perfectly done. (Technically, can a rotary engine 'leak' when its designed to throw fluid out in all directions?)

A very expensive way to shift mud - or sand. Beautiful model though, superb finish and photography

Bald Eagle?

Does anybody know how many inspection ports should be on the bottom of the fuselage for an Albatross W4 (or failing that a DII, assuming they are the same)? I filed off the ports on my 1/72 Roden to replace them with PE without making a note of how many there were - and now I can't find conclusive evidence anywhere. Just a sprue shot would do! Thanks

The base is the one in the kit - I painted it wood effect with brass bits by Humbrol, shading by Flory. The pintels were rather too long and spindly for my taste and made the model easy to knock over, so I cut them down by about 25%, drilled them out and fitted brass rods through them into the base and keel for strength. I also filled the base with Liquid Gravity for heft, and added a slab of plastic card to the bottom to keep it all in.

Micro-Mir's 1/350 K class submarine (early), built as the unfortunate K4. The K class are often cited as technological horror stories, but the Royal Navy did eventually solve the many issues with this incredibly ambitious concept, if you count 'not suddenly sinking' as successful resolution. But it was a time when anything seemed possible and it was thought that a high speed "submarine cruiser" could make everything else obsolete. Turns out this theory was correct, but it required the power of the atom. Doctrine was the real problem - the idea was the Ks woul

The Vulcan would have suited NZ - it had the range to find someone to bomb

Is it possible to use Airfix wings?

Ah yes the tanks - they would be jettisoned before landing. So you need to know what state of X-15 operation you are going to depict. Tanks on and undercarriage down would only be for display purposes and maybe ground testing, never for flight operations. In which case a high nose and fully dropped bay door would be correct. Though its your model and you can do what you liked. I had this issue with mine, I wanted the airbrakes fully deployed but my kit only had extended landing gear. So my X-15 shows the exact moment of touchdown.

Its available as a poster or framed print! https://fineartamerica.com/featured/x-15-aircraft-after-landing-nasa.html Though personally I'd crop it in on the X-15 and B-52.

These are both X-15s on display and so not very reliable for in service. As Antti_K says above the nose gear was fully compressed in every post mission shot, it came down a long way and came down hard: Sometimes too hard: The compression is not weight in the tanks as they would only be filled once the X-15 is on the wing of the carrier B-52, so an X-15 on its wheels/skids always has empty tanks. So its a characteristic of the shock absorption system which used pressurized nitrogen - it doesn't rebound back as a convent

Nose landing gear I expect

Boeing had probably just finished all the PE. That guarantees a drop every time.

Very impressive - I've heard this kit is much harder than it looks

It must be very close to sitting on its feet - maybe a small ladder or stand attached to the engine bay and made in metal would be enough to make the difference?