Eric Mc

Beautiful. Puts the old FROG kit in the shade a bit.

I tend to look at those online retailers who sell secondhand kits for a rough guide. King Kits is a good example in the UK. There is an American seller called Classic Kits which is also useful. Bear in mind that they will have a mark up and profit margin built in to their pricing so I tend to look at their prices and then take 50% of those values as my starting point. I don't think that eBay in general is a useful tool for ascertaining realistic prices.

And the Soviets lied about Gagarin's flight pretending that he didn't eject towards the end. That was to fool the FAI that he had completed his flight in his spacecraft because by ejecting (he, and all the other Vostok cosmonauts) nullified their flights and any records associated with those flights - according to FAI rules. So, applying rather arbitrary rules established by a bunch of Frenchmen is always rather dodgy (VAT is another example).

It would be nice to mount it on its launch rail, with the booster cart attached - á la Fireball XL5.

Ordered from The Big H. I've been waiting for a kit of this for years.

Thank you. I can see my credit card taking another hit.

Very good. What kit did you use for the Sanger-Bredt Spaceplane. I've always fancied building one of these.

That's convenient.

Smashing build. It looks just right. Revell did, at one point, box the old FROG kit but they now have a very good new tooling.

Yes, it's not "Limited by Guarantee". It's limited by the issued Share Capital. "Limited by Guarantee" companies do not issue shares.

A very sad story. I also read that they had a habit of shedding entire engines. Not the most confidence inspiring aircraft. Despite the Brigand's shortcomings as an aeroplane, I've always been impressed by it. Tony's build is fantastic.

Yes, there is no hard definition. Both Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom officially made sub-orbital spaceflights in 1961 and nobody argued they hadn't been in space.

What is the technical definition of the "prow"?

Thanks from me too. You obviously did your best in very stressful circumstances. The omens for SAMI and its related publications are not very promising. I have a soft spot for SAMI as it is the only magazine ((so far) that has published an article written by me.

At the time I was looking for a 1/144 Shuttle over ten years ago), neither the Airfix nor the Revell kits were available. The only one I could find was the Academy/Minicraft one - so that was the one I built. It has some shape issues, especially around the nose of the Orbiter - and the External Tank lacks the corrugations around the Interstage Section. I had to create my own corrugated effect using plastic strips.