Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'Space:1999'.
-
Hi Chaps, I'm going to carry on with the Space:1999 theme; and for my next build I'm going to scratch build a Mk.IX Hawk in 1/48 scale to compliment my Eagle model. The Mk.IX Hawk is probably one of the most recognisable 'guest' space craft seen in Space:1999 and appeared in only one episode titled "War Games" where Moon Base Alpha comes under surprise attack from a flight of Hawk's; these cause much damage to the base. In the episode it turns out that the attack and the Hawks were an Alien illusion. The Mk.IX Hawks were identified as such by Professor Victor Bergman suggesting that they are or were a known craft of Human/Earth Origin and are probably some kind of dedicated fighter craft designed solely for combat. There isn't much out there defining a definite scale compared to the Eagle; the Hawk is apparently smaller than the Eagle and other builders have gone for a length of about 20 inches for a 1/48 model and I'm going to do the same making it about 4 inches smaller then my Eagle. I've scaled up some plans to match the dimensions I want and will follow these. I'll do my best to keep it accurate but I know I'll have to ad-lib some parts that I can't replicate completely. First, I'm starting with the command module or beak. I've started out with a flat 'keel' and will build around this. I've components have been cut out of various thicknesses of sheet styrene. This is very similar to how I originally made the Eagle cockpit. Wish me luck! Karl
-
Space: 1999 Eagle 1 1:48 MPC/Round2 Back in the 70s the year 1999 seemed so impossibly far away that Gerry Anderson's prime time live-action near-future TV series was called Space: 1999 when mankind had begun using the Moon as a dumping ground for the world's nuclear waste. The Eagles were the spacefaring workhorses used to carry men, machines, and cargo around with interchangeable pods in the same manner as Thunderbird 2 providing specialised equipment when needed. When an out-of-control Eagle crashed on one such dump it triggered a chain reaction that blew the Moon out of earth's orbit, and we're left wondering whether earth even survived, as they lose contact with it very quickly. Through a number of plot devices they spend two series travelling around the galaxy meeting new species and entities who all conveniently speak English fluently. Eagle 1 is Commander Koenig's personal transport and features heavily in the show in various configurations. After a rather trippy second season, the show was cancelled by Lou Grade's production company, but it never quite left the consciousness of boys of a certain age, as well as later generations that became interested in the show. The Kit For years we have had the choice of either the old and inaccurate MPC/Airfix kit that purported to be 1:72 scale, or resin kits that came and went, some of which were rather expensive. This is a completely new tooling from MPC's new owners Round2, based upon masses of data accumulated by an avid Eagle aficionado who had access to the real 44" studio model on which this kit is based. It is 22" long, which makes it half the size of 1:24 scale original. It has also been designed to feature the fittings and livery of the first episode, because the models underwent some changes during filming, partially due to the wear and tear they suffered from handling, crashes and so forth. If you plan on painting your Eagle at a specific point in the series you should check your references and get some stills from the show if you're able. Now that both series are available on Blu-Ray, you've got no excuse and there's a new book out called "Modelling the Eagle" by well-known Anderson buff Mike Reccia that specifically documents the research and build of this very kit. It's ISBN-10 is 0993032052 and ISBN-13 is 978-0993032059 in case you wanted to pick one up. The kit arrives in a large box that is perhaps a tad too flimsy for the sheer size of the kit, but has a large brown cardboard bridge inside to prevent crush damage, which you should probably keep inside if you are planning to stash the kit. It also has the lower edges of the top folded back to stiffen the package further, so at least some thought has been given to it surviving shipping and years in your stash. Our review sample was the last of the current batch brought into the UK, but we understand that a new shipment will be arriving around August time, so get your pre-order in now while you can! Inside the nicely retro-style box is a host of plastic that pretty much fills it to the top, and as most of it is a rather fetching cream colour, it does hark back to days of yore, and evokes echoes of the old kit, even as far as the instruction booklet layout. There are eighteen sprues and a single part in the cream styrene, four in a light grey colour, two identical clear sprues, four springs, two small screws, a decal sheet and as folded-up concertina style instruction booklet. Adding to the retro feel is a Product Information mail-in card, and finally a little concertina-fold glossy booklet on the rest of the Round2 product line. First impressions are that this thing is a monster!!! The crew compartment or beak is almost the size of my fist, and at 22" long, it is a substantial piece of plastic. This has been taken into consideration however, as some of the attachment points are pretty substantial, especially around the sponsons so they don't break off when you test the springs of the suspended landing gear legs. Because it has been designed as a direct mimic of the studio model you will doubtless spot some replica kit parts, such as the engine deck of a Tiger 1 dotted around, as well as the crew figures that are moulded to look like the Gemini capsule figures used in the real model, which was twice the size of this kit. Construction starts with the beak, which has clear windows to allow the inside to be seen once construction is complete. The rear bulkhead is well detailed, and the pilot figures fit to small stand-off blocks attached to points on the bulkhead. The figures have decals on their environment suit controls, and a few more are scattered around the bulkhead, which is detailed on the sides of the lower box, so remember not to throw that out too soon. The beak shell then fits over the crew, and you can leave this un-glued to allow better access to the crew, or lighting if you have decided to fit your own. The bulkhead has a detail panel behind it that forms the back of the compartment. And has the sockets to link the attachment points to the framework, while the beak front has four depressions for the manoeuvring thrusters. The largest feature of the model is the long ladder of tubing that forms the spine of the ship, and this is constructed from two frames made up of front and rear sections on each side, linked together with cross-beams on the top and bottom sections. Two pairs of these have stringers with a slot cut in them to attach the equipment pod later in the build. The two sections of fuselage that mount the landing gear pods are correctly build as an inner "box" with detailed surfaces, within an outer cage that is constructed around it after completion of the inner painting. Two of these are made up, and then four of the gear pods, which have a large structural member running through them and out into the fuselage, with the pod skins also creating a laminated two-layer sandwich of strength. A scrap diagram shows the correct orientation of the pods and their surface details, and it might worthwhile marking them to ease the installation later on. The landing gear struts have springs added to give them realistic sag and rebound, which requires a number of parts to be left unglued so that they can move. Four of these are built up and set to the side until final completion of the ship. The engines are next in the queue, with the main framework built up along with the complex mass of feeder piping and structural members. With the main structure completed, the large combustion chambers are added at an angle, going through loops at the rear and clipping in to the front, plus four expansion tanks/fuel tanks and their attendant hoses that are shown on a ghosted diagram to ease fitting of their hoses to the existing framework. The passenger pod is built from slabs of styrene on a flat base, with optional attachment pins on the front and rear to add extra strength to the assembly if you plan on leaving the pod in situ. The faces are all detailed as per the original, and the roof lights are all present in clear styrene, although there is nothing to see inside, so perhaps a smoked finish may hide that fact. The roof is made of three parts, so take care with fitting, and the floor has a number of detail parts added before the framework is attached to complete it. Final assembly begins by bringing the front and rear compartments together on the ladder, and then screwing in the passenger compartment using the provided cross-head screws. The gear sponsons are then added in the order stated earlier, and the assembled landing thrusters and Vernier jets are added to the undersides and sponson outers respectively. The landing gear pads are inserted in the holes on the lower of the sponsons, four feet are added to the passenger pod, and the engine bells are finally installed at the rear. There are on the grey sprues, and the bells have been made as two parts each with the cruciform diffuser added to the rear as shown in the diagram. There is a "deluxe" set of metal engine bells and thrusters that accurately depict the materials used in the real model, but with the modern metallic available to the modeller, a saving on budget could well be made with the aid of careful preparation. Markings The decals have been printed to match the pilot episode scheme, and there are plenty to detail up your model after painting, with the decal instructions shown on the colour printed sides of the box's bottom tray, which also includes the painting guide at the same time. It's an unusual method to me, but it's nice to see an actual model being used to show the colours and markings. Whether it would have been cheaper not to print the box and to add a single sheet of glossy printing for the markings guide is anyone's guess and a moot point at this stage. There is a long screed of copyright ownership at the bottom of the sheet, with the implication being that the decals were printed in China, but their quality seems to be more than adequate for the job. Registration, colour density and sharpness are fine on my sample, with three choices for the trapezoid Moonbase Alpha logo. Conclusion Whist I wouldn't describe myself as a fan of the series (That's no disrespect to the show, it's just the way I am about TV/movies), I did/do enjoy watching it. What I did love was the pseudo-realism and practicality of the Eagle's design, which made it look like it could actually do all the things they tasked it with. The interchangeable pods will doubtless start coming out for those of us with a hankering for personalising our models, and a landing pad would just finish off the look. I remember building the old Airfix/MPC kit in my bedroom as a young lad nursing my first hangover, so it will always have a special place in my heart, although I can't say the same for drinking too much booze. It's a BIG model, and nicely detailed into the bargain. With careful painting it can look stunning, as some of the early builds have already shown. There's a little flash around some of the sprues, but most of the parts escape, so it's not really much to talk about. Available in the UK in small quantities that are getting harder to track down by the day, but it will be back in stock at Amerang (the UK importers) in August 2016. Make your pre-orders when you can! Review sample courtesy of UK distributors for
-
This is my second built of this kit from Round2/MPC and I've thrown the book at it, with more lighting int he cockpit, landing lights on the front leg pods, red and green flashing navigation lights, plus added greeblie detail on the walkways, extra decals and a paint job with lots of weathering... The build thread is here http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235005434-22-mpcround-2-eagle-transporter-2/ ...and finally a better attempt at the video showing the flashing lights...
- 22 replies
-
- 23
-
- Space:1999
- 22 Eagle
-
(and 1 more)
Tagged with:
-
I enjoyed building my first one earlier this year so much that I bought another! You can see my previous build here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234996587-mpcround-2-148-scale-22-eagle-transporter/ For this build I want to ty to do something a bit more special, so there will be lighting, fixes to the overlong springs, enhanced paintjob and decals and most likely a Emergency/Rescue pod paintjob. This build was inspired by my visit to the Smallspace show last weekend where I got the designer of the Eagle, Brian Johnson to autograph the box I carry the first Eagle model to shows in I'll not be following the constructin sequence of the instructions very closely this time around as I have specific things that need to be done to support my other plans. So to start with, I began with one of the leg pods. My plan is to mount white LEDs in the front two legs pods to act as landing lights... As you can see, this time I'm using some serious battery power which will be mounted in the passenger pod. This will feed power to the LEDs in the leg pods and in the cockpit. So once again I've put power socket into the joint to support the cockpit and the cockpit internal bulkhead has been painted This time I've used Tamiya BUff and Deck tan colours istead of Desert yellow and white as I did in the previous build/ It still needs some touch ups and of course washes to bring out the detail. Now the power supply this time will be a block of AA batteries. These need to be mounted in the passenger pod is a manner that they can be accessible to change without having to disassemble the model. There should also be an on/off switch... On/off switch working... how about accessibility of the batteries? Panel cut out of the base with magnets holding it in place. Up the other way we see the mounting for the batteries So back to the leg pods, I've had to chop some plastic out of the support brackets inside the walkway modules so that the wires can come out of the pods This still leaves plenty of support for the leg pods. The connection between the pod and the leg is via plugs that allow the legs to be attached later for ease of painting, as is shown here: The internals of the walkway module start getting quite busy once all the wires are added but testing showed everything is working... Next task it to arrange the electrical connection between the walkway and the passenger pod/battery box and then sort ot the rear leg pods. I have a slightly different plan for those, more of that later...
- 21 replies
-
- 6
-
- Space:1999
- Eagle Transporter
-
(and 1 more)
Tagged with:
-
So my pre-order from the US Finally arrived last week and I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't get stung for an idiotic ransom demand from HMRC, but a relatively modest charge! This meant it cost a LOT less than the UK retails are asking for AND it arrived early. So here is the box as it arrived, with Cthulhu showing the excitement that I was feeling! I'm not doing a sprue shot as there are loads of them, you can see them at the bottom of this page http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/merc/vmmer2.html So to start off with the spine needs to be put together. Each side frame comes in two halves which need gluing. These need to be kept flat while drying and sadly have quite a few ejector marks on the inner side. Here you can see them with filler in the ejector marks ready for sanding. Next are the upper frames of the front and rear cages with the brackets that attach to the spine. The brackets have a little bit of flash on the sides. One thing you have to be very careful with on this kit is the sprue gates are quite large, so separating the parts form the sprue needs care to avoid damage. Next comes the command module or "beak". This is well moulded in two halves which goes together without much fuss. There are transparencies for the upper and lower windows, but only the upper ones were actually transparent, hence the masking tape. There isn't a detailed cockpit but there are two pilots in space suits and a detailed rear bulkhead for the cockpit. There are an abundance of reference photos for the cockpit such as this one of the studio set So I've started painting the bulkhead I haven't completely decided how I'm going to light the cockpit - or even if I will bother at all. It shouldn't be too difficult as there is plenty of space either in the beak or in the front body. Speaking of which here they are with one of the 4 "shoulder" pods What is great to see is the very careful recreation of the kitbash parts added to the basic boxes, like those superb lunar lander halves from the Airfix Saturn V kit and what you see here on the sides: There are also the side shelves plus landing leg supports which take some care to assemble to fit properly. Finally, the engine bells have been assembled and I have to say I am very impressed with the care taking in designing these. Rather than use the simple (for the manufacturer) alternative of splitting them in half down the axis, they are split halfway down the "bell" so the joint virtually disappears. These are all being prepared for suitable treatment with Alcad. I'm not prepared to pay MORE that the kit itself for the accessory set which includes real aluminium engine bells! Not when I know how to use Alcad paints!! So in summary, this is a very exciting kit for us fans, but its not an easy kit to build! More to come...
- 52 replies
-
- 13
-
- space:1999
- Eagle
-
(and 2 more)
Tagged with:
-
I put in a pre-order for this kit with Hobbylinc back in August and it finally arrived in Mid January, so I had to start it right away! its a marvellous kit, very well engineered and the second pressing of it will be even better as they've fixed a few of the issues that hav ebeen raised by people building this first edition. Anyway, here are the photos of the completed model. It has a red LED in the cockpit to illuminate the figures. The battery is a 3v coin-type battery hidden in the front walkway section, accessible via a slot in the bottom. With its little brother courtesy Product Enterprises Battery panel: The engine bells etc were painted with Alcad metallic paints, so no ridiculous expense with aluminium bells for me! This was a superb kit, huge fun to build and no major faults as far as I was concerned. The Replicas Unlimited kit in the stash will be consigned to history now...
- 24 replies
-
- 18
-
- Space:1999
- Eagle Transporter
-
(and 1 more)
Tagged with:
-
So lets try again with a resin kit... I bought this one as an Xmas present to myself earlier this year, not knowing that a couple of months later an injection molded kit of a 22" (ie 1:48 scale) Eagle transporter would be announced by Round 2 for the end of 2015! So, my thinking is if I don't build this NOW, I'll never get round to building it and if I try to re-sell it, I won't get anything like what I paid for it when there is (in theory) a better IM kit available for less! Here we go then This was a very well received kit within the Space :1999 community and builds up into a good representation. There are several AM additions that can be added, including aluminium turned engine bells for the main engines and the vertical thrusters and other extra components available. However these tend to be extremely expensive and this kit cost enough as it is. I reckon I can do a decent enough job with some Alcad paint on the engine bells... Progress so far has been to spend an evening at the sink with a washing up bowl of soapy water giving everything a good wash...
- 34 replies
-
- 4
-
- space:1999
- Eagle
-
(and 1 more)
Tagged with:
-
Here I go again with another bout of madness and over ambition!! I recently picked up the Round2 re-release of the old Airfix/MPC Eagle from Space:1999. Space:1999 is still one of my all time favourite Sci-fi shows and the Eagle is one of my all time favourite craft. This is my third purchase of this model; the first was played with to destruction when I was about 7 or 8. Then the next one was much better looked after and that one came with it's companion: a Mk.XI Hawk. These two were built OK and then a few years later were lightly restored. I still have them both now and in fact I found them in the loft just after I picked up the Round2 kit. Then my head got started.... Thoughts of a Lab-Pod and Spine Booster and a winch pod... 2 Eagles and a Hawk on display with loads of additional goodies. So here we are. The new Round2 Kit - a re-release of the old MPC/Airfix kit. And the remains of my two old kits, both original Airfix releases from the mid to late seventies. Both quite badly finished. My intention is to build/re-build both Eagles simultaneously. The kit is not very accurate out of the box so my intention is to make as many modifications as is possible/sensible to make the kit more accurate whilst still using most of the kit; I've seen others improve this kit and they ended up discarding all of the kit - this is not my intention, just to make what is there a bit better, although I will be doing some scratch building to correct some areas and create the 'walkways' and shelves'. I also intend to build a variety of pods. The standard pod comes out of the box. I can make a lab-pod by modifying the other standard pod and I can scratch build a cargo winch pod. I also want to do the spine booster as seen in the episode 'The Metamorph'. The Hawk is quire accurate out of the box, however I'll clean it up and re-build it using today's modelling skills. I've got some other Space:1999 ideas, but this is enough for now!! Thanks for looking! Karl
- 20 replies
-
- 3
-
- space:1999
- eagle
-
(and 1 more)
Tagged with: