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Showing results for tags 'moon landing.'.
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One Small Step for Man (A50106) 1:72 Airfix It’s a long time since Man walked on the moon, and although we as a species plan to go back there soon, the Apollo and Saturn series are still at the pinnacle of crewed interplanetary spaceflight if we discount the excellent low orbit work of Space-X and others as they don't break orbit - yet! At the time in the late 1960-70s there was a flurry of new models and toys, with Airfix being amongst them with many releases, including this pair of kits that have been brought together with new decals and other enhancements to allow them to be completed in a more modern fashion. The Kit This is a reboxing of the 2009 kit of the same name, which comprises the Apollo 11 Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), Eagle, and the set of vinyl figures that I and many other children used to play with back in the day when these kits were first released. In addition we have a large newer vacformed base that can be a fun place to play or a display base for your finished creation. Inside the tough end-opening box are four sprues of white styrene, a bag of vinyl astronauts and their play-things, a bag containing eight acrylic paint pots of various colours, two brushes and a tube of Poly Cement, of the type that used to be all you could get back in the 70s. Additionally there is an A4 sheet of foil that is gold on one side, silver on the other and protected by paper on the gold side. The final items are a small decal sheet and the instruction booklet with spot colour on the front and rear pages, the latter being where you will find the painting guide. Construction begins with the descent stage, which is an octagonal box with a few cut-outs that you attach the multi-part legs and dished foot-pads to, with a ladder fitted to one of them. The top section of the ladder plus handrails are added to the upper leg at an angle, with the bottom of the stage closed up by the underside with an engine bell mounted in the recessed centre. The crew module that is also the ascent stage is next, with small triangular windows fitted in the front from inside, extensions with manoeuvring thrusters in a cruciform layout and baffles to protect the wafer-thin skin of the vehicle, which was frighteningly vulnerable to damage according to the crews. The last step (or giant leap), which is only step 4 has a profusion of parts, many of which would have been better off in separate stages for clarity, as they relate to the equipment used by the astronauts when they were working at Tranquillity Base, and were left behind to carry on working after Neil and Buzz lifted off. Many small parts are attached to the ascent stage, including the docking ring, antennae and the aft thruster clusters, giving it the famous Heath-Robinson look that we’re all familiar with. The rest of the styrene parts make up the Laser Ranging Retroflector, S-Band Antenna (Apollo 12 Onward), Solar Wind Composition and Passive Seismic Experimental Packages. The final parts make up the two astronauts, both with backpacks, and one with a flag post to which the decal flag is attached. The simple two-part base from the original tooling is still in the box, and you can use that if you wish, or the much larger rectangular vacform base that gives much more surface to play with and is a little more realistic. The vinyl figures are bagged separately, and the copyright message tags them as from 1971, so time hasn't been too unkind to them. They also hail from the era of angular sprues with no external runners to protect the parts, but vinyl isn't as prone to breakage as styrene, so everything is still attached to the sprues. There's a little bit of flash here and there, but most of it is on the sprues, so won't be an issue, and there are a few ejector pin marks too, most notably on the rear of the tyres and the astronauts' backs, although the latter will be covered by their backpacks anyway, so don't matter. Some of the design work is fanciful, including two types of lander that could allegedly be used for getting around faster than the moon rover that is also supplied. The vehicles are a little simplified for obvious reasons, but they still have that cool factor that made me smile. In the box you get 59 parts to make up the following: 1 x Astronaut with a flag 2 x Astronaut with a probe/golf club 2 x Astronaut carrying a pair of containers 2 x Astronaut walking with his hands stretched out to his sides 2 x Astronaut with a video camera 2 x Astronaut with a personal one-man rocket-propelled travel platform 2 x Astronaut in a moonbuggy 2 x Astronaut on 1 x larger 2-seat lander-style travel platform A brief clean-up was done for this photo of some of the parts, but most of the figures were much as they came off the sprue. The round platform took the most clean-up. Preparation involves nipping the parts off the sprue and cutting the gate flush to allow them to sit straight on the moon's regolith, and then using an incredibly sharp blade to remove any small blemishes or flash that might be found. Be careful of cutting the pins too short on the various parts that slot together, as they're a bit hard to see amongst the white of the sprues. This can bite you in the bottom later on when you realise your rocketman won't stay on his platform, which is incidentally where the most flash is to be found in between the verticals. They're vinyl of course, so flexible and not likely to take standard paints if you get the modelling urge, but I believe that there are some flexible paints out there, or some that can be made flexible with the addition of something akin to PVA… my memory is hazy on this though, so have a Google if some bright spark doesn't help us out below. Markings The decals can be used to depict Apollo 11 or 12 in June and November of 1969 respectively. The painting guide shows where they should be placed, and the colour scheme is laid out from four sides, showing where the gold foil should be wrapped around the structure in a muddy brown colour. As well as the flag, two plaques for the missions are supplied to apply to the flat section of the base, and a myriad of small US flags for the various astronaut figures that are in the box. Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin matt carrier film cut close to the printed areas. Conclusion While it’s not a modern kit, it has had some new life breathed into it by the decals and new base, plus the inclusion of the gold foil so that you don’t have to stuff your face with Bournville chocolate. The vinyl figures are there for fun really, but can be painted as static visitors for a more hypothetical vista. Highly recommended Review sample courtesy of