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So I'll be building this... Not a huge amount of parts, originally appears to have been moulded in 1959 it would appear from Scalemates, in a rather odd 1/64th scale. This is a recent (well relatively) reboxing, using the box-art from 1961 - this is the 1994 reissue, judging by the copyright notice on the side of the box. After opening up the contents (it was still in the shrink-wrap) it does have a bit of a musty odour but the decals don't look too bad, might be serviceable if not too brittle (I have some decal film solution so hopefully that will help). Not much in the way of parts, though I noticed this date mark on the wing (1982), the parts have had a bit of rashing from rubbing about in the single poly bag (all the black parts were in a single bag, randomly the single clear part was just loose in the box). You can also see the underside slot in the image, used for the stand, a few sink marks (where the locator pins are on the other side) and the odd raise circle (not sure if that's meant to be some detail on the wing)? Well I couldn't help myself and decided to make a start - the cockpit is a very minimal affair (though the windows are tiny TBH) consisting of a single floor piece and a separate pilot figure (already moulded into a seat). By way of contrast the engine/rocket is a multi-piece affair though only a tiny part will be visible when finished (exhaust nossle interior). Hopefully it should be a simple, quick and fun build!

Special Hobby (SH) is to re-release its 1/32nd North American X-15A-2 "White Ablative Coating" (link) kit under ref. SH32081 Source: https://www.specialhobby.net/2020/08/sh32081-x-15a-2-white-ablative-coating.html Box art V.P.

This is my 1/72 MPM X-15A-2. This kit was a pleasure to build with very good fit and excellent decals. The only minus was the instructions which were kind of vague about colors and had a few of the decals mis-numbered. Construction only took 9 days from start to finish. I knew you would not be able to see much of the interior with those tiny window, so I took a couple of pictures before I buttoned it up Next up will be the Hasegawa S2F-1 Tracker kit. Enjoy

This is a bit of strange place for me to be in as I normally live in the GB section. A scary new place to explore! This is a build I started sometime ago for the Prototype, Experimentals, World Firsts & Record Breakers GB (that’s a mouth fully!) and for various reasons I was not able to complete. Now as a sort of Mojo restorer she’s back on the workbench. I’ve attached the link to the first part of the build for those interested. I had gotten to the stage where I was ready to fit the new mounts for the wings and elevators. These were to be pinned in place rather than trying to use the tiny resin stubs supplied on the kit parts. This would help give everything the strength it needed plus make sure everything was aligned correctly and at the right angle! Ok with the new mounts for the wings and tail done it was time to fit these. I needed to make sure that these new mounts were perfectly square with the body. The moulded mounts on the model were out quite a bit! The front mounts were off by nearly 5mm from one side to the other. The rear mounts for the elevators was I though correct at the time but it ended up being 3mm too high! Unfortunately I didn’t find this out until I’d glued the fuselage together! At this stage I also modified the lower rudder leading edge. During the early flights this rudder was longer and similar in shape to the upper one. Later on it was reduced in length and the leading edge squared off. This wasn’t the easiest of jobs to do as only the front 10mm had the new beveled shape, and everything had to be square as well. It came out pretty nicely in the end. The speed brakes will be closed on her but the insides these lower ones can be seen so I’m going to have to add details here. The model supplied parts are pretty poorly made (white metal and “off cast” resin) so I’ll have to scratch build this area. Not a big job just time consuming. Now the cockpit. I still not quite sure if I’ll leave the canopy open or closed, a lot will depend on if I stuff it up or not! The detail is a bit on the basic side but I’m not going to go too crazy here, just some careful painting and a few small extras. Luckily I have the Aerofax book on the X-15 to help out, it’s a great reference manual. With the basic work done on the cockpit I could close up the fuselage….and what a fun task that was! CA glue was no go for this stage as it dries too quickly (even the Gel stuff for this sort of work), and there was a bit of aligning required as the nose was slightly warped. So the Epoxy resin was pulled out, funnily enough I could have sworn the last time I used it it was the 5 minute type and not the 24 hour type I had in my hand?? I got the fuselage together eventually along with covering everything in epoxy. It was put aside to dry. While it was drying I found the 5 minute epoxy, now I was worried, I had a feeling the stuff I used was VERY old! Two days later it still hadn’t dried properly and the entire nose has moved to one side! The only thing that saved this now was that the epoxy hadn’t set, so I was able to carefully split the fuselage. The only time I’ve been glad for really thick resin fuselages. Once I’d removed all the old stuff and re-cleaned up the fuselage, it was re-glued with the 5 minute epoxy. This cured nicely and everything remained in it’s right place. Then some careful sanding back and she was done. I forgot to take photos of all this fun and games. Inbetween this I managed to almost finish the auxiliary tanks, they're now finally round and not oval. I now just have to start adding all the detail to them. (ones on the left are before filling and re-scribed, one in right are complete). With the fuselage done the upper rudder was fitted. The airbrakes will be closed on her, these were fitted later along with the Helium bottle that sits behind the rudder. It was around this stage I found out that the elevator were in the wrong position, luckily with a bit of “keyhole’ surgery I managed to get them in the right position, as seen here. I need to rebuild/make the fairing section where the elevator meet the fuselage. The main skids were fitted now as well, as I’ll be using the trolley at the rear these skid are in their flight position. It’s a strange combination on resin skid and white metal support here, namely to support the weight of the model. The support was actually too thin, it now sits on some plastic card so it’s at the right height. I still need to make the hinges for the struts, these will be from plastic rod and card. The cockpit is actually starting to look quite good, this is just the basic painting, I have a lot more to do here. ..and finally all together. The wings and elevators are just slide in place for the moment, but she’s starting to look really nice. Most of the re-scribing has been complete since these photos and the upper rudder is nearly completed. I’m really starting to enjoy this build, apart for a few errors a faults it’s a really nice model to build. I should be ready to paint her by the end of my next break.

Well this is a totally unplanned GB for me and it’s only by chance I’ve decided to join. This baby just happened to show up on evilBay for the right price and I just couldn’t help myself, plus I’m a huge fan resin especially resin from Collect-Aire, I presently have quite a collection which I do hope to build…one day. So for this GB I’ve got the Ultimate Badass beast, the X-15A-2! She has held the absolute speed record for a manned aircraft for 50 years! Set in 1967 by William J. “Pete” Knight at 4519mph/7274km/h (Mach 6.72) at 102,100ft/31,120m, and a record that still remains for this type of aircraft! This is a typical Collect-Aire model (well better moulded than some releases!!) with some lovely details parts, the wheels suffer a wee bit form excessive resin flash but they’re easy to sort out. The white metal bits are some of the nicest I’ve seen. She comes with 2 vacform canopies (opps forgot photo) and a resin one which requires clear acrylic windows to be fitted (supplied. The decals are nice but I probably won’t use most of the as I planned to do her in her White Ablative scheme which she set all her records in. I won’t unfortunately be able to start her until the end of May due to work commitments but I intend to take some time off after that so I should be able to get her done.

Not sure if maybe it belongs in the Space section, and for me the coolest flying machine ever made. It was the mount of my childhood heroes; ex-WW2 aces and budding Apollo Astronauts. It still holds numerous unbroken records including the highest powered manned aircraft flight (102,000 feet, 6.72M!). For a straightforward shaped thing it wasn't the easiest fit kit in the world, but I'm happy with the result. The decals are ridiculously thin and some were partly sacrificed to the Micromesh when policing away my less than mirror smooth initial finish. Oh well. Hope you like it.

Special Hobby is to reissue its 1/32nd North American X-15 rocket plane all three variants kits - ref. SH32022, 32029 & 32031. Source: http://www.mpmkits.eu/search?updated-min=2015-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2016-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=2 V.P.

Hi All, I've always been fascinated by the X-15 and to think that in the decade after WW2 it was flying at over 4,000 mph is still staggering. I picked up this kit from Model Junction in Bury St Edmunds a while ago and after battling with an Eduard Dora recently this was just the sort of quick build I needed. The whole thing took three days, including making the base out of black acrylic and brass rod. The kit itself is easy to build although I did find a couple of areas that needed work, including a scratched pitot as the kit part was much too big. The Cartograph decals settle nicely with a bit of effort although the fact that each letter in the "USAF" decals is separate did make me swear gently. Not so gently, actually. I put some Milliput in the fuselage to take the brass rod and used a section of rod to make the hole so it's a good, snug fit and that allows me to leave it unglued so I can spin the model on the stand to change the attitude. I do think that the ultimate hotrod aeroplane needs to be seen as the Gods of Flight intended. I finished the kit with Tamiya black acrylic and after starting to mask a few panels to use different shades of black I quickly realised that a scribble with very thinned paint with a dab of grey would be better to simulate the worn look of busy aircraft. Unfortunately a lot of the effect has been lost under Klear and a final coat of Xtracrylix satin varnish but I'm not too unhappy. It still makes for a fun little desktop toy. On to the pictures and I hope you enjoy. I've included my pocket money for the purposes of scale. Please feel free to comment and offer constructive criticism.

Hello! Finally I can announce that as of today my 1:48 X-15 decal sheet(s) is ready to order from my shop. I've started work on this towards the end of last year and as today the final bits arrived (second decal sheet, cover sheet) and I managed to squeeze the instructions all into one giant .pdf (17 pages) please feel free to order a sheet or two I've drawn many profiles (22) of all three X-15 airframes at various stages of the program and the decals should give you all the markings necessary to depict any X-15 at any time, including tank markings for the X-15A-2, cockpit instrument decals and ground dolly placards. So even if you don't fancy using my resin parts for correcting/converting the Special Hobby kit, you can still get a nice exteriour with a good paint job and these decals. Link Cheers Jeffrey (updates on my current F-15E project will follow in "work in progress" over the weekend...)