1/48 Special Hobby North American Aviation X-15-A2

by Vince Lucente

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Greetings.  My latest submission is also my first attempt at a limited run, mixed media kit.  I found that this short run kit, while not as labor intensive as a vacuformed kit, still required a bit of planning before diving into construction.  Still, the challenges it posed can only serve to improve my (admittedly meager) building skills.  

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Detail in the cockpit is very nice and includes an accurate ejection seat and the control sticks for the right hand side stick controller and the ballistic control system joystick.  The injection molded fuselage, wings and stabilizers have recessed panel lines, but they seem to be a bit shallow.  The rear fuselage plug and XLR-99 exhaust nozzle are cast as a single piece and have excellent detail.  The dorsal and ventral stabilizers are made up from four separate pieces to obtain their proper wedge shape, and the lower portion of the ventral stabilizer must be cut away to display the model on it's tail trolley.  The horizontal stabilizers have no locating pins, making proper alignment tricky.   

The model was painted gloss black with some areas highlighted with gunmetal.  The decals were added and the entire model was dullcoted.  The external propellant and oxidizer tanks were painted gloss white and competition orange and were also dullcoted before attachment.  The decal sheet includes markings for the all white version of the A2, coated with the Martin MA-25S ablative material used for it's record setting Mach 6.7 run.  Although this kit required some extra work, I found it very satisfying.  I can't wait to try my next mixed media kit, the Fonderie Miniatures Bell X-2.  

Vince 

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Photos and text © by Vince Lucente