Subject: Re: 1/32 scale North American X-15A-2
From: "Submissions for ARC" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 15:48:22 -0800

Hi,
I just wanted to let you know your article went on ARC today.  Thanks again for sending it in.

Steve Bamford
Aircraft Resource Center
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com

Live like there is no tomorrow;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: [email-masked] 
  To: [email-masked] 
  Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 11:55 AM
  Subject: 1/32 scale North American X-15A-2

                                                                 Special Hobby
                                                                    1/32 Scale
                                                          North American X-15A-2

          This kit was unveiled at this years IPMS Nationals by the guys at Special Hobby. At first I wasn't to impressed with this kit but I've always been impressed with the subject. This is also my first attempt of a kit made by Special Hobby. Once I started to get into the construction of the kit I could see that this is really a modelers kind of model. What the kit lacks in injected molded detail is nicely made up for in PE and resin parts. Everything you need to make a quality looking model is included in the box. I did do a couple of things that weren't out of the box. I modified the dive brake hydraulics with some plastic tubing and stainless steel wire to make them look a bit more realistic and I made my own seat belts for the ejection seat, also there is an inherent weak spot with the skids. There's just not much on the rear to glue to so the skids can bear the weight of the model. What I did was drill out some 1/8 in. holes where the skids would attach to the rear of the model. I then glued some 1/8 X 2 1/2 in. round stock in the holes so that the rods protruded evenly through the inside and the outside of the fuselage and at the right angle that the skids would be sitting. I then glued the vertical part of the skids to these rods which made a much stronger joint to the fuselage for the skids to rest on.
                                                                                                                                       The Building
         For the most part the exterior detail of the kit is nice. The Inconel X covering is done nicely and all the panel lines are done nicely as well. Take some time to test the fit of the parts and clean up all the tabs from the injection molding, especially clean up the tabs on the wings and the rest of the flying surfaces. The vertical stabilizers are a bit of a challenge to get together and the tops of each leave some nasty gaps to fill when completed. Easy fix though. I just covered the tops with some .010 sheet plastic and sanded to shape. You will have to add some plastic strip to the top of upper vertical stabilizer to replace the detail that was sanded off. By far the most time I spent building this kit was with the cockpit interior. An invaluable source for pictures of these details were found on the internet and a book I got called the X-15 Photo Scrapbook, some very nice shots of the instrument panel and side consoles can be found in this book, however there were no photos of the ejection seat. The best ejection seat photos I found came off the internet. The kit offers a very nice and accurate replica of the ejection seat and is a kit in itself really. Some details need to be added such as the oxygen hose, but for the most part the seat is all there in plastic and resin parts. The seat belts are represented in the kit on the PE but I decided to make my own from some Waldron jet buckles. The fuselage is assembled in four parts sectioned horizontally that make up a forward and rear section of the fuselage. It took a little work with a sanding block to get a perfect fit on the fuselage sections but it saved a lot of work when it came to putting the two halves together. The only real filling of seams on the kit involved where the wings mate to the fuselage I used some sheet plastic and stretch sprue to fix the gaps at the wing root, then sanded them to shape. The finished horizontal and vertical stabilizers assembled nicely to the fuselage and left no seams.
                                                                                                                                 Painting and Decaling  
        The X-15 represented in the kit is basically the second X-15 produced. There were three X-15's manufactured by North American. The X-15A-2 was actually rebuilt from the X-15-2 after it was severely damaged on landing and was rebuilt into the X-15A-2. This is the one that would ultimately set the altitude and speed records for the X-15 research program. The X-15-1 now resides at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., X-15A-2 is in the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH and the X-15-3 was destroyed in the only crash with a fatality of the X-15 program when Major Mike J. Adams* went into an unrecoverable spin and crashed in the Nevada desert. The X-15's were usually painted in a black color scheme and the decals in the kit offer this scheme. I started the painting by priming the whole model with an automotive quality light gray lacquer based primer surfacer. After making sure that all seams were in good order I finished the sanding with some 0000 steel wool and set off to apply the finish color. Some Model Master Flat Black was applied over the entire model followed by a few coats of Model Master Clear Gloss to form a good base for decal adhesion. The decals supplied in the kit are of excellent quality. They are very thin so extra care has to be taken when transferring the decals from the paper to the model. I used a 70/30 diluted solution of Solva-Set and water to set the decals in place. After the decaling was finished the entire model was again sprayed with an even coat of clear gloss and left to dry. After the gloss was dry the entire model was finished off with a generous coat of Testors Clear Flat.

  *On his fatal flight, Maj. Adams achieved the altitude of 266,000 ft, qualifying him by USAF guidelines as America's 27th Astronaut. His Astronaut wings were awarded to him posthumously and his name is inscribed in the Memorial Of Astronauts at the John F Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, FL. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  See what's new at AOL.com and Make AOL Your Homepage.