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NASM's X-15
If you’ve ever been to the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum in Washington, one of the historic airplanes on display is X-15-1, 66670, as it looked after its last flight (and the 199th and last flight of the X-15 program) on 24 October 1968. It looks weathered and beat-up and panels have been replaced, giving it a patchy appearance. In short, it is beautiful.
After building six of Henry Yuen/Yukonjohn X-15s in 1/72nd scale, I figured I was done. But I had a bunch of spare sheets left over from my numerous trips to the print shop, so I decided to try and see if I had enough parts to build 66670 as it looks in the NASM. I had all the parts I needed except I lacked the correct upper vertical stabilizer. In the summer of 1968, 66670's tail had the yellow NASA band on both sides and the serial number on both sides. The only spare tail I had with that configuration was for 66671. But I had some spare 0s (thankfully printed on thinner paper) and with some careful cutting and edge-coloring and gluing, I was able to change the serial number to 66670. In mid-’68, 66670 had wingtip pods for various scientific equipment, as well as a ventral structure for a camera port and optical sensors (they tested reconnaissance equipment that would be used on the SR-71) and by this time, they had also added a third skid on the fixed portion of the lower vertical stabilizer. I scratchbuilt the wingtip pods out of some wood skewers I had sitting around. The optical sensors structure and third skid were scratchbuilt out of cardstock. The last photo is 66670 as it looked on rollout, mid-life and final flight. Once again, I want to thank Henry and Yukonjohn for the great work they did. Last edited by dhanners; 08-11-2020 at 12:10 AM. |
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#2
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Nice explanation, lovely model and great photos. Thanks for sharing David. I can't help thinking that you must be close to 15 "significant" models of the X-15. That would be an awesome collection.
Regards and take care Kevin
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Normally the most advanced tech I use is a pencil. |
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Thanks for the kind words. My current count is nine X-15 models -- seven of the Yuen/Yukonjohn versions in 1/72nd, then two of 66670 in 1/48th. One of the latter is a downscaling/reworking of Ken West's X-15A-2, and it is back in storage in the U.S. I actually brought it back from Kuwait. Built a special box for it and it actually fit in one of my guitar's flight cases.
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Hi David, tuning in here to say I really really enjoyed your X-15 bonanza here. To have all those different paint jobs together is awesome and shows to tell the X-15 never had a 'finished', 'final' appearance, but always a work in progress. Wonderful job.
I really hope the flight case X-15 has survived the ordeal of being shipped - or were you there with it when it went back to the US? |
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Quote:
The real challenge when we left Kuwait was packing my 1/288th build of Alfonso's MLP/Crawler-Transporter/STS-1 stack. I used foam-core board to build a cradle and box to hold it, and carried it in my checked luggage. It survived the trip, too. Both it and the X-15 are in storage (with many of my other old models) in St. Paul and when we move back to the U.S., I'll make the necessary repairs. When we left Kuwait, I had quite a few models that I left behind. I gave a few to the grandkids, Yaqoub and Maysa, but you know how small kids are with cardmodels. We lived in an apartment building owned by my wife's school that housed only teachers. Each spring, teachers who are leaving set up tables down in the basement to sell or give away stuff. I put my other models on the "free" table and they were all gone within an hour. |
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