Ken West X-15A-2 Mach 6 flight, in 1/32nd scale

[dhanners]

As a Christmas gift, a friend who knows my obsession with the X-15 did a private repaint of Ken West’s X-15A-2 and external tanks to replicate flight 2-50-89. On 18 November 1966, Pete Knight flew 66671 to a speed of Mach 6.3 — 4,250 mph. It was the program’s first flight past Mach 6 and set an unofficial speed record.

I’ve built Ken’s X-15 twice before, but shrunk it from his 1/32nd scale to 1/48th. Now I remember why. At 1/32nd scale, the model is a beast — 20.5 inches (52cm) long.

Ken’s model is well-engineered and there are few issues if you take your time and actually read the instructions. (Something new for me….) I saved time by skipping the cockpit; once the canopy is on, you don’t see much in there anyway and my theory is there’s no need to build it if you’re not going to see it on the finished model.

On flight 2-50-89, 66671 carried some test patches of orange ablative paint on the nose, the nose gear door, the starboard side tunnel, the upper left horizontal stabilizer, both sides of the fixed portion of the ventral stabilizer, the starboard side of the rudder and both landing skids. There was a white stripe along the underside of the fuselage, and a perpendicular stripe stretching wingtip to wingtip.

[Famous Dave]

Beautiful rendition by your friend and a great build. I love Ken's attention to detail in his models and you have done a fabulous job with it. Thanks for sharing.
Dave

[MacSongLi]

Another beautiful X-15 model. It looks great with the external tanks.

Gary

[dhanners]

Originally Posted by MacSongLi

Another beautiful X-15 model. It looks great with the external tanks.

Gary

Thanks. Truth is, from an aesthetic standpoint, I’ve never liked the X-15A-2. The stretch screwed up the looks. (Plus, world records aside, it was kind of a dog of an airplane. Lots of aborted flights.) But with the tanks, it looks better.

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Originally Posted by dhanners

(...) from an aesthetic standpoint, I’ve never liked the X-15A-2. The stretch screwed up the looks. (...) But with the tanks, it looks better.

I whole-heartedly second that.
And your X-15 looks absolutely great, as usual (-:



I have plans for an X-15 build in the near future. But it won't be clean and aesthetic. I just need a little more research.

[dhanners]

Originally Posted by Paper Kosmonaut

I whole-heartedly second that.
And your X-15 looks absolutely great, as usual (-:



I have plans for an X-15 build in the near future. But it won't be clean and aesthetic. I just need a little more research.

Thanks for the kind words. Which X-15/flight are you researching?

[Siwi]

By coincidence, I was reading about speed records in the wonderful Big Book of Flight yesterday evening and it mentioned the Mach 6+ flight of this aircraft. However it pointed out that neither the X-15 nor any other X-series rockets ever held the official speed record since they did not take off under their own power.

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Originally Posted by dhanners

Thanks for the kind words. Which X-15/flight are you researching?

Hi David, the one I am looking into is John McKay's crash landing on 9 november 1962. I'd like to make a diorama of the crashed X-15...

[dhanners]

Originally Posted by Paper Kosmonaut

Hi David, the one I am looking into is John McKay's crash landing on 9 november 1962. I'd like to make a diorama of the crashed X-15...

Check out this page, if you haven’t already….

x15chap05

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Thanks, but I already did (-: . And there were indeed some new photos I didn't see before. I think with what is available on the web I have found all there is to find. I also have a book at home called "X-plane crashes" written by P.W.Merlin and T. Moore (click) but that too was very limited in actual crash pictures. Besides, they focused more on the Mike Adams crash, and I really didn't want to depict a deadly accident.


I think with what I have I can create the scene reasonably accurate. The rest will be poetic license.