This is my older Special Hobby kit in 1/48 Scale. Formerly I published the part of this article on Hyper Scale. I posted it here again, but adding several interesting pictures and links.
The Cockpit and Canopy Section:
There is partly visible the original resin cockpit used in X-15 kit, with modified seat and some details upgrades. The „roof“ of the canopy is flat without detailing in a kit, so it needed some work according to the photographs like this one.
By the way, to cut out the oval windows from the clear plastic and then place them into their openings was really something I do not wished to try, but it was not so hard to do when I tried to!
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Canopy details:
I have enlinked several pics here which could be helpful when building the X-15 cockpit (click on pictures to enlarge). They are directly from the original North American Aviation X-15 Flight Manual, 1962.
Very interesting pilot’s seat in color:
During the development of the X-15 birds, their cockpits were evolving too. Also the interior colors changed gradually from mainly black components into light gray. You can find a very nice shot into the X-15 cockpit on the NASA/Dryden Flight Research Center webpages. Another valuable reference pictures concerning not only X-15 cockpit details can be find (besides the web) for instance in this Aerofax Datagraph publication. Here is all what you would need:
The Nose Section:
The nose landing gear is visible here. The nose landing gear door with its smaller air brake/door are made new of the styrene and soda can. It is attached to the nose gear assembly, which was built using polished aluminum tubes, thin metal stripes and the original resin wheels.
Two rods supporting the canopy are made of needles, endings are made of a thin metal plate.
The Hot-nose colors I tried to make using polished HUMBROL Metal Cote and ALCLAD over glossy black base.
The Rear Section:
This is the rear section of a X-15 Bird. One of the most eyecatching details of the real X-15 are the air brakes – while opened, or partly opened. The Special Hobby kit does not cover these details, so the modeler has to build them as a scratch build. And how to make it relatively simply? I will write the next time on my blog about it.
The air brake actuators are replacing those resin ones included in the kit. I made them of styrene and metal tubes of various diameters pushed one into another. The same mechanism was used for both upper and lower twin air brakes.
Similar metal tubes, needles and wires were used also for the rear dump (vent) lines and the upgrade of a resin ground transport dolly included in the X-15 kit. The dolly included in X-15 kit needs to be rebuild significantly to resemble closely the real thing. To tell you the truth, I have done only part of that work.
The helium tank sitting just to the rear of the vertical stabilator is a metal bullet which changed the original, partly „amorphous“ resin part.
Coloring and patina:
The X-15s started their “service” in glossy black coats. After servicing, rebuilding and under extreme flight conditions the black color is depicted at many photographs „patchy“ and in many various shades. These effects can be seen on this NASA/Dryden shot.
I tried to simulate this using high glossy ALCLAD black base sprayed at first, covering it with various grays, browns, blacks, metallic colors and varnishes. The small decals are partly over-coated by matt black.
The white USAF and yellow NASA lettering, 66671 numbers and also the national insignia were airbrushed over black surface, and weathered by water sanding and over-spraying. All the masks were made in Adobe Illustrator software according to the original decal sheet included in a Special Hobby kit and then plotted, placed on the X-15 bird and airbrushed.
The propellant tanks were polished into high shine, then covered by thin ALCLAD black base color and finally two different ALCLAD Aluminum shades were applied.
I built my X-15 sitting on its transport dolly and with external tanks attached. I am dreaming about another one, just after its flight, with highly “weathered” surfaces, tankless, air brakes fully outstretched and standing on its own skids and legs! Or some later version of X-15 in color other than black perhaps even in 1/32 Scale? May be the next time. For your further inspiration, you can visit this link.
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Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2010 by Marcel Meres