CORGI TOYS TIE-UP WITH BLOODHOUND SSC LAND SPEED RECORD ATTEMPT

David Jefferis reports

Interesting news from Corgi that the company is linking up with the British Land Speed Record (LSR) team, headed by former record-holder Sir Richard Noble. The team's aim is to build the Bloodhound SSC jet-and-rocket-powered car, its target, to smash the current LSR with an amazing 1000 mph (1609 km/h) two-way run - that’s a Mach 1.4 machine, running at ground level! 

Model maker and Bloodhound SSC partnership

Corgi’s role is to be the official toy and model partner for a series of replica models of the Bloodhound, as the vehicle is developed into its final record-ready form. So there should be a mini-collection opportunity for tech-hungry diecast fans.

Bloodhound SSC at the Farnborough Air Show

I saw the Bloodhound display at the Farnborough Air Show last summer, and took the set of iPhone pix shown here. It’s a hugely impressive project, even if the Farnborough Bloodhound SSC was only a life-size development mockup. The Bloodhound's triple-engine technology is a complex combination of EJ200 turbofan engine, a type normally seen powering the EFA Typhoon combat jet, plus a hybrid Falcon rocket motor. Fuel for the EJ200 and Falcon is pumped by a third power plant, an 800 bhp racing engine.

Construction on the real car started just a few days ago, the aim being to have it ready for runway trials in Spring 2012. If all goes well with the trials, then the Bloodhound SSC team will move on to high-speed runs in South Africa later the same year. There’s a choice of 14 possible sites for the actual LSR attempt, but that final choice is not yet finalized. 

Corgi Bloodhound SSC model

The sneak peeks above show what Corgi has in mind for the Bloodhound SSC. It looks pretty good, but we’ll wait to see if the finished thing is a match for Corgi’s excellent scale aircraft, which is the sort of standard we’d like to see at Scale Model News. Fingers crossed then!

Land Speed Record kits - not

Fascinating as the LSR concept and cars are, it’s been a continuing puzzle to me that the mainstream kit manufacturers have stayed away from the subject. And the history is a long one - LSR attempts go all the way back to 1898, when a French-built electric car raced along at 39.2 mph (63.15 km/h). But so far as scale models go, the running has been made by the diecast companies over the years, and here we are again with Corgi doing the same thing. Anyone got an idea why this should be?

The pictures show:

1-2  Bloodhound SSC mockup at Farnborough Air Show, 2010.

3  Corgi diecast model.

4  Eurojet EJ200 turbofan engine.

5  One of two 10-tonne Supacat HMT600 support vehicles, loaned by the company to the Bloodhound SSC team.

More about Supacat here.

Bloodhound SSC is here.

Assorted LSR related stuff here.

And some interesting diecast cars here, mainly Spark models.

A FEAST OF MODELS AT THE 2010 FARNBOROUGH INTERNATIONAL AIRSHOW

David Jefferis reports from the show
The SMN crew spent yesterday at the UK’s premier business-orientated aerospace show. The weather was fantastic (which just goes to show how useless the predictions of some iPhone weather apps are...) and it was a real pleasure to watch high-power aerobatics and more genteel flypasts in bright blue skies, with puffy clouds to set them off.

Stealthy delta
Highlights of the day included new aircraft like the Airbus A400M military airlifter, and old-stagers such as the delta-wing Avro Vulcan, currently maintained in flying order by an enthusiast group, and good for them. The Vulcan’s shape gave it stealth-like abilities long before stealth became a design essential for survival in aerial combat...

A380 airliner
For model fans, shows like this are fantastic. Wandering round the real machines parked by the flightline reveals so much detail you just never see in photos. And as for weathering, one look at the A380 demo airliner should give you airbrush modellers perfect guidance for a careful bit of subtly realistic dirtying down.

Models on display
Being an industry trade event, there were fewer enthusiast shops than at many other shows; even so, there were plenty of models on display, both in the trade halls, and for sale in exhibition tents out in the sunshine. Trade models came large and small, and were fascinating for their variety, from rockets to rotorcraft. Models for sale showed just how popular readybuilts have become - it was a near clean-sweep for them, with only a few construction kits on display.

Fine levels of detail
Among our observations were the incredible levels of detail now being incorporated into metal kits. In particular, a Sukhoi Su-27 impressed us with its ultra-fine panel detail, while a Douglas Skyraider had a jewel-like sliding canopy, and a complete range of ordnance slotted neatly into a shiny plastic case - rockets, bombs, tanks, you name it - all ready and waiting to be hung under those straight wings. Just beautiful.

Air Show dates
Enjoy the pictures above, and we’ll hope to post some video clips in a short while. The Farnborough Air Show alternates annually with Paris, so in 2011 we aim to be reporting from the land of vin rouge, escargots, garlic - and home to Airbus Industrie and Heller model kits.

The pictures show, top to bottom:
1  Chinese rocket models were popular with video crews.
2  JF-17 Thunder combat jet, co-produced by Pakistan and China.
3  Northrop Grumman hybrid air vehicle, looking more like a Dan Dare-era spaceship than a surveillance airship.
4  1:1 scale mockup of the planned 1000 mph (1609 km/h) Bloodhound, being developed to break the Land Speed Record (LSR) in the near future, perhaps as soon as 2011.
5  Temporary model shop for showgoers.
6  Lineup of large-scale display models. These are wood-based, nicely finished, and suitable for desktop display, but lack the intricate detail of plastic kits or metal ready-builts.

Visit the 2010 Farnborough International Airshow here.

The A400M is available as a 1:200 scale model direct from Airbus here.

A variety of Sukhoi aircraft is available here.

THE BONNEVILLE RUN

A MAT IRVINE REVIEW
The range of cars you can get in kit form is pretty wide - sports, rally, custom, funny, NASCAR, Formula One, American, Japanese, German, French, Italian, British and many more besides. But one kit zone that’s conspicuous by its near total absence is Land Speed Record (LSR) cars, especially if you want them in 1:24/1:25 scale. Smaller sizes, particularly in 1:43 ‘diecast’ scale are better served, but larger models can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

In 1:24/25 scale there is only one LSR subject available, Revell’s Mickey Thompson Challenger 1. Merit did Donald Campbell’s Bluebird, though that was more like 1:30 scale. Doyusha made Spirit of America in 1:32, and MPC were going to make the Budweiser Rocket. That would have been to 1:25 scale, but in the end it was a no-show. Add the Summers Brothers’ Goldenrod (it was the wheel-driven LSR holder from 1965-1991) as a solid-resin kit in 1:25 scale from Jimmy Flintstone, and... that’s almost it!

However, there is one more - Aoshima’s 2006 kit of the Mazda RX-7, as tuned by the Racing Beat tuning company (note the way Aoshima has used the name on the box to promo the kit). This RX-7 ran at Bonneville in 1986 in the C-GT class for Grand Touring Cars, and was a project by the American enthusiast magazine Car and Driver. The ‘Don Sherman’ named on the window glass was the magazine’s editor at the time. A Google search when I was writing this piece bought up the December 1986 issue of Car and Driver that featured the run, and also where a copy was for sale from an online dealer.

The Aoshima kit matches the real colour scheme pretty closely - usually no two schemes are identical race to race. However, the only decals missing are, oddly enough, the actual Car and Driver ones! There are also some compromises to the kit itself. Aoshima already produced the Mazda RX-7 in various forms, so this is a standard road car, with just enough extra parts added to turn it into the Bonneville racer. The body exterior is mostly fine, but the underside and general chassis are wrong - my advice is to paint the underparts black and forget about the issue. Lastly, although the interior has the left-hand-drive set-up, it lacks racing instruments and roll-cage - but you do get the specially-made Goodyear tyres.

Overall though, the Aoshima RX-7 is worth the effort, and as you can see from the pictures, looks pretty good set against the actual Car and Driver issue I purchased for the shot.

The Racing Beat RX-7 is available from online supplier Models for Sale here.

Visit Aoshima here.