STUDEBAKER MUSEUM: MODELS IN MINIATURE AND FULL SIZE

MAT IRVINE:
The new 16-page colour booklet that comes with the AMT Avanti kit was produced to celebrate the Avanti’s 50th anniversary in 2013, in conjunction with the Studebaker National Museum in South Bend, Indiana, also the home town of Round 2 LLC, who make the kit.

I went to the Studebaker Museum not long ago, so here is a selection of pictures to give you an idea of what gems lie inside its walls: the place certainly well worth a visit if you are in the area.

Once inside, you can see  clearly that the Avanti remains one of the most striking designs to to be penned and built in the US.

Original 1:10 scale clay design for the Avanti, completed by Loewy Associates.

A very different automobile
For a start, the Avanti was built with a glass-fibre body, itself not unique (the Corvette has one too) but the Avanti was a four-seater. The car also came with an optional Paxton supercharger, had less chrome that was usual for the period, and was shaped by famed industrial designer, Raymond Loewy, who also designed the earlier 1953 Commander Starlight coupe, which features as an AMT kit.

Ready-built model Avanti in the Studebaker Museum’s club room.

Designer credits
Loewy was not ‘just’ a car designer either. Some of his other credits include the super-streamlined Pennsylvania Railroad S1 locomotive, livery for the US Presidential jet, Air Force One, the US Postal Service eagle logo, even elements for the interior of the 1973-79 US space station, Skylab.

Visit the Studebaker Museum here.

Studebaker models and miniatures here.

SPACE - CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT

Mat Irvine reports on a magabook for space fans

Space is a colourful new release from Key Publishing, the outfit behind the recently-launched Airfix Model World magazine. Space is written by David Baker, a well-known space writer, as well as once being a NASA space scientist.

Chronicle of the high frontier

Space has 134 full-colour detail-packed pages, so there is much to pore over. Information includes details of space exploration - early American rocket plane flights, the launch of Sputnik 1 and the Space Race, if it ever was one, between the US and Soviet Union. The latter certainly took an early lead, with Yuri Gagarin’s historic orbital flight of 12 April 1961, even if the Americans were not far behind with the Mercury capsule program. 

Later missions covered

Space goes on to chart the later missions from both nations, culminating with Apollo and the Moon landings, then goes on to Skylab of 1973, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project of 1975. The Space Shuttle is, not surprisingly, well covered, though somewhat ironically Shuttle flights end later this year, after three decades of missions. Space features separate sections on the Hubble Space Telescope, Mir, and the International Space Station, finishing with a brief look at what the future could bring.

Useful information

For space modellers, the book is definitely worth a look, as the pages are packed from cover to cover with excellent pictures. And these can form an excellent reference file for adding those extra detail and weathering touches. 

Vostok kit in 1:144 scale

The only solid reference to modelling in Space is a passing one, with the back cover advertising five recent Airfix space kits. But as you’ll note from the pic above, the ad’s lead item is Yuri Gagarin’s Vostok, made to 1:144 scale. Watch this space for a closer look at this very interesting kit.

Space makes a solid ‘curl up with a book’ choice. It is available from magazine stores, price £4.99 GBP ($13.95 CAN)

The pictures show, top to bottom:

1  The cover of Space features a suited astronaut with the Moon behind.

2  Double page spreads are packed with pictures and reading matter. This one features the near-disastrous Apollo 13 mission.

3  The Mir space station spread highlights the visit by UK astronaut, Helen Sharman.

4  Back cover showing recent Airfix space issues.

SPACE IN MINIATURE MODEL REFERENCE GUIDES

Mat Irvine reports
Mike Mackowski is a long-time space modeller and one of the main members of the online Yahoo ‘Space Modelers’ group. Over some years now, Mike has compiled seven hardcopy books especially for modellers on spacecraft topics, including titles for Gemini, Mercury and two volumes on Apollo, one for the Command Service Module and one for the Lunar Module. Now he has produced his first ‘Tech Report’, a series intended to be shorter and to be available only as a download, thus having the advantage that they can be in colour.

Skylab details
Tech Report #1.0 (TR1) is on Skylab, prompted by Mike’s particular interest in America’s first space station. Mike worked for a time at McDonnell Douglas in St Louis, where Skylab’s airlock module was built. Previously he had spent time as a student at NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where the Skylab trainer was housed. He was also at Marshall when Skylab was actually launched in 1973.

What’s in the TR1 pdf
TR1 contains images of the actual Skylab (perhaps surprisingly, not that many were taken) and many drawings showing schematics of what was a very complex object, especially when it came to the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) that once in orbit, had to rotate 90 degrees from its stowed launch position.

Making a 1:96 scale Skylab
TR1’s end-section has details of Skylab models that have been available (not many) with reference to my own Creating Space book, and then a chapter on modelling a Skylab in 1:96 scale. In all, you get 22 pages as a pdf download, well worth the asking price of $6.00 USD.

Visit Yahoo Space Modelers group here.

For Tech Report #1.0 and previous books, check out Space in Miniature here.

See Creating Space here.

The pictures show, top to bottom:
1  TR1 download cover.
2-3  Space in Miniature hardcopy covers.
4  Mike Mackowski (left) with Mat Irvine at the 2002 US IPMS Nationals held at Virginia Beach, US.
5  Logo for the Yahoo Space Modelers group.