The X-15 has only two parts but is nicely done. It's reasonably accurate and will look very nice with the included kit decals.
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Atlantis provides high-quality decals with their kits.
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The wing pylon needs some minor cleanup.
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The "glass" is nicely transparent. We found that the rear gunner's transparency needed a small amount trimmed off at the rounded end to improve fit in its tail slot.
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Here's a closer look at the small parts. We're not sure if the divot on the rear stab is a short-shot defect specific to our kit or a tooling issue; it'll be easy to fix either way.
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The intakes are nice representations of early B-52 engines. Most B-52 kits available nowadays portray later engines. It's refreshing to get the early versions.
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June 29, 1955: The first operational B-52 was this RB-52B, Tail# 52-8711. Note that Revell's original 1/175 B-52 kit was released prior to this. In 2018, Atlantis Models acquired the tooling to the 1/175 Revell B-52 and released it under their brand in 2019. Check out the early tip-tanks; they are well represented in the Atlantis kit.
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21st Century: The B-2 Stealth Bomber became operational in the 1990's but the B-52 has proven to be so rugged, simple and adaptable that it may keep flying even after the expensive B-2 has been replaced by the upcoming B-21.
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The Mach-2 Convair B-58 was an amazing aircraft. However, it demanded a lot of its flight and maintenance crews. The B-58 was not adaptable to changing mission requirements of the Cold War and was operational only during the 1960's.
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North American's B-70 was intended to replace the B-52 as a Mach-3 strategic bomber. ICBM's made its mission obsolete and only two test examples were finished.
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The B-52 was not originally intended to drop conventional bombs but it was adapted to do so for service during the Vietnam War. During Operation Linebacker II, over 20,000 tons of conventional bombs were dropped. This represents the largest heavy bomber campaign since World War II.
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An early SAC (Strategic Air Command) B-52 flying its nuclear deterrent mission. A single plane was capable of carrying a thermonuclear weapon (H-bomb) that had destructive power way in excess of all the ordnance dropped by over 700 B-52 sorties during Operation Rolling Thunder.
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This concept rendering shows the configuration for an upgraded B-52 with four CF56 engines. The 4-engine B-52 concept lived in limbo for decades until it was finally abandoned.
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The B-52 evolved way beyond its engines. The Pratt and Whitney TF-33 turbofans were state-of-the-art in the early 1960's when the "H" models were delivered but they have since become antiquated, dirty and inefficient compared to contemporary engines. A re-engining program has been considered for decades with the CF56 being an early potential candidate. Starting in the 1980's, the KC-135 was upgraded to the "R" variant with these engines. Replacing each podded pair of TF-33's with a single CF56 was considered for the B-52's. However, development costs were high considering the airframe changes to the B-52 required to adapt a single CF6 installation that would replace a pair of TF-33's. In the end, the Rolls Royce F-130 was chosen to replace the TF-33's one-for-one meaning the existing pylon-pod pair configuration will be sufficient and compatible with the existing airframe. The Rolls Royce F-130, designated as the BR-700 in civilian use has powered regional and corporate jets for years.
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The tail broke off this B-52 during turbulence testing. Crew reported that the aircraft experienced pronounced yaw but they were able to successfully land it. Strengthening the horizontal stabilizer mount by shortening the tail 8 feet resulted for the B-52G and H models. Flying without a tail was yet another example of the amazing B-52 being able to deliver more than it was originally designed to do.
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Upgrading remaining B-52H's to B-52J's (concept rendering shown above) will represent the first new variant for the B-52 program in over 60 years! Some analysts have predicted that the B-52 might still be in service as late as the 2050's.
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In 1959, Revell offered a gift set with their then-new 1/65 X-15 and the 1/175 B-52. The X-15 model was nearly as big as the B-52.
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Two years later, in 1961, Revell decided to tool a new X-15 model in the same scale as the B-52. Atlantis uses this same box art, which is very cool!
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This version was released in the 1970's after the Vietnam War.
Advent was an attempt by Revell to create a new-sounding brand circa 1979. That photo was simply borrowed from the "Jet Commando" box.
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The "Jet Commando" version was released in 1967 when B-52's were in the news for their conventional bombing missions in Vietnam. The SAC versions were quietly doing their thing -- flying standby missions around the northern periphery of Canada carrying live nuclear weapons in case The Unthinkable happened.
The last release of the Revell 1/175 B-52 in the USA occurred in 1979. Revell attempted to create a new sub-brand known as "Advent." As I recall, you could find these kits in department and variety stores as well as hobby shops. At the time the packaging had a very contemporary look giving the potential buyer the impression that an all-new model kit was inside that sharp-looking box. In most cases the Advent kits were older Revell subjects that perhaps hadn't been released in a while.
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Indulge us for a moment as we present a guilty pleasure, the fictional EB-52 Megafortress! Dale Brown was a B-52 navigator and published his first fiction novel, "Flight of the Old Dog," in 1987. Recall that Tom Clancy had a huge hit a few years before with "Hunt for Red October." Two former airman/aviator-authors, US Navy Veteran Stephen Coonts and USAF Veteran Dale Brown capitalized on the excitement about the new "technothriller" genre among readers and publishers to get their tales in bookstores.
Dale Brown's novel was a nice "what-if" ode to the B-52. This hypothetical version of the B-52 had stealth-paint (still officially fictional in 1987!), an SST needle-nose, and V-tail, just for starters! You'll have a leftover X-15 if you build this conversion from the Atlantis kit. Stay tuned and we'll tell you what to do with it. |
We've seen a handful of these hypothetical conversions at model contests and they're awesome! They're always built by fans of Dale Brown's books (picture from Nationstates.net).
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This is the X-15 as it looked early in the program. Note the NACA nose probe. This was used to measure basic flight characteristics typical for any type of new aircraft. It was removed for high-speed flights.
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The X-15 program completed with three aircraft built and 199 test-flights made. 13 flights exceeded 50 miles altitude and the Air Force awarded those pilots astronaut wings. However, the FAI (World Air Sports Federation) considered 100 km (62.5 mi) to be the threshold of space. Two of the thirteen flights exceeded this altitude so the X-15 officially met the definition of a spacecraft based on this criterion. The pilot who made both of these flights (Joe Walker) was awarded official astronaut status according to the FAI definition. Unfortunately, Joe Walker later perished after a midair collision during a photo-shoot involving the XB-70.
Early flights of the X-15 used a pair of XLR-11 four-chamber rocket motors to attain 16,000 lb of thrust. A single, earlier example of this engine powered the original X-1 with just 6,000 lb.
In 1959, Revell released a 1/65 X-15 model kit. We enjoyed an original edition of this kit. In 1961, Revell made a new mold for a 1/175 X-15 to include with the B-52 kit. The shape appears to be closely based on the 1/65 version. As noted above, there are several interesting versions of the early B-52 that a modeler could build from the Atlantis kit. This might leave the builder with some extra X-15's. We'll present some ideas that the experienced modeler might enjoy of some hypothetical versions of the X-15 that were proposed but not actually built.
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This rear-view of the X-15 in its early configuration shows the rear landing skids deployed. Note the angle of the struts related to the fuselage. They're incorrect on the 1/65 Revell kit!
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Aircraft #1 (Tail# 66670) with Scott Crossfield. Crossfield was already legendary when he piloted the X-15 on its first flights. He was the most experienced pilot flying rocket-powered aircraft at the time and was the ideal candidate to explore the basic flight envelope of the X-15 prior to pushing the plane beyond previous speed and altitude records.
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X-15A-2 (66671) has a special ablative protective coating--essentially a spray-on heat shield--for a Mach-6 flight attempt. In place of the ejectable lower tail, this flight had a dummy-scramjet installed.
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X-15A-2 with extra fuel tanks. The structure behind the tail was a removable equipment box with sensors behind the dome. Note the XLR-99 engine which was far more powerful (57,000 lb thrust) than the pair of XLR-11's. This was nearly ten times that of the original X-1 with its 6000-lb thrust engine, an early version of the XLR-11.
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The X-15 would have fit in a slot narrower than the bomb-bay doors. Note that the test pilot could board the X-15 after takeoff unlike the B-52.
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The B-36 was considered as a carrier aircraft for the X-15. The aircraft would have been well-suited to carry the X-15 to launch altitude. Unlike the B-52, the pilot could have entered the X-15 after takeoff. This was done successfully with the X-1/B-29 combination in 1947. The B-36 also had plenty of extra room and payload capability to have top-off tanks installed to add cryogenic fuel that would normally boil off between fueling on the ground and launch. This was an issue with the B-52 carrier. In the end, the complexity of maintaining the B-36's ten engines and worries about keeping it airworthy after the rest of the B-36's had been retired (and presumably scrapped) helped sway the decision to use the B-52. In actuality, the final B-36 flight occurred February 12, 1959, months before the first flight of the X-15. All but five (saved for museums) were scrapped.
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X-15 on The Moon? Chesley Bonestell artwork.
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Original plans for a craft to land on the Moon included many reusable concepts with return craft that would include a winged reentry glider. The "Space Race" gained focus with U.S. President John F. Kennedy's challenge to the Russians to put men on the moon before 1970. Instead of an incremental approach to develop a reusable spacecraft that could conceivably have provided repeated trips to the moon with permanent settlement possible, a quick-and-dirty get-there-soonest approach was taken with expensive one-use hardware. While the 1969 Moon Landing is seen as the greatest feat of aerospace engineering, the United States has yet to return a person to the Moon a half-century after originally going there.
Famed space artist Chesley Bonestell created a rendering of a hypothetical Moon landing craft that included a return craft very similar to the X-15. His version was bigger (note multiple crew) but the modeler could use the Atlantis 1/175 X-15 with a scratch-built booster to replicate this concept. |
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The B-52 could only take the X-15 up so high. Putting the X-15 into orbit could theoretically be done by adding it to an existing rocket booster. A single Titan II booster could not have put the X-15 into orbit since it weighed nearly twice as much as a Gemini spacecraft.
An early proposal suggested sending an X-15 into orbit atop a cluster of four Titan-1 boosters. Another suggested use of a Saturn-1 booster. An X-15 with orbital capability would require substantial redesign either with more heat resistant alloys such as titanium and/or some type of ablative coating that would have to be a lot thicker than that used for the Mach-6 flights. An X-15 returning from orbit would begin its descent from roughly Mach-23, or 17,500 miles per hour. That's about four times the Mach-6 number that the X-15 was able to achieve briefly. Another engineering consideration with these proposals is the abort-mode. We're doubtful that the XLR-99 engine (liquid-fueled) could have come up with enough instantaneous thrust to push the X-15 away from an exploding booster as effectively as a solid-fueled escape tower like that on the Apollo spacecraft. |
Four Titan-I boosters clustered would have been able to orbit an X-15.
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The engineering to mate an X-15 to a Saturn-1 booster would have been simpler than clustering four Titan-I's.
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An X-15 with a narrow-delta wing could have cruised (sustained speed) at Mach-7 and reached Mach-8. The next logical step would have been a scramjet-powered aircraft.
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Considerable study was performed on the "next" X-15 and it was nearly built. You can build your own from a leftover 1/175 X-15 from your Atlantis B-52 With X-15 kit.
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The weird and the wacky: This North American proposal takes an almost stock-looking X-15 and adds ramjets at the wingtips. The result would have allowed extended cruise, possibly in the Mach-5 range. The engines somewhat resemble those on the SR-71. The configuration reminds us of the French SNCASO Trident.
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Not much of the original X-15 remains in this scramjet-version concept and of course this one was never built. NASA later successfully flew a scramjet-powered aircraft, the X-43, to a record speed of Mach 9.68. The X-43 was a sub-scale model and unmanned.
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