A while ago I wrote a post entitled “How Apollo Got To The Moon”, which featured a few orbit graphics generated in Celestia, like the one above (which shows the orientation of Apollo 11’s departure orbit relative to the most intense region of the Van Allen Radiation Belt). I got a few enquiries about the data … Continue reading Finding Apollo Trajectory Data
Tag Archives: Spaceflight
Fantastic Plastic 1/48 Northrop HL-10
The Northrop HL-10 was an experimental wingless “lifting body” aircraft that flew in the late ’60s and early ’70s. As the box art above indicates, it’s familiar to many people of a certain age from the opening sequence of the television series The Six Million Dollar Man. It was one of a series of lifting … Continue reading Fantastic Plastic 1/48 Northrop HL-10
Hasegawa 1/48 SH-3H Sea King (Apollo Recovery SH-3D Conversion): Part 4
With the main bodywork of the aircraft completed last time, I finally got her standing on her undercarriage, in the form a set of ResKit resin wheels—slightly more detailed than the kit parts, with a nice open fork for the rear wheel. The kit parts for the undercarriage legs need a very slight modification. They … Continue reading Hasegawa 1/48 SH-3H Sea King (Apollo Recovery SH-3D Conversion): Part 4
Hasegawa 1/48 SH-3H Sea King (Apollo Recovery SH-3D Conversion): Part 3
At the end of the my previous post in this build log, I was just about ready to glue the big bits of fuselage together. Which went surprisingly well. The cockpit canopy comes in three sections, and that went less well—the side windows were awkward to align properly, and both of them made brief excursions … Continue reading Hasegawa 1/48 SH-3H Sea King (Apollo Recovery SH-3D Conversion): Part 3
Hasegawa 1/48 SH-3H Sea King (Apollo Recovery SH-3D Conversion): Part 2
In my last post, I still had a few bits and pieces of scratch building to do—a stills camera tucked behind the starboard sponson, facing backwards, and some weapons mount points. I haven’t been able to find any good views of the stills camera beyond a couple of glimpses in Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11 … Continue reading Hasegawa 1/48 SH-3H Sea King (Apollo Recovery SH-3D Conversion): Part 2
The Coordinate Axes Of Apollo-Saturn: Part 2
In my previous post on this topic, I described how flight engineers working on the Apollo programme assigned XYZ coordinate axes to the Saturn V launch vehicle and to the two Apollo spacecraft, the Command/Service Module (CSM) and the Lunar Module (LM). This time, I’m going to talk about how these axes came into play … Continue reading The Coordinate Axes Of Apollo-Saturn: Part 2
Hasegawa 1/48 SH-3H Sea King (Apollo Recovery SH-3D Conversion): Part 1
After building Airfix’s old 1/72 scale Apollo recovery Sea King, I swore a mighty oath that I was never going to make another 1/72 helicopter. But I recently got hold of a set of Starfighter Decals’ 1/48 scale markings for the “Old 66” Apollo recovery Sea King, which inspired me to go around again on … Continue reading Hasegawa 1/48 SH-3H Sea King (Apollo Recovery SH-3D Conversion): Part 1
The Coordinate Axes Of Apollo-Saturn: Part 1
As a matter arising from my long, slow build of a Saturn V model, I became absorbed in the confusing multiplicity of coordinate systems and axes applied to the Apollo launch vehicle and spacecraft. So I thought I’d provide a guide to what I’ve learned, before I forget it all again. (Note, I won’t be … Continue reading The Coordinate Axes Of Apollo-Saturn: Part 1
Pegasus Hobbies 1/350 Von Braun Lunar Lander
This is Pegasus Hobbies’ version of Wernher von Braun’s original conception of how we’d land on the moon—in a stonking great 4000-ton spacecraft with 30 engines and a crew capacity of 25. (Actually, three stonking great ships were planned—one carrying cargo and the others carrying crew.) The landing would be preceded by a lunar fly-by … Continue reading Pegasus Hobbies 1/350 Von Braun Lunar Lander
Revell 1/96 Saturn V: Fully Assembled
This is the final post of my three-year project to assemble Revell’s 1/96-scale Saturn V model kit. It’s intended to provide a few views of the completed model, and to act as a sort of index to the various sections of the stage-by-stage build log I wrote as I went along. The kit is fundamentally … Continue reading Revell 1/96 Saturn V: Fully Assembled