SN20 cancelled; P-40 finished.

So I was working on SpaceX's Starship SN20 with eventually the plan to add its BN4 booster to create the whole giant stack. But recently, after watching some space news channel on YT, I heard both of the stages already are obsolete. And, well, of course. SpaceX is letting their their rockets evolve faster than I can build a model. Faster than they can actually build an launch them themselves.
And now the whole stack apparently is rendered obsolete. As someone on Reddit said: “The designs have iterated so far away from a flying corn silo to an actual spaceship that the only use in launching the old design would be to see something crash or blow up.” And although I find the technology of SN20 hardly compares to that of a corn silo, of course that isn’t enough to launch something. I only hope they still put those brilliant but also quickly ageing Raptor 1-engines to use.

Nice shiny metallic card and detailed heat shield tiles.

Proof of concept. Just one ring and the tilework glued over the metallic stuff to create some relief.
Edges coloured. It looks damn good. The relief is exactly how it should look.

The latest version of Starship has different vents that simultaneously function as manoeuvring jets. The booster has them too and an entirely different  layout of the COPV-tanks around the outside, They now apparently are placed in a long row and with an aerodynamic cover they act as chines to improve the flight characteristics of the rocket during the return. I like seeing those changes happening on the fly. It is a little reminiscent of how NASA in the sixties improved their designs on the go. It is exciting and mind-boggling how they solve problems, how quickly they do it and how they improve the design on the fly, while working towards a launch. But the SN20 / B04 stack now apparently is nothing but an addition to the growing unused rocket garden. I'd say, museum stuff.

I slightly cut the metallic card to create panel lines. I used AXM's model as a template,
but I enlarged it 104% to get 1/96 scale to fit right in with the rest of my rockets.

It looks neat from here. I know. It does. But the strips with the heat shield tiles (not seen here cause they're
on the back) were quite messy. The seams were very visible and left some notable gaps. I couldn't camouflage it all with just coloured pencil. It wasn't wobbly but the amount of rings in this ogive shape I think, also played
a role in the messy look. And also because I wasn't able to easily test fit the tile strips on to the metallic card, because I had to use CA glue to stick it to the smooth surface. Lesson for the next try. Test fit first.

A long time ago, I decided I would only build stuff that actually has flown or at least flew once to keep the shelves free from clutter (i.e. unflown and untested spacecraft - apart from What-ifs of course.), I will wait for the final first flown prototype.

Luckily, I wasn't too far in with building the rocket, I only finished the nose cone. The result was not bad, but far from good. The seams were too visible and the whole matter was quite messy, at least to my eyes. It was a good lesson, and I still really want to build the giant stack. Bit now i'll wait until there has been one that actually flew.

So I am diverting again, making a little… Prudenziative evasion. This time it’s a Curtiss P40 to add to the collection. As usual, I take Zio's planes in a quite light manner. I don't go for detail, I don't go for perfection, I just go for the sheer joy of building a little paper plane that looks the part. For more, click on the "read the rest" thingy below the photo.

As with all Fabrizio’s models, it is quite intuitive how things need to be shaped and where stuff needs to go. But it also is amazing how beautiful the shape is when working on it. Fabrizio was an artist.

The wings are a little harder to get them to join the fuselage part but the end result is pretty neat. I first glued the chines (hull-to-wing-section) to the hull and then put the wings together. The upper part of the wing joiner was not fitted to the wings but to the fuselage. I used the same strips as where the chines were glued to as the reference of where it should go. It gave the hull its final shape. The wings then were shoved in position and carefully glued. Some trimming was done afterwards. The empennage is, as usual, edge glued to the fuselage and the cockpit canopy is a piece of cake.

The engine is a sewing pin, rolled into a strip of regular 80 gram paper, with a small 12mm card circle at both ends. The pin now is secured inside the rolled strip. The point sticks out of the front end of the plane. The prop was reinforced with some CA glue. A 12mm circle cut from a Lee gel lighting filter sample book (ugly colour pink I never use for my models) was used as a lubricant washer between the fuselage and the spinner.

Engine exhausts were doubled up (base) and considerably thickened up with a bit of passepartout-card (exhaust pipes) I had laying around.
I left off the fuel tank to keep the plane's lines sleek. The landing gear was the only tweaked thing because I added some silver tape to the struts and used passepartout card for the wheels.

Some beauty shots:

Yeah, I put the aerodynamic covers of the wheel wells on the wrong wing. The hinges should have been facing inward. No one sees it. Oh shoot. You did. Oh well. Have a cry. (-:

Other stuff:
For the rest, I can tell that the premiere of the ANS film was good, lots of compliments and in the aftermath also lots of other people in the mail telling us how they enjoyed the film, or that they heard about it and when the film would be playing in a theatre near them. That is so nice to read. People actually wanting to see your film.
We actually have some shows that will be arranged for us in Eindhoven (where Philips HQ is, and Philips was one of the two main builders of the satellite), and in the summer we might have another one on the island of Texel, where astronomer Kees de Jager lived and his family has arranged something with the local flm theatre. That's so great. I love how this film has taken over.
It took eight years of my life to finish it but now it looks like it is paying back!

In my hometown the film will have its premiere next weekend (16 april 2022). By special request, the carrillion in the 97 meter high Martini Tower will play space-related pop songs in advance of the movie. We'll be able to listen on the rooftop of the Forum Groningen building, very close to the tower, in which the movie theatre is. More on that maybe in the next post.

Thanks for stopping by.

Keep safe, be nice to one another.
and Слава Україні 🇺🇦!
--PK