1/48 ZELL Conversion or similar

[GTX_Admin]

Folks,

Does anyone know of a kit or conversion to do a 1/48 ZELL Launcher?

Specifically, I am interested in the rocket booster and attachment bits as shown below:



I thought there might be something on the likes of Shapeways or similar but can't find anything.

[The Big Gimper]

Scratch build?



1/48 Hasegawa F-104G "ZELL"

[GTX_Admin]

That's an option...but I am lazy

[The Big Gimper]

I with you on that bro'. Buy before build.  :)

[elmayerle]

If you can find it, a very, very old Hawk kit of a ZELL F-84, IIRC.  That's the only ZELL kit I know of in any scale.

[GTX_Admin]

If you can find it, a very, very old Hawk kit of a ZELL F-84, IIRC.  That's the only ZELL kit I know of in any scale.

That would be this one?



I did consider that. The only thing is that I only want the booster bits.

[LemonJello]

If there's a good .stl file of the booster floating in the aether-net, I could take a crack at printing it at work.

[elmayerle]

If you don't mind going with two boosters instead of one, you could probably fudge with the boosters from a Revell Snark kit; it has two large ones that might scaleorama down nicely for 1/48 (odd note: when I was doing the booster rigging for Army-TSSAM, which also had two boosters, I was able to reference the rigging instructions for the Snark from someone there at Northrop who had worked on it).

[Jeffry Fontaine]

If you are willing to do some kit-bashing you could use the launcher and one of the rocket boost motors from the 1:48th scale Lindberg Snark kit.

The kit comes with two rocket booster motors.

[finsrin]

If you can find it, a very, very old Hawk kit of a ZELL F-84, IIRC.  That's the only ZELL kit I know of in any scale.

That would be this one?



I did consider that. The only thing is that I only want the booster bits.

Gee Whiz - What the hey - Zowie  - How and where on planet did you find this box picture ?
Biggest kit surprise of the year for me.    Totally clueless there was even ever such as kit.

[elmayerle]

Would you believe I remember it from an old Hawk catalog I saw way back when as a youngster?  Of course, the NASM video "Runways of Fire" definitely renewed my memory.

[jcf]

I second Jeff's suggestion. The kit is old, but in my example of the most recent re-pop everything is well moulded.

[GTX_Admin]

Good suggestion re the Snark guys :)

[elmayerle]

Good suggestion re the Snark guys :)

If you do that, just be sure you get the nozzle cant correct (or cant and clocking angle if you use two).  The thrust vector line (or combined thrust vector lines for two boosters) has to go through the combined vehicle cg at launch or you're going to have a wild ride.  A launch mentioned in Runways of Fire demonstrated this, they left the combined vehicle sitting in the sun and the fuel warmed up shifting the wing shape just enough that the booster thrust vector wasn't through the cg anymore, the pilot had quite the wild ride when they did launch.

[The Big Gimper]

Good suggestion re the Snark guys :)

If you do that, just be sure you get the nozzle cant correct (or cant and clocking angle if you use two).  The thrust vector line (or combined thrust vector lines for two boosters) has to go through the combined vehicle cg at launch or you're going to have a wild ride.  A launch mentioned in Runways of Fire demonstrated this, they left the combined vehicle sitting in the sun and the fuel warmed up shifting the wing shape just enough that the booster thrust vector wasn't through the cg anymore, the pilot had quite the wild ride when they did launch.

To get the cant right, you first need to get the decanter ...

[elmayerle]

Enough of that will guarantee you get things wrong

[Jeffry Fontaine]

@Greg/GTX - did you ever pick up the Lindberg Snark kit?

[GTX_Admin]

I believe I did - is in the stash somewhere...

[Jeffry Fontaine]

That kit includes a nice little CLETRAC high-speed tractor with a lot more detail than the CLETRAC provided in the Monogram B-24 kit.