Modelling > Retro Futuristic GB
Brian da Basher's Retro Flying Future Thing #3 for the Retro Futuristic GB
Brian da Basher:
With great fanfare, the National Aero-Space Plane (NASP) project was announced by President Reagan in his 1986 State of the Union address. It is often forgotten that the Gipper was a long-time proponent of aeronautics well before he entered politics.
Sensing the opportunity provided by government funding of such an audacious concept, many large U.S. firms started to position themselves to take advantage of the nascent NASP technology.
It's no wonder that the foremost U.S. international carrier, Pan American Airlines, would want to be in on the ground floor.
Pan Am began their involvement in NASP by apparently mobilizing their entire marketing department, with stunning results.
Bold posters and futuristic Pan Am hyper-sonic airliner desktop models began appearing at select travel agents known to have well-heeled clientele.
Unfortunately for the fast, bright future of global air travel, the NASP engine technology never became workable.
This, coupled with the demise of Pan Am meant no one would ever fly from New York to Tokyo in two hours in an arrow-like white craft with those iconic blue globes on the tail.
The NASP project breathed its last within a year of Pan Am folding and little of it survives today except for this desk-top model found in an abandoned travel office just outside of Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Few historians acknowledge that Pan Am ever had such a bold plan for the future, but some of us know better even if it was ahead if its time.
Brian da Basher
Brian da Basher:
This all began with a Monogram Snap-Tite "Orient Express" kit I picked up for a whopping $2 at the Renton Show a couple of years back. Isn't that box art uplifting?
What's inside is about as simple as it gets.
Still, you gotta love a kit that's a whiff right out of the box.
I took inspiration instead of intimidation from the Snap-Tite logo and decided to build this one like I did many of my first models when I was a kid.
That meant no paint, only decals. I almost got away without using glue, but since this kit's almost 30 years old, it would only Snap so Tite.
The one modification was the decals. I used a sliced-up 1/200 DC-9 cockpit decal and added hatches, registration and U.S. flags from spares. The cool Pan Am logos were printed for me by Frank many moons ago. I can't thank you enough for these, Frank!
I hope you enjoyed the Pan Am NASP airliner and reading a little more aircraft history that's flown by too fast to get written down.
Brian da Basher
Tophe:
Wow wonderful! This past future would have been amazing! :-*
CiTrus90:
Beautiful!!
finsrin:
Is speed and grace wrapped in zactly right looking Pan Am markings. :smiley:
Looks related to some the Aurora project aircraft.
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