Merry Christmas, Apollo Style!

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while might remember that I had a problem with my Estes Saturn V. The problem was that I had taken so long to build (or even open it) that it was now a collectible kit and I COULDN'T open it. So there it sat in my rocket room; all shrink wrapped up with nowhere to go...

Well this Christmas, Santa decided to help me out! For, under the tree I found...

The NEW Estes Saturn V!!! And this time, I opened the sucker! Let's take a look, shall we?

The open box. I love the look of the massive BT-101! 

This version is based on the Centuri kit, as is evidenced by the vacuformed wraps. The old Estes kit used card stock. There are advantages to both...

The styrine parts pack. These include the capsule and escape tower (which fly) and the engine nozzels (which don't). 

Interestingly, there is NO balsa in this kit. The fins are two piece styrine.

Even though there is no balsa, there are some hardwood dowels. 

The decal sheet is rather small for a model of this size, but most of the visual impact is from the painted roll patterns, not decals.

So there you have it! I can now have my cake and eat it too! I'm pretty sure my version will be a cluster, but I haven't decided exactly what kind yet. I just can't bring myself to fly a Saturn on a single engine. Yes, additional nose weight will probably be added.

So there you go! Even at 54, Santa can come through.

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!