Welcome! This site
was created to chronicle my lifelong model aviation hobby, and to provide some valuable resources for visitors.
- Kirt Blattenberger
AMA 92498

My Models:
Airplanes, Boats,
Helicopters, Rockets
Airplanes and Rockets
Modeling in Erie, PA
 
Airplanes & Rockets
Modeling Forums
©1996-2012
Kirt Blattenberger with E-flight Taylorcraft on Snow Skis - Airplanes and Rockets
Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) | Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) | Int'l RC Helicopter Association (IRCHA)
League of Silent Flight (LSF) | National Association of Rocketry (NAR) | National Free Flight Society (NFFS) | Society of Antique Modelers (SAM)

Revell Advertisement - "Win This Full-Size Gemini Spacecraft!"
February 1967 Model Airplane News

Airplanes and Rockets - February 1967 Model Airplane News
Aircraft modeling has undergone significant changes over the decades - both in technology and preferences. Magazines like American Aircraft Modeler, and American Modeler before that, were the best venues for capturing snapshots of the status quo of the day.

I have been scanning and posting excerpts from my collection of AAM and AM, concentrating on model building articles and old advertisements. Whether you are here to wax nostalgic, or are just interested in learning history, hopefully you will find what you are seeking. As time permits, I will be glad to scan articles for you. All copyrights (if any) are hereby acknowledged.
This particular page is from page  of the February 1967 issue of Model Airplane News magazine. It is the first time I can recall seeing this contest by Revell that offered to the winner a "full-size Gemini spacecraft!" In 1967, I was nine years old and was a model rocket lover. Like me, a lot of kids would all have - in the vernacular of the day - "given our right arms" to win a contest like this!

See the ad below.

A couple years ago, I wrote a short article on an experience I had way back in the 1970s where a friend, Jerry Flynn, and I discovered an actual Gemini space capsule that had been used for a human flight sitting in the aeronautics laboratory at the University of Maryland; the ablation shield was clearly burned. It was sitting on a dolly, nose up, with the access hatch open. It was begging to an occupant. We each actually climbed into the module. Click here to read it.

Airplanes and Rockets - Full-size Gemini prototype at the Oregon Museum of Science and IndustryI just did a Google search on this contest and amazingly enough, someone else AIrplanes and Rockets - Gemini V space capsulerecently posted the same question about a year ago and actually has a copy of the report in Boy's Life magazine. It turns out that a 13-year-old kid in Portland, Oregon won it, and the Gemini prototype is now on display at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. That is a photo of it to the left. Here is a link to the article (unfortunately, the link is no longer active). There were many iterations of the Gemini capsule, and this one appears to be the Gemini V model. The one that Jerry and I sat in was the shorter Gemini IV model, if I remember correctly.

  Airplanes and Rockets - Revell ad for Gemini spacecraft contest