Willy Ley Orbital Rocket 1/193 Atlantis

Great little kit. I always wanted it as a kid and now at age 73 I finally have it!

Just received this kit and upon opening it I fould it to be a good looking kit. Very well organized and minimal flash on the parts. Most of them are molded in color and if you wanted to build it with out painting it would still be a sharp looking model on your shelf.

Item arrived the other day in perfect condition. The parts were crisp and no flash on the sprue. Atlantis's attention to quality especially with a very old mold, that has not shown its age! The reproduction instructions and the booklet by Willy was top quality nicely done. The kit is a great addition to any modeler's collection and piece of our country's early space exploration. I'm in my late 50's and this kit was first produced before I was born. I know this kit and all the kits by Atlantis are not up to the modern standards or Tamiya, Hasagawa, Academy, etc, doesn't mean this kit will not be enjoyable on the contrary, it actually bridges multiple generation gaps and a fresh change of pace. This kit, and many produced by Atlantis, are touchstones of history from the early golden age of model building. This kit will bring back memories from older generation models of their youth, and hopefully sparks interest in the new modelers of all ages. Atlantis, I greatly appreciate all that you have done and continue to do, keep up the great work!! You have a life long fan here.

I built this model when I was nine years old and I thought it was awesome. It's still Awesome! And now there really is a United States Space Force so the decals are potentially accurate. I went to the Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum site and ordered Space Force Emblem window and bumper stickers and I'm planning to print decals from them that would be accurate. I'm thinking of painting the first stage in a grey scheme similar to current B-52 and B-1 bombers and using Air Force style black serial numbers. Only the serial number will be SF24 followed by the vehicle number. The booster stage will be white and the orbiter will be white on top with a black (tile) underside. We'll see how this all goes. I'll keep you posted