Bonjour à tous,
Je vous relaye un message reçu sur le forum Space-modelers. Visiblement les kits de la R7 n'ont pas une excellente presse et nécessite pas mal de travail si l'on souhaite avoir une maquette précise (ce qui au 1/72 est tout à fait justifiable). Le bon point est que NewWare prépare des kits de conversion qui permettront de faire ressortir tout le potentiel de cette échelle sans compter la possibilité d'utiliser les Vostok, Voslhod et Soyouz au 1/72 de chez Realspace. Finalement quelques photos du kit.
I have posted several photos of new 1/72 Mach 2 R-7/Luna 1 kit.
The quality of the kit is not very high. On the other side price of 40 Euros for a kit which size can be compared to 1/144 Saturn V is not much.
Here are some comments:
PANEL LINES
seems to me quite rough, evoking "good old" Matchbox. There are not too much lines, more should be engraved by modeler. Especially upper cone (part above boosters hinges) is completely without any panel line.
DETAILS
Also rough, seems to be some missing, for example hinges of boosters - on boosters are on top "normal" cones, not hinges.
LUNA STAGE
quite schematic, the bottom is completely out - just flat circle with engine in the middle. In fact it was the same stage as used for launching Vostoks.
INTERSTAGE TRUSS
is divided into 8 (?) "V"s which should be built between top of 1st stage and bottom of Luna stage. Trusses seems to me (opposite to the rest of the kit) too delicate (thin) and schematic.
INSTRUMENT SECTION ON TOP OF THE FIRST STAGE
is completely out. Dimensions are maybe close to later version, which was used for Molniya (Soyuz) LVs. Completely new should be made. Seems to me that Peter Alway Rockets of the World was used as the major reference - you can find there identical instrument section.
DECALS
There are no decals in the kit.
Building of the kit seems to be quite easy. If you want to build it just out of the box, there should be no big troubles. It is great that stand is included, as it is problematic for the model to stand on first stage and boosters vernier engines.
I am now upscaling my NWD007 1/144 R-7 decals to 1/72 scale. This is not just upscaling, but I will add some more stencils, which were just too small for the 1/144 scale. Also detail sets for this row of kits are planned, probably including scribing masks to bring more engraved details to your model. There will be sure new bottom of Luna stage, instrument section, probably including interstage truss, sure some corrections to hinges between core stage and boosters, probably new bottoms of boosters to fix engines in correct angles (engines were paralel to axis of the core stage, not boosters), new boosters fins including hinge and maybe more. Having all this I hope that it will be easy to build quite nice model of R-7 in this big scale.
I am also planning to create conversion with new upper stages - some spy satellites, LK shroud, original Soyuz etc.
I am looking forward to build my collection of 1/72 R-7s. Just starting looking for room to display them.
Tomas Kladiva
New Ware
