I've spent most of my teen and adult life on summer vacations along the eastern shore of Maryland & Virginia. Most of which were on Chincoteague Island. Access to Chincoteague Island is by a roadway passing across Wallops Island directly through Wallops Island Nasa Launch facility near it's visitors center.
I've spent many happy hours over the years admiring, photographing and later actually getting to measure many of the really interesting display examples of a number of "First Flown" Rockets and Missiles Launched at this research facility.
Most interesting and Daunting (as a modeler) has been the Tiamat missile and it's first flight test booster.
Heres a little of the History on this fascinating prototype missile: The JB Series research (JB-1 through JB-10) for The US Army-Air-Force was introduced in early 1943.
The Tiamat JB-3 "Jet-Bomb" is the US Army Air Force, first subsonic air-to-air missile program initiated in January of 1944 under project MX-570 with the prime contractor as Huges.
First test launched along a 0 length, angled rack from Wallops Island, Va using a 7 chamber custom booster on July 4, 1945. I'm sure that would have been a KEWL 4th of July for the residents of Chincoteague Island
Later (1946-1947) the Tiamat would be deployed from underwing pylons on A-26 Invader aircraft without the booster. Tiamat aquired it's targets by semi-active Radar seeker w/ warhead triggered by proximity fuse.
I have been dreaming of modeling this boosted missile for as Long as I've been visiting the Wallops Island visitors center where the last remaining example of this vehicle is hanging from the ceiling. To be sure it is quite an impressive craft.
Below are a few photos of the missile I intend to build. My original thought was to produce a craft as shown in the museum photos in all yellow. That said I have an early color drawing from 1946 with the missile in yellow body with red nose and red & blue wings. This also looks pretty kewl but I can not find a single photo of the missile with this coloring so looks like the all yellow will be our color scheme.
Work on documenting the Tiamat, drawings and templates begain in ernest after getting permission from the Museum to measure the exhibit vehicle in Augusst of 2005 with additional access granted in October of 2008, and September of 2009.
Actual work on the Scale model began in 2009 but was suspended rethinking the scale reducing the model size to 1: 23.5765 to use MMX motors rather then the invisioned C6-0's in the 7 motor booster to increase the chance of actually making the model a 2-stage, Gap staged Cluster as flown from Wallops on it's initial flight.
The current plan is to indeed produce this model to that scale, flying on a 7-MMX-II-NE booster with a single MMX-II sustainer. Should be an interesting first flight. Work on the booster and sustainer begin in ernest 07-05-2016.
Here are a few of the full size vehicle photos collected:
I've spent many happy hours over the years admiring, photographing and later actually getting to measure many of the really interesting display examples of a number of "First Flown" Rockets and Missiles Launched at this research facility.
Most interesting and Daunting (as a modeler) has been the Tiamat missile and it's first flight test booster.
Heres a little of the History on this fascinating prototype missile: The JB Series research (JB-1 through JB-10) for The US Army-Air-Force was introduced in early 1943.
The Tiamat JB-3 "Jet-Bomb" is the US Army Air Force, first subsonic air-to-air missile program initiated in January of 1944 under project MX-570 with the prime contractor as Huges.
First test launched along a 0 length, angled rack from Wallops Island, Va using a 7 chamber custom booster on July 4, 1945. I'm sure that would have been a KEWL 4th of July for the residents of Chincoteague Island
Later (1946-1947) the Tiamat would be deployed from underwing pylons on A-26 Invader aircraft without the booster. Tiamat aquired it's targets by semi-active Radar seeker w/ warhead triggered by proximity fuse.
I have been dreaming of modeling this boosted missile for as Long as I've been visiting the Wallops Island visitors center where the last remaining example of this vehicle is hanging from the ceiling. To be sure it is quite an impressive craft.
Below are a few photos of the missile I intend to build. My original thought was to produce a craft as shown in the museum photos in all yellow. That said I have an early color drawing from 1946 with the missile in yellow body with red nose and red & blue wings. This also looks pretty kewl but I can not find a single photo of the missile with this coloring so looks like the all yellow will be our color scheme.
Work on documenting the Tiamat, drawings and templates begain in ernest after getting permission from the Museum to measure the exhibit vehicle in Augusst of 2005 with additional access granted in October of 2008, and September of 2009.
Actual work on the Scale model began in 2009 but was suspended rethinking the scale reducing the model size to 1: 23.5765 to use MMX motors rather then the invisioned C6-0's in the 7 motor booster to increase the chance of actually making the model a 2-stage, Gap staged Cluster as flown from Wallops on it's initial flight.
The current plan is to indeed produce this model to that scale, flying on a 7-MMX-II-NE booster with a single MMX-II sustainer. Should be an interesting first flight. Work on the booster and sustainer begin in ernest 07-05-2016.
Here are a few of the full size vehicle photos collected:
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