Revell H-233 Convair F-102A By Al Superczynski

Now owned by the Revell Group, LLC and a part of Revell-Monogram, the original Revell, Inc. was based in Venice, California and was one of the first plastic model kit manufacturers in the USA. Highly successful throughout the 1950s, Revell grew to be a dominant force in the market. What baby-boomer modeler doesn't remember smearing tube glue on one classic Revell kit or another?

While most early Revell aircraft kits were scaled to fit a standard-sized box rather than made to a constant scale they were at least fairly accurate for the most part, if not especially well-detailed. This Delta Dagger in about 1/77 scale was always one of my childhood favorites. The kit was based on an early production machine with the short vertical tail and has been reissued many times over the years but as far as I know the original 'S' kit release was the only time it included one of Revell's neat swivel stands.

I carried a soft spot for these old kits into adulthood and often built one basically out-of-the box, gear up, and 'in flight' on its swivel stand. During my last tour of duty in Germany at Patch Barracks near Stuttgart I did both the Revell 1/64 scale F-104A and 1/110 scale American Airlines Electra (!). This was in around 1983 or '84.

I didn't know it at the time but a local German friend, Wolfgang Perez, was smitten by those two models, eventually influencing him to collect and build the old Revell kits almost to the exclusion of any others. We've been in occassional contact since my move to Arkansas in 1986 and he just recently told me why he's obsessed with these classic old models.

He recently sent me some pictures of his nostalgic F-102 and generously agreed to share them with my readers. The model is covered with Bare-Metal brand foil, as are all his natural metal finish aircraft, and treated to an accurate re-creation of the original kit decals courtesy of Wolfgang's talents with Corel Draw and his ALPS printer.

I think you have to admit that Wolfgang has succeeded in making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The kit contained only 20 silver parts, four in clear for the canopy and stand, and a metal locking ring for the swivel ball. Cockpit detail consists of a single piece incorporating a pilot on his ejection seat and a crude instrument panel. Building the model in flight neatly solves the twin problems of a greatly simplified landing gear and virtually no detail in the shallow gear wells, further reducing the count of airframe parts used to a grand total of ten including the little ball for mounting the plane on its stand! His clean building style and meticulous finishing technique have greatly enhanced what is essentially a very simple kit. I've also seen pictures of his completed B-58 and F-104, and the ongoing restoration of a previously-built F-94C, and hope to share these with you in the near future as well.