Does anybody now who makes a kit of the RC-135? My grandfather flew on them during Vietnam and I think it would be a nice present to build a model for him, hopefully in 1/144 scale. Thanks in advance for letting me pick your brains!
OWL
Only one I can think of was possibly AMT/Ertl in the late 1980s or early 1990s. I think they made a KC-135, NKC-135 and RC-135V Rivet Joint. All were in 1/72 scale and are all OOP. Ebay or a good LHS with an overabundance of collectors kits might be your only course of action. I have one of those over stocked LHS places here in St Paul. I’ll do some digging and see what I find.
AMT makes a Rivet Joint in 1/72. They are long out of production but they can be found. I barely got one myself.
Your currently limited to finding as others mentioned the old AMT/ERTL release, which hopefully Italeri will also release since they hold the molds to the KC-135.
Minicraft has a family of KC-135s coming out in 1:144 starting with a KC-135E which is a good starting point for your RC-135. Depending on which variant you’re after…will depend on which mods you’ll need. RCs came in a variety of flavors.
When will the KC-135E hit the shelves??? When Minicraft has ample cash on hand to pay for the tooling.
hmmmm. it seems I don’t have much in the way of choices…if I was to grab a KC, how much modification would it take to make it into a Rivet Joint?
OWL
Owl,
I’m no expert, but I think it would take a lot of modifying with all the “lumps and bumps” and long nose on the RC-135.
I’m hoping that with the release of the Minicraft kit, aftermarket comes through with accessories to make all of the various versions of this airframe.
Here is a link to an article about converting one of the Ertl kits to a RC-135S. Techniquies should be applicable to some of the other versions of the RC-135. I’ve been patiently waiting for the 1/144 series from Minicraft and have gathered up a few of the old Revell 1/144ish KC-135 kits to try to convert…
http://forum.ipmsusa3.org/index.php?/topic/3809-rivet-ball-rc-135s-59-1491/
Thanks dhenning, that’s an interesting article.
I looked over on E-bay for one of these kits…only one is listed and is going for over $70. Way over a college kids’ price range!! I guess I’ll have to wait for another to pop up to bid on while waiting for Minicraft to create a kit…
OWL
Are you still interested in the RC-135C ?? I have a couple of c-135 models still in the box. By the way the “C” model had a regular radome so no “mickey Mouse” nose.