Stratosphere Models 1-48th scale HIMAT kit is back !

[Stratospheremodels]

Good news for all fans or RPVs and UAVs : The high tech prototype for the next generation of high maneuverability fighters from the 1970's, the Rockwell International HIMAT 1-48th scale kit is back !

For the first time since 1996 it is now available as a polyurethane resin pressure cast kit ! (it was previously available as non-pressure cast, polyester castings, and had been retired for a short time since 2013 when the polyester castings sold out).

Here is a photo of the new polyurethane castings (i have cast 2 more sets which are now available):

And a photo of the wings and fins molds :

Not bad for an 18 year old mold, eh ?

And those molds was not even designed for pressure casting (!) (i did not have such equipment back in 1996). So why does it look so good ? Back in 1996 i used to make molds by brushing on silicone layer by layer (today, since 2002, i use a much more sophisticated, proprietary method to make silicone molds devoid of any air bubbles). I guess i must have done something right , which is why the HIMAT molds are in such good shape today.

The material i was using back then, polyester, is very forgiving to silicone, you can produce hundreds of parts in an RTV mold without damage. This is one of the reasons the molds are still so nice today, and also because not many of those kits were produced. The few air bubbles you see (a by-product of brushed-on silicone) are benign and only produce tiny resin beads which i have already removed.

A few days ago i saw people expressing interest for the HIMAT, so i made a little experiment and i pressure cast the kit to see what i would get. Much to my own surprise, the wings, fins and canards came out absolutely perfect !

The only part i did not pressure cast is the fuselage because the silicone mold for that part was very soft (to facilitate demolding of the fuselage as one single piece), so i made a gravity pour instead. Good thing : it came out fine. I only had to sand the fuselage casting to remove a few slightly rough spots on the back (i've seen worse pebbly surfaces from recent injected kits).

So now, the GOOD NEWS is : the HIMAT is back and better than ever !

Now made of polyurethane resin, pressure cast, non-brittle (unlike polyester), and the wings and fins castings are way better than i could have hoped for.

The kit include both the round nozzle as well as the rectangular thrust vectoring nozzle (which was mounted on the black HIMAT at one point, though that nozzle was not flown)(The Himat was designed in a modular manner, so that other types of wings and fins and other parts could be tested, such as reverse swept wings and thrust vectoring for example).

Stephane

Stratosphere Models

Email: stratospheremodels@yahoo.fr

Website: http://www.picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

Edited May 16, 2014 by Stratospheremodels

[Stratospheremodels]

Stratosphere Models

Email: stratospheremodels@yahoo.fr

Website: http://www.picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

Edited May 20, 2014 by Stratospheremodels

[Rob de Bie]

Congratulations, that model looks great!! I've got the 1/72 scale Muroc Models kit, and I really should start building it.

I also learned something new: I didn't know silicone moulds last so much longer with polyester resin. But I guess you got tired of the smell ..

Rob

[Jennings]

Does the HiMAT come with decals??

[Stratospheremodels]

Congratulations, that model looks great!! I've got the 1/72 scale Muroc Models kit, and I really should start building it.

I also learned something new: I didn't know silicone moulds last so much longer with polyester resin. But I guess you got tired of the smell ..

Rob

That's the barebone basics you learn at the very beginning (longevity of molds when using such or such material, etc). I did not have so much problem with the smell (you have to work with a mask) but with the toxicity during degassing. The resin i was using during the last years of my polyester period was pretty much incredible in the sense that i did not even need to pressure cast it (!), it gave near perfect castings with only 1 or 2 tiny bubbles. It also left practically zero residue in the mold cavities, versus more ordinary polyester resins which WILL leave a lot of residue in the molds which have to be cleaned up each time with solvent. If you know what you are doing when casting polyester resin you can make castings that rival polyurethane in terms of detail and quality, but the downside is brittleness (though there are solutions to fix that and obtain pretty spectacular impact resistance, which is something that i have tested in the past, but that is another story). My previous "magical" polyester resin was a special product that is no longer available (the company making it changed the product and then changed hands shortly after). Thus my transition to polyurethane, along with the fact that i wanted to make more complex parts more easily. Polyurethane have its own advantages and shortcomings, like all materials, but for my own applications and due to the unavailability of my previous material, i found more advantages to polyurethane than cons.

By the way, the kit shown in the pics above was made from polyester castings.

Edited May 21, 2014 by Stratospheremodels

[Stratospheremodels]

Does the HiMAT come with decals??

Hi Jennings,

it does not have decals because i modeled it as the black version (which does not have any external markings. I used a photo of that black Himat for the boxart of the kit as well.

Stephane.

Website: http://www.picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

Edited May 21, 2014 by Stratospheremodels

[Rob de Bie]

it does not have decals because i modeled it as the black version (which does not have any external markings. I used a photo of that black Himat for the boxart of the kit as well.

As far as I know, the black one was HiMAT #2, and it had a modified wing leading edge. It had a lot more 'droop', and subsequently the wing contour did not match the wing root fairing on the fuselage. It's a bit difficult to describe in words, so check your photos. Your model represents HiMAT #1 in that respect.

Rob

[Stratospheremodels]

I want one !! :D (it looks cute ! (Even though it`s a disappearing prehistoric specie).

Edited May 22, 2014 by Stratospheremodels

[Stratospheremodels]

The 2nd Himat also had a white, black and red paint scheme at one point and without thrust vectoring nozzle and with the slight notch. You can't make things to please all rivet counters every time like including two different sets of wings in each kit, think in terms of what would happen if Revellogram or Trumpeteer had to put all the various wing versions or fuselage versions for the F-4B, F4-C, F4D and F4E in the same box..

All you have to do here is use a bit of sandpaper and file and 3 to 5 minutes later you`ve got your very slightly different wing leading edge version. With the added bonus that clients can also build it and paint it as aircraft No.1 if they want to, without changing that tiny detail, most markings on the aircraft (national markings, Nasa worm logos) being easy to find as aftermarket decals or from the spare decals box.

Email: stratospheremodels@yahoo.fr

Website: http://www.picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

Edited May 22, 2014 by Stratospheremodels

[MoFo]

Wait... what?

You can't please all rivet counters by covering all the different versions, so instead you just made it wrong for the version you meant to depict? That's not a matter of expecting every subtle detail nuance to be covered with a multitude of spare parts; it's like tossing a bunch of Navy decals in your F-4E kit, then getting all indignant when modellers aren't willing to use a bit of elbow grease to 'adjust' the nose.

[Stratospheremodels]

Wait... what?

You can't please all rivet counters by covering all the different versions, so instead you just made it wrong for the version you meant to depict? That's not a matter of expecting every subtle detail nuance to be covered with a multitude of spare parts; it's like tossing a bunch of Navy decals in your F-4E kit, then getting all indignant when modellers aren't willing to use a bit of elbow grease to 'adjust' the nose.

You can't compare the differences of nose of an F-4E and B model with the tiny difference at the wing root of the Himat, it's almost like trying to compare a watermelon to a strawberry. Most people who are not very familiar with the Himat can't even see the very slight modification that was done on the 2nd bird and probably do not care either (never heard a peep from the aerospace engineers who buy my kits since 1994 on a regular basis and who work on such projects themselves, in fact they are quite happy someone even bothered to make a kit of such subjects, and they keep pushing me to design more. I used to receive piles and piles of documents they would send me to ask me to make such or such project, sometimes i would, other times i wish i could (can't make everything i wish i could even if i wanted to) other times had to choose between X number of variants for very obscure (unflown) projects, trying to figure out which variant would attract people while still pleasing the few specialists who collect these sort of airplanes and who personally ask me to make such projects. Most stuff like the Himat (and that was flown !) are such a tiny specialized fraction of the general Aviation section of the modeling hobby, like i said, can't do everything i wish i could, budget and so on gets in the way when your target audience is just a handful of people who collect the most exotic test prototypes. It`s no F-4 market you know ;). In fact many people who know the Himat are not even aware the Himat also had a thrust vectoring mock-up nozzle installed on it at one point. In any case, find me one kit in the history of modeling which is 100% like the original aircraft it is said to represent or that have parts to cover all versions in the same box.

(Indignant ? Me.... ???) :blink: No, things that make me indignant are politics, wars that cause tens of thousands of civilians to die, or children working in Dickensian conditions in factories, and the state of our environment. Not scale models or rivets).

Edited May 22, 2014 by Stratospheremodels

[Check Six]

So you're admitting MoFo is correct, then ?

However great or small the detail differences are, it's still incorrect detail on the version you depict.

That's what I'm getting from your post.

[pookie]

There is no info on your website about this kit. No price or how to order it.

[Stratospheremodels]

There is no info on your website about this kit. No price or how to order it.

Hi, as usual you have to email me to order kits. I haven't had time to update my website yet (all the previous pics i had put on my website about the Himat had been taken down last year). I will be working on updating it maybe tonight.

A note to rivet counters though, if you want to get VERY happy, get my new USAF X-37 spaceplane kit, that one DOES have every single rivet on it (i know because i counted them ! (yes, me too i also suffer from rivet counting, but i am in temporary remission at the moment, though it won't last long).

Stephane

Website: http://www.picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

Email: stratospheremodels@yahoo.fr

Edited May 23, 2014 by Stratospheremodels

[Stratospheremodels]

Take note that those interested by the HIMAT kit should order early, i have made only a very limited quantity of those new poyurethane castings and those older molds will not resist for as long as they once did with polyester castings, since polyurethane is MUCH more aggressive toward silicone, especially against silicone that (though still looking good) was not designed from the start to be used with pressure cast polyurethane. The fuselage mold for example won't last for long since i cannot spray demolder inside (since it is basically a 1 piece tube) and it is very soft, like gum.

So once these are gone and the molds get used up, i may not make new mold sets to replace them because of the low demand for such subjects.

Please see my email below for orders.

Stephane

Stratosphere Models

Website: http://www.picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

Email: stratospheremodels@yahoo.fr

Edited May 24, 2014 by Stratospheremodels

[Dodd]

OOOOH! a 1/48 scale HiMat model!? 

AND the sculptor to voice concerns with!?

Amazing!

Hi. I first saw HiMat in 1985 at Oshkosh AirVenture. My father was building a rutan VariEze at the time, so this stuck with me.

I asked NASA for an information release and a few weeks later, all manner of information come through, including big glossy photos.

 

I've honestly spent many more hours working on real aircraft than models, but I'm now older than my father was back then, so maybe it's time.

 

Thank you SO MUCH for sculpting this cute little model.
It's too bad that it's a single piece, but that means I get to engineer all the modular bits.

 

About the "droopy" wings; That was an experiment in aeroelastic compounds, where the airfoil would self-optimize based on speed. Very cool stuff.

Okay.....How do I get my hands on one of these? 

[Dodd]

Aha. One more note. There were several thrust vectoring nozzles for HiMat; a 2d rear one, several 3d rear ones, and here's the fancy one...
Rolls Royce made a RETRACTABLE front pair of Pegasus style ducts for the front....built to scale. That's bordering on sci fi. I have a PDF of the flyer for that somewhere.

[Rob de Bie]

Mr Stratospheremodels may have left the stage in the mean time, I remember he offered some of his molds for sale.

 

As an alternative: Muroc Models produces a HiMat in 1/72 scale. It's a sweet little kit, here are two photos I made of my example.

 

 

 

http://www.edwardsflighttest.com/price_list.pdf

 

Rob

[Dodd]

as it happens, i JUST messaged Muroc models on Facebook not 2 minutes ago.

oh wow. in your pictures, even the winglets have tiny little trim tabs. That's slick. I wonder if i can grab one of the desktop sized models off of NASA.

Wait...sellling the MOLDS!? hmmmmm...... plotting begins.