A recent post by Dick Stafford of The Original Rocket Dungeon put me onto a kit created by Steve Neill of Hostile Projects.

Steve is a Born-Again Rocketeer who has spent 30 years creating special effects for the movie industry (he created the ears for Spock in Star Trek the Motion Picture!). He returned to rocketry in 2009.

After reading through his site and seeing the work that he had done, I figure that these kits were going to be something special. I checked my bank balance & sent Steve an email - how much to ship a kit to Australia?

I processed a paypal payment straight after I got his response :)

The V23 kit - his first on offer - turned up about 10 days later. I wasn't disappointed! This is a great looking kit. I've snapped a few photos straight out of the box:

(click to view on Flickr)

   
(click to view on Flickr)

Both the nose cone and boat tail are cast resin and he's gone to the trouble of adding extra detail rarely seen in kits, instructions come on a CD with lots of photographs and a couple of sheets of paper with the fin patterns. The motor mount (as seen in the photo above) is pre-assembled! There's even a vacuum-formed canopy.

(Click to view on Flickr)

I'm looking forward to making a start on this kit :)

Steve has more rockets on the way, including a V-2 and X-15 Delta Winged Variant - both of which I have my name down for. Go check out Hostile Projects & check back here in the next few weeks as I will post photos of the build.