# Fantastic Plastic Atomic-Powered bomber



## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

This is a cool 1/144 resin kit put out recently by Allan Ury's Fantastic Plastic company. It represents a bomber powered by an atomic reactor, as envisioned in a Life Magazine article in 1955.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

The kit features a solid clear resin canopy that fits into a recess in the fuselage. But no pilots!! I took advantage of the solid canopy, and _drilled out_ two pilots using two different sized drill bits. It wasn't easy to paint the _inside _of a hole, and yeah, it shows. I also made the SAC banner decal myself. Just didn't seem right having a nuclear bomber without a SAC banner!


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## The-Nightsky (May 10, 2005)

Great Job John!!!! I have been wondering what that would look like built up.You did it justice man!!!How long is it???I just might have to get one


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## NUM11BLADE (Feb 16, 2002)

Wow, that is wicked looking. 
The pilots look great,neat idea.:thumbsup: :thumbsup:


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## Steve244 (Jul 22, 2001)

Very nice. (what were we thinking back in the 50's?!!)


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Steve244 said:


> Very nice. (what were we thinking back in the 50's?!!)


 _*POWERRRRRR!!!*_


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## buddho (Jul 31, 2005)

Excellent job, John...love the BMF!


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

The offical InPayne website pages:
http://www.inpayne.com/models/atomicbomber1.html


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## kaos (Apr 5, 2003)

awesome looking build :thumbsup: what paint/colors did you use? knowing your style i half expected bare metal foil


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Simple paint job, really. Out-of-the-bottle Testors ModelMaster metalizers. base coat of flat white; Steel overall; lighter panels aluminum; darker panels burnt metal; a few of the small medium-shaded panels are steel hand-brushed, which came out darker than the airbrushed steel.

The thing with MM metalizers is, any kind of tape will rip the powdered metal off the model and leave a big ugly tape scar. So I masked with Post-Its. It worked!

Overcoat with Future, then airbrush the flat black bits. Then decal, and another coat of Future to seal the decals (carefully avoiding hitting the flat black.

The stand is MM Antracite Gray metalic.


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## Dave Hussey (Nov 20, 1998)

John - that is absolutely lovely and beautiful work! Man, do you ever do a _bad _job on anything like us mere mortals? 

Thanks for the "how to" as well. I have a project sitting home in a box that you've inspired me to dig out and finish!

Huzz


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## Y3a (Jan 18, 2001)

OK, What type of landing gear did they plan to use with it? 

Being a delta wing the gear must be insane! 

How did the "Atomic Motors" work? 

That plane looks like a bear to fly!


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Dave Hussey said:


> John - that is absolutely lovely and beautiful work! Man, do you ever do a _bad _job on anything like us mere mortals?


 Of course, I just don't _show _you!


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Y3a said:


> OK, What type of landing gear did they plan to use with it?
> 
> Being a delta wing the gear must be insane!
> 
> ...


 Well, the gear doors on the kit look fairly normal, but they could be just guesswork. As for the rest, beats me!


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## Brent Gair (Jun 26, 1999)

Y3a said:


> OK, What type of landing gear did they plan to use with it?
> 
> Being a delta wing the gear must be insane!
> 
> ...


John P did his usual spectacular job on the kit. We would expect nothing less. The Fanatastic Plastic kit is a faithful recreation of the plane from LIFE magazine. But I think the artist back then didn't understand some basic aero dynamics. Specifically, the placement of the horizontal tail over the delta is pretty ridiculous. It would be a bear to fly because it would have almost no pitch control.

Atomic "jet" engines are really a neat thing and would have been amazingly efficient...if it wasn't for that little problem of atomic reactors flying overhead. I researched atomic jets a few years ago and the idea is really quite simple.

All jets work on the same basic principle of compressing air, combusting the air/fuel mixture and then exhausting it. In the most common form of jet...the turbojet...a compressor sucks in the air, it goes into the combustion section and then it enters the turbine section (which extracts energy to run the compressor) before being exhausted.

So a turboject can be broken into three subsections: 1) COMPRESSOR, 2) COMBUSTION SECTION, 3)TURBINE.

The most common form of atomic propulsion (there are a few variants), the combustion section is replaced by a nuclear reactor. So the atomic jet has these three subsections: 1) COMPRESSOR, 2) REACTOR, 3) TURBINE.

In the atomic engine, the air enters the compressor as normal. The compressed air then enters the reactor. In the reactor, the air is superheated which causes it to expand. This superheating accomplishes the same thing as buring an air fuel mixture. The reason a conventional jet burns the fuel mixture, is to cause the mixture to expand in order to derive energy. But the reactor can cause the air to expand without adding fuel. Essentially, the heat of the nuclear energy does the work by expanding the air rather than a fossil fuel. The superheated air then exits through a the turbine which extracts a portion of that energy to run the compressor. The rest of the exhaust is pure propulsion energy.

There are different types and different variations but the nuclear turbojet is the most straight forward adaptation of a reactor to flight.


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## Dave Hussey (Nov 20, 1998)

Ah!

I was wondering how the heck nuclear power could be used to make a jet fly. Its actually a very elegant solution in theory if you didn't have the concern of contaminating the intake air as it passes over a leaky reactor or, what happens if the thing crashes?

Huzz


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## Brent Gair (Jun 26, 1999)

When they were doing research with the airborne reactor in the NB-36 many years ago, they flew along a retricted corridor and actually had one or two chase planes with clean up crews (just in case). So, while the nuclear poweplant was efficient, the logistics certainly weren't!

When using a reactor in a manned vehicle, the reactor heat is derived from the "secondary" cooling loop. Ships, submarines, even powerplants use the secondary loop. The "primary" loop is that part of the cooling system which passes through the core of the reactor and it in contact with the nuclear material. The cooling medium in the primary loop becomes radioactive. But that heat energy from the primary loop can pass through a heat exchanger into the secondary loop where the resulting product is not radioactive.

That's why you can run steam through a ships turbine or nuclear powerplant without the gear becoming radioactive. The steam comes from the secondary loop.

In an aircraft, the same idea applied. The air would pass through a heat exchanger and not through the actual core of the reactor.

However, there was an old cold war plan called Project Pluto which envisioned a nuclear armed cruise missile that would fly into the Soviet Union with an "open core" nuclear ram jet. In that case, the air passed DIRECTLY through the reactor core and out the engine. There was no secondary loop. The exhaust would have been deadly radioactive.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Brent Gair said:


> However, there was an old cold war plan called Project Pluto which envisioned a nuclear armed cruise missile that would fly into the Soviet Union with an "open core" nuclear ram jet. In that case, the air passed DIRECTLY through the reactor core and out the engine. There was no secondary loop. The exhaust would have been deadly radioactive.


 Hence the name!

A mobile chernobyl.


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## spe130 (Apr 13, 2004)

Weren't the Soviet subs single-loop systems?


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## Brent Gair (Jun 26, 1999)

spe130 said:


> Weren't the Soviet subs single-loop systems?


Ah...EXTREMELY astute observation! 

There are certain materials which will not become radioactive even when in direct contact with radioactive material. I don't understand the science behind that phenomenon but it is a fact.

Among these materials are lead and bismuth. Most Russian subs had liquid metal cooled reactors and it is believed that SOME Russian subs had lead-bismuth cooled reactors.

The mechanics of power generation in the Russian boats is also above my head so I wouldn't try to guess at how it works but I have definitely read about direct power generation from their lead-bismuth reactors.


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## spe130 (Apr 13, 2004)

I just remember hearing about radioactive coolant water problems on Russian boats, and that there was a possibility of the water coming in contact with the core. Other than that, I'm not much of a nuclear physicist.


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## Dave Hussey (Nov 20, 1998)

Russian cooling problems are what occurred in the K-19 incident. Rent the movie to see.

A single-loop system would provide more efficient heat transfer than a double loop system. That would result in the ability to deliver more mechanical power to the drive gear. 

Ingenious!

But how would you run those materials through a turbine?

Huzz


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## StarshipClass (Aug 13, 2003)

Beautiful job! At scale distance, the crew "figures" are perfect!


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## CaptFrank (Jan 29, 2005)

> *Dave Hussey* wrote:
> Russian cooling problems are what occurred in the K-19 incident. Rent the movie to see.


Watch it with a grain of salt, (or a skeptical demeanor), 
because Hollywood is not History.
Their goal is to sell tickets, not be 100% accurate to 
historical events.
The movie is a drama trying to entertain you.


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## CaptFrank (Jan 29, 2005)

Oh, yeah!

Great model, John!

I like the extra-long fuselage. Is that an attempt to get 
the flight crew as far from the nuclear reactor as possible?


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Yup, that's exactly what it says in the kit.


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## spe130 (Apr 13, 2004)

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/k19/#

National Geographic made the K-19 movie. I'm going to guess that they're going to try for a bit more accuracy than, say, Ron Howard.


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

Love the classic Aurora-style stand. Does it come with the kit?


John P said:


> I took advantage of the solid canopy, and _drilled out_ two pilots using two different sized drill bits. It wasn't easy to paint the _inside _of a hole, and yeah, it shows.


Most of us wouldn't even have the guts to try. Looks pretty good from a few inches away!


Steve244 said:


> Very nice. (what were we thinking back in the 50's?!!)


For one thing, the very real possibility of nuclear combat toe-to-toe with the Rooskies. As for the idea of an atomic-powered plane, does anyone remember when Your Friend the Atom was going to give us electricity too cheap to meter? Ford even proposed the Nucleon, an atomic-powered _car_!
[IMG-LEFT]http://pboursin.club.fr/gifmcar/nucleon2.jpg[/IMG-LEFT]


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## spe130 (Apr 13, 2004)

Wouldn't that be fun in a 20-car pileup on I-44?


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## NUM11BLADE (Feb 16, 2002)

I wonder what the insurance on a nuclear car would be?


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## StarshipClass (Aug 13, 2003)

NUM11BLADE said:


> I wonder what the insurance on a nuclear car would be?


^^I'm not sure but the policy would have a half-life of at least 10,000 years :freak:


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

scotpens said:


> Love the classic Aurora-style stand. Does it come with the kit?


 Yup! I made my own label decal, though. Alan's looks just like that (almost) but was printed _very _low-res.


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## Steve244 (Jul 22, 2001)

scotpens said:


> Love the classic Aurora-style stand. Does it come with the kit?Most of us wouldn't even have the guts to try. Looks pretty good from a few inches away!
> For one thing, the very real possibility of nuclear combat toe-to-toe with the Rooskies. As for the idea of an atomic-powered plane, does anyone remember when Your Friend the Atom was going to give us electricity too cheap to meter? Ford even proposed the Nucleon, an atomic-powered _car_!
> [IMG-LEFT]http://pboursin.club.fr/gifmcar/nucleon2.jpg[/IMG-LEFT]


Googling "nucleon" eventually brought me to James R Powers, the designer of the Nucleon. Another of his designs:


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

^Love the guy with the space helmet and the ciggy.


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## Steve244 (Jul 22, 2001)

And the fetching caped crusader boots!

Powers is still designing. Seems his current activity is bolt-on T-bird customization.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

^I see an embryonic Batmobile in that!


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

John P said:


> ^Love the guy with the space helmet and the ciggy.


And those fashionable Bermuda shorts (at first glance, I thought he was wearing a dress)! And is that a PURSE he's holding?

Not that there's anything wrong with that. . . :tongue:


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## Steve244 (Jul 22, 2001)

scotpens said:


> And those fashionable Bermuda shorts (at first glance, I thought he was wearing a dress)! And is that a PURSE he's holding?
> 
> Not that there's anything wrong with that. . . :tongue:


His casual stance, the boy-scoutish fashion statement. Do you think he's the pilot? That might explain what he's doing driving out on the launch apron, don't think even that was allowed to the general public in '58. Could the woman be a stewardess?


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

She looks more like the Dragon Lady to me. And if he's the pilot, why is he posing like a faygeleh?


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## CaptFrank (Jan 29, 2005)

> if he's the pilot, why is he posing like a faygeleh?


It's a low-gravity planet, and he's trying not to float away?


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